stage, the careless spectator dispirits, the attentive renders more diligent: so slight, so small a matter it is, which overturns or raises a mind covetous of praise! Adieu the ludicrous business [of dramatic writing], if applause denied brings me back meager, bestowed [makes me] full of flesh and spirits.
This too frequently drives away and deters even an adventurous poet? that they who are in number more, in worth and rank inferior, unlearned and foolish, and (if the equestrian order dissents) ready to fall to blows, in the midst of the play, call for either a bear or boxers; for in these the mob delight. Nay, even all the pleasures of our knights is now transferred from the ear to the uncertain eye, and their vain amusements. The curtains[1] are kept down for four hours or more, while troops of horse and companies of foot flee over the stage: next is dragged forward the fortune of kings, with their hands bound behind them; chariots, litters, carriages, ships[2] hurry on; captive ivory, captive Corinth, is borne along. Democritus, if he were on earth, would laugh; whether a panther a different
- ↑ Aulæa. The curtain, in the ancient theater, when the play began, or, upon extraordinary occasions, between the acts, was let down and placed under the stage. Thus they said “tollere aulæa” when the play was done, and “premero aulæa” when it began and the actors appeared. We say just the contrary. Fran.
- ↑ Ships either in picture, says the old commentator, or drawn along the Tiber, which was not far from Pompey’s theater. Dacier thinks, there were subterranean conduits, which poured forth such a sea of water, that a naval combat might be represented on it. Indeed, if we believe the prodigious accounts given by historians of the magnificence and expense of the Roman shows, public entertainments, and triumphs, nothing of this kind can appear incredible to us. However, as the towns in this procession were built of ivory, we may believe the ships were pictures Fran
