unacquainted with the English; and in the older and most important
period of the English theatre I could discover no trace of any
knowledge of Spanish plays (though their novels and romances were
certainly known), and it was not till the time of Charles II. that
translations from Calderon first made their appearance.

So many things among men have been handed down from century to century
and from nation to nation, and the human mind is in general so slow to
invent, that originality in any department of mental exertion is
everywhere a rare phenomenon. We are desirous of seeing the result of
the efforts of inventive geniuses when, regardless of what in the same
line has elsewhere been carried to a high degree of perfection, they
set to work in good earnest to invent altogether for themselves; when
they lay the foundation of the new edifice on uncovered ground, and
draw all the preparations, all the building materials, from their own
resources. We participate, in some measure, in the joy of success,
when we see them advance rapidly from their first helplessness and
need to a finished mastery in their art. The history of the Grecian
theatre would afford us this cheering prospect could we witness its
rudest beginnings, which were not preserved, for they were not even
committed to writing; but it is easy, when we compare Æschylus and
Sophocles, to form some idea of the preceding period. The Greeks
neither inherited nor borrowed their dramatic art from any other
people; it was original and native, and for that very reason was it
able to produce a living and powerful effect. But it ended with the
period when Greeks imitated Greeks; namely, when the Alexandrian poets
began learnedly and critically to compose dramas after the model of
the great tragic writers. The reverse of this was the case with the
Romans; they received the form and substance of their dramas from the
Greeks; they never attempted to act according to their own discretion,