| Citation |
CJ-NH.773.029
18 Jun 1773:31,32,33 (296)
THE CORRESPONDENT. NO. XXVII.
. . . [6 lines Latin attributed to Horace, Art. Poet., 4
lines introduction, 68 lines of discussion on the name and
personages of Mountebank] The next famous Mountebank was one
AEschylus, who lived about sixty years after Thespis. He
is said to have carried the oratory of the cart much higher,
and to have introduced a second person into the vehicle,
whom, notwithstanding the silence of historians on that
head, I suppose to have been a tumbler or rope-dancer. [9
more lines of description] After this succeeded Sophocles,
Euripides, and others, who transplanted oratory from the
cart to the theatre, and were the founders of the antient
stage. [4 more lines ascribing the facts related in the
essay to Latin historian, Horace]
First Thespis, mounted on a cart,
Display'd to Greece, the tragic art,
Told fables to the mob he gather'd,
Till daub'd with lees, and tarr'd & feather'd;
Then AEschylus, the following age,
Rais'd on his cart a little stage,
Preserv'd more dignity of port,
And sav'd his doublet from the dirt,
And taught his followers mounted high,
To bluster, swagger, strut and lye.
. . . [34 more lines describing modern Mountebanks] He had
also a second in his vehicle, who performed for him the
office of tumbler, or ropedancer. [8 more lines describing
activities and comparing to "antient practice."]
|