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As an enquiry into the nature and powers of the several SECT. musical instruments which sustained and swelled the chorus of the early Italian tragedies, does not properly fall within my plan, I shall refer the reader for information on that subject, to the elaborate works of Padre Martini, Sir J. Hawkins, and Doctor Burney. I shall, however, embrace this opportunity to observe that, of the instruments which prevailed upon the Italian stage at the rise of Italian tragedy, a copious enumeration is given in the Descrizione degl' intermedii rappresentati nelle nozze di don Francesco de' Medici, ed la regina Giovanna d'Austria, subjoined to la Cofanaria di F. d' Ambra, printed in Florence, 1593, by F. Giunti; and in the farsa, or masque, by Sannazaro, which was represented in Naples before Alfonso, duke of Calabria, in 1492, mention is made of the musical instruments employed on that occasion. Amongst the instruments enumerated in Sannazaro's little drama, we find the cornamusa and ribeca both of which have ceased, long since, to be theatrical instruments the former, however, is still a favourite with the Calabrese, and though the latter has fallen into total disuse, its name is yet remembered in Naples, and applied, in derision, to the violin in the hands of a bad performer. Delineations of the ribeca, and several other musical instruments which prevailed in Italy so early as the year 1524, are exhibited in the frontispiece to the Tempio d' Amore

of

SECT. of Galeotto del Carretto, noticed in a former part of this

I.

work.

Jusqu

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Returning from this digression, I shall close this section with a few general observations on the tragic dramas of the period which we have been considering. "Est-il arrivé," says the author of L'Historie du theatre Italien, que les tragedies composées, depuis 1500 quesqu'en 1600, ou environ, ont été trouvées en Italie trop cruelles, et n'ont pas fait plaisir; enfin l'horrible poussé à l'excès dégoûta les Italiens d'un tel spectacle. Les poëtes ne furent point contens de faire que les fils tuassent leurs meres, ou les peres leurs enfans, que l'on fit apporter sur la scene des urnes où étoient les membres des enfans massacrés que l'on tiroit de l'urne, piece à piece, pour les faire voir aux spectateurs."(e) The reader will perceive that this observation, though seemingly intended to be general, points obliquely at the Orbecche and Acripanda. Here I will take occasion to remark, that it was rather from the

(e) Tom. i. p. 37. In tracing the various revolutions which have occurred, in different countries, in the public taste, our surprize is powerfully excited on observing, that the same nation, which, in the sixteenth century, not only tolerated but probably admired the spectacles so justly reprobated by the historian of the Italian stage, should, in the year 1728, refuse a patient hearing to the Catone in Utica of Metastasio, merely because the hero appears, wounded, in the last act. Yet the fact is indisputable. Dr. Burney has preserved the pasquinade which was published on the occasion. Mem. of Metast. vol. iii. p. 381. And in the edition of Metastasio's works printed at Paris, 1773, we find the last scene of the Catone altered," a riguardo "says the editor," del genio delicato del moderno teatro."

Roman

Roman than the Greek theatre, that the Italians learned to SECT. Il heighten the horrors of their tragic scenes with reeking spectacles. Murder on the Greek stage was generally committed behind the scenes, sometimes in the hearing, but rarely, I believe, in the presence of the spectators;(ƒ) nor was it usually followed by, or attended with, any shocking circumstances: but in the tragedies of Seneca, the audience are supposed to behold Hercules tearing his children in pieces, Medea imbruing her hands in the blood of her son, and Theseus collecting the scattered members of Hippolytus. If however, we should attempt to trace out the causes which led the Italian tragic writers to select fables in which horror predominates, we must not seek them either in the national religion, or in the national character. The Italians of the sixteenth century did not, like the ancient Greeks and Romans, worship gods whose attributes were rage, revenge and lust, they adored an all-perfect and all-merciful Being; nor can we discover any thing cruel or ferocious in the cha

(f) The Greek stage was not, however, always exempt from bloody spectacles. Agave bearing the head of her son Pentheus, must be present to the mind of every reader of Euripides. But the poet seems to offer an excuse for this violation of the common usage of his stage, by making the unhappy mother, in a fit of bacchanalian frenzy, mistake the head of her son for that of a lion.-What an admirable lesson for the votaries of Bacchus!

Lord Roscommon, in a note on his translation of Horace's Art of Poetry, endeavours to prove that the Greek tragic writers seldom defiled their stage with blood; but he makes no attempt at defending, or accounting for, their choice of subjects. This remained to be done by Mr. Preston, in his learned and ingenious reflections on the choice of subjects for tragedy among the Greek writers. Trans. of the Roy. Irish Acad. vol. vi.

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SECT. racter of the nation, except where the spirit of democracy prevailed. In fact, the Italian dramatists of this period, wrote without any regard to the national character. Enthusiastic admirers of the ancients, they followed them implicitly; (g) and the public taste gradually formed itself to endure, if not to relish, their scenes of complicated horrors.

(g) So strong was the national prejudice in favor of the writings of the ancients in the time of Ariosto, that he was apprehensive his comedy of Cassaria would have been damned as an criginal work.

Senza ascoltarne mezzo o fine,

and therefore he endeavours, in the prologue, to prevail on the audience to hear before they decide. It will, perhaps, heighten the pleafure which every traveller of taste must feel in vifiting the house of Ariosto in Ferrara, to be told, that it was in the apartment at present (1797) adorned with the bust of the poet, that the Cassaria, and all his other comedies were originally recited by the author and his brothers. Of this house, a section and elevation are given in Zatta's elegant edition of the Orl. Fur. Ven. 1772. It stands in the Strada di S. Maria di Bocche, and is now the property of the Pellegrina family.

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THE fecundity of the tragic muse is not more remarkable in SECT.

the
age which we are quitting, than in that on which we are
now about to enter. But this is not to be wondered at; for still
the poets of Italy continued to drink deep at "the well-head
of pure poesy,"-perhaps, as we have just insinuated, too
deeply. Instead of exercising their own reason, (says Gib-
bon, speaking of this period), the Italians acquiesced in that
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of

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