of the scene, had, both before the brink which adjoined the orchestra, and behind, a wall possessing no scenical decorations, but entirely simple, or at most architecturally ornamented, which was elevated to an equal height with the uppermost steps for the audience.

The decoration was contrived in such a manner, that the principal object in front covered the background, and the prospects of distance were given at two sides, the very reverse of the mode adopted by us. This had also its rules: on the left appeared the town to which the palace, temple, or whatever occupied the middle, belonged; on the right the open country, landscape, mountains, seashore, etc. The lateral decorations were composed of triangles, which turned on an axis fastened underneath; and in this manner the change of scene was effected. In the hindmost decoration it is probable that many things were exhibited in a bodily form which are only painted with us. When a palace or temple was represented, there appeared in the proscenium an altar, which answered a number of purposes in the performance of the pieces.

The decoration was for the most part architectural, but it was also not unfrequently a painted landscape, as in Prometheus, where it represented Caucasus; or in Philoctetus, where the desert island of Lemnos, with its rocks and his cave, were exhibited. It is clear, from a passage of Plato, that the Greeks, in the deceptions of theatrical perspective, carried things much further than we might have inferred from some wretched landscapes discovered in Herculaneum.

In the back wall of this scene there was a large main entrance, and two side entrances. It has been maintained that from them it might be discovered whether an actor played a principal or under part, as in the first case he came in at the main entrance, and in the second, at the side doors. But this should be understood with the distinction, that it must have been regulated according to the nature of the piece. As the hindmost decoration was generally a palace, in which the principal characters of royal descent resided, they naturally came through the great door, while the servants resided in the wings. There were two other entrances; the one at the end of the logeum, from whence the inhabitants of the town came; the other underneath in the orchestra, which was the side for those who had to come from a distance: they ascended a staircase of the logeum

opposite to the orchestra, which could be applied to all sorts of purposes, according to circumstances. The entrance, therefore, with respect to the lateral decorations, declared the place from whence the players were supposed to come; and it might naturally happen, that the principal characters were in a situation to avail themselves with propriety of the two last-mentioned entrances. The situation of these entrances serves to explain many passages in the ancient dramas, where the persons standing in the middle see some one advancing, long before he approaches them. Beneath the seats of the spectators a stair was somewhere constructed, which was called the Charonic, and through which the shadows of the departed, without being seen by the audience, ascended into the orchestra, and then, by the stair which we formerly mentioned, made their appearance on the stage. The nearest brink of the logeum sometimes represented the seashore. The Greeks were well skilled in availing themselves even of what lay beyond the decoration, and making it subservient to scenical effect. I doubt not, therefore, that in the "Eumenides" the spectators were twice addressed as an assembled people; first, by Pythia, when she calls upon the Greeks to consult the oracle; and a second time, when Pallas, by a herald, commands silence throughout the place of judgment. The frequent addresses to heaven were undoubtedly directed to a real heaven; and when Electra, on her first appearance, exclaims: "O holy light, and thou air which fillest the expanse between earth and heaven!" she probably turned towards the rising sun. The whole of this procedure is highly deserving of praise; and though modern critics have censured the mixture of reality and imitation, as destructive of theatrical illusion, this only proves that they have misunderstood the essence of the illusion which can be produced by an artificial representation. If we are to be truly deceived by a picture, that is, if we are to believe in the reality of the object which we see, we must not perceive its limits, but look at it through an opening; the frame at once declares it for a picture. In scenical decorations we are now unavoidably compelled to make use of architectural contrivances, productive of the same effect as the frames of pictures. It is consequently much better to avoid this, and to renounce the modern illusion, though it may have its advantages, for the sake of extending the view beyond the mere decoration. It was, generally speaking, a principle of the Greeks, that everything imi

tated on the stage should, if possible, consist of actual representation; and only where this could not be done were they satisfied. with a symbolical exhibition.

The machinery for the descent of the gods through the air, or the withdrawing of men from the earth, was placed aloft behind the walls of the two sides of the scene, and consequently removed from the sight of the spectators. Even in the time of Eschylus great use was made of it, as he not only brings Oceanus through the air on a griffin, but also introduces the whole choir of ocean nymphs, at least fifteen in number, in a winged chariot. There were hollow places beneath the stage, and contrivances for thunder and lightning, for the apparent fall or burning of a house, etc.

