principal representations attributed human actions to birds and beasts—people who could laugh at stories of this kind, could also at depictions of them. It may be maintained that men were then highly emotional, and demanded but little complexity or truth in humour, so that they could see something amusing in a boar playing upon the bagpipes, or in such a device as a monster composed of two birds, with the head of a lion, or another with a human head on a lion's body! But there must have been something more than this-some peculiar estimation of animals to account for such numerous representations. They were common in the secular ornamentation of the day, for instance, in a MS. copy of Froissart of the fifteenth century, there is a drawing of a pig walking upon stilts, playing the harp, and wearing one of the tall head-dresses then in fashion.

This love of the comic seems to have been fostered by the leisure and the lively turn of some ecclesiastics. In the injunctions given to the British Church in the year 680, no bishop is to allow tricks or jocosities (ludos vel jocos) to be exhibited before him, and later we read of two monks, near Oxford, receiving a man. hospitably, thinking he was a "jougleur," and could perform tricks, but kicking him out on finding themselves mistaken. We find some

Caricatures of the Devil.

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of the monks amusing themselves with "cloister humour," consisting principally of logical paradoxes; while others indulged in verbal curiosities, such as those of Tryphiodorus, the lipogrammatist, who wrote an Odyssey in twenty-four books without once using the letter A. Some were more fond of pictorial designs, and carved great figures on the chalk downs, such as the Giant of Cerne Abbas, in Dorsetshire, and the Long Man of Wilmington, in Sussex.

As we found reason to believe that the earliest kind of laughter was that of pleasure, so in this revival of civilization, we often see humour regarded as having no influence beyond that of ministering to amusement. The mind was scarcely equal to regarding things in more than one light. A jest was often viewed as entirely unimportant, its levity and depreciatory character being altogether overlooked. To this and to the hostile element then very prominent, we may attribute the caricatures of the devil, formerly so common. Before the tenth century, the devil was thought too dreadful to be portrayed, but afterwards, as the Church made a liberal exhibition of the torments of hell, the idea occurred of deterring offenders by representing evil spirits in as frightful a form as possible. Some think that such figures were suggested by the

VOL. I.

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Roman satyrs, but they may have come from Jewish or Runic sources. There is a mediæval story of a monk having carved an image of the devil so much more repulsive than he really was, that the sable gentleman called upon him one night to expostulate. The monk, however, was inexorable. But the story says further that, although the holy man was proof against the entreaties of the devil, he was not so well armed against the fascinations of the fair, and owing to his suffering a defeat at the hands of the latter came afterwards to be shut up in prison. The original of his portrait again called upon him, and the monk agreed that, if he would obtain his release, he would represent him as a handsome fellow.

As times advanced, people began to fear the devil less, and to be amused at these strange carvings. From regarding them as ludicrous, it was only a step to make humorous caricatures. -and there could be little harm in ridiculing the Devil. Thus we frequently find imps and demons brought in to perform the comic parts in the Church mysteries. It was a short advance from the ludicrous to the humorous, and thus we find the devil a merry fellow, playing all kinds of practical jokes on mankind. Such representations would now appear rather ludicrous than humorous, and are seldom seen, except to amuse children on Valentine's Day.

CHAPTER III.

Origin of Modern Comedy-Ecclesiastical BuffooneryJougleurs and Minstrels-Court Fools-Monks' StoriesThe "Tournament of Tottenham"-Chaucer-Heywood -Roister Doister-Gammer Gurton.

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S the early drama of Greece arose from the celebration of religious rites, so that of modern times originated in the church. This does not seem so strange when we remember that religion is in connection with abstract thought, and with an exercise of the representative powers of the mind. And if we ask how comedy could have been thus introduced, the reply must be that the ideal of former ages was very different from our own. In the days when the mind. was dull and inactive, striking illustrations were very necessary to awaken interest in moral and spiritual teaching. They changed in accordance with the progress of the times and country -sometimes the medium was fables or other such impossible fictions, sometimes it was

similitudes from nature, as parables, and sometimes dramatic performances. Whatever drama the Jews had was of a religious character. It is supposed by some that the words "When your children shall say unto you, 'What mean ye by this service,' refers to some commemorative representation. However this may be, we know that about the year 100 B.C., Ezekiel, an Alexandrian Jew, wrote a play in Greek on the Exodus, which somewhat resembled a

mystery." Luther thought that the books of Judith and Tobit were originally in a dramatic form; and, even among the Jews, a comic element was sometimes introduced-as in the ancient Ahasuerus' play at the feast of Purim— with a view of attracting attention at a time when people had little reflection, and were not very particular about the intermingling of utterly incongruous feelings, whether religion and. cruelty, or religion and humour.

We have traced the gradual decline of the drama in Rome, until it consisted but of buffooneries and mimes; and so its revival in modern times commenced with performances in dumb show, the low intellectual character of the age being reflected in popular exhibitions. The mimi were people who performed barefooted, clothed in skins of animals, with shaven heads, and faces smeared with soot. The