An upper story could be added to the furthermost wall of the scene, when they wished to represent a tower with a wide prospect, or anything similar. The encyclema could be thrust behind the great middle entrance, a machine of a semicircular form within, and covered above, which represented the objects contained in it as in a house. This was used for producing a great theatrical effect, as we may see from many pieces. The side door of the entrance would naturally be then open, or the curtain which covered it withdrawn.

A stage curtain, which, we clearly see from a description of Ovid, was not dropped, but drawn upwards, is mentioned both by Greek and Roman writers, and the Latin appellation, aulæum, is even borrowed from the Greeks. I suspect, however, that the curtain on the Attic stage was not in use at its commencement. In the pieces of Eschylus and Sophocles the scene is evidently empty at the opening as well as the conclusion, and therefore it did not require any contrivance for preventing the view of the spectators. However, in many of the pieces of Euripides, perhaps also in the "Edipus Tyrannus," the stage is at once filled, and represents a standing group, who could not have been first assembled under the eyes of the spectators. It must be recollected, that it was only the comparatively small proscenium, and not the logeum, which was covered by the curtain; for, from its great breadth, to have attempted to screen the logeum would have been almost impracticable, without answering any good end.

The entrances of the chorus were beneath in the orchestra, in which it generally remained, and in which also it performed its solemn dance going backwards and forwards during the choral

songs. In the front of the orchestra, opposite to the middle of the scene, there was an elevation with steps, resembling an altar, as high as the stage, which was called thymele. This was the station of the chorus when it did not sing, but merely took an interest in the action. The leader of the chorus then took his station on the top of the thymele, to see what was passing on the stage, and to communicate with the characters. For though the choral song was common to the whole, yet when it entered into the dialogue one person spoke for the rest; and hence we are to account for the shifting from "thou" to "ye" in addressing them. The thymele was situated in the very centre of the building; all the measurements were calculated from it, and the semicircle of the amphitheatre was described round that point. It was, therefore, an excellent contrivance to place the chorus, who were the ideal representatives of the spectators, in the very situation where all the radii were concentrated.

From "Lectures on Dramatic Literature.»

Black's translation.

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

(1788-1860)

CHOPENHAUER was born at Dantzic, Germany, February 22d,

1788. After a short novitiate in the office of a Hamburg merchant, where he had been placed by his father, he decided that he was unfit for business and determined to become great in literature. Studying at Göttingen and beginning his literary work with the deepest problems of philosophy, he published in 1813 his monograph "On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason," and in 1819 followed it with his most celebrated work, "The World as Will and Idea." After spending several years as a tutor at the University of Berlin, he went to Frankfort-on-the-Main, where he lived from 1831 until his death, September 21st, 1860. His shorter essays, which were published in 1851, are artistically the best which have come from any professional philosopher of Germany. Schopenhauer knows how to condense his thought to the utmost possible extent without making it obscure, and to expand as much as he pleases without making it so abstract that it ceases to be intelligible. His admirers are not generally inclined to admit that he is a humorist, but there is a latent suspicion of an undertone of humor in his deepest philosophy. His "pessimism" reduces itself to the proposition that the world as men make it "must be some kind of a mistake." At another time, he compares it to "a drop of water seen through a microscope, a single drop teeming with infusoria, or a speck of cheese full of mites invisible to the naked eye." This is pessimism, but, after all, it is much less bitter than that of Swift. Indeed, Schopenhauer's view of the world as it manifests itself through selfishness, is in no essential respect different from that presented in the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis, which account for human life and for the physical and moral conditions under which it is passed as the result of degeneracy or a "Fall" into conditions which destroy the wholly unfit and force those who are fit for survival to improve. When a world controlled by the impulses of selfish struggle is said to be either "a hell or a hospital,» the pessimism of the definition depends on the conclusion from it. Those who argue from it to negation must become hopeless and useless. But while St. Paul and St. John agree with the most extreme modern pessimists in conceding the weariness and uselessness