The following passage from a similar bard is as precious.  The king in the play exclaims,—­

    By all the ancient gods of Rome and Greece,
    I love my daughter!—­better than my niece! 
    If any one should ask the reason why,
    I’d tell them—­Nature makes the stronger tie!

One of the rude French plays, about 1600, is entitled “La Rebellion, ou meseontentment des Grenouilles contre Jupiter,” in five acts.  The subject of this tragi-comic piece is nothing more than the fable of the frogs who asked Jupiter for a king.  In the pantomimical scenes of a wild fancy, the actors were seen croaking in their fens, or climbing up the steep ascent of Olympus; they were dressed so as to appear gigantic frogs; and in pleading their cause before Jupiter and his court, the dull humour was to croak sublimely, whenever they did not agree with their judge.

Clavigero, in his curious history of Mexico, has given Acosta’s account of the Mexican theatre, which appears to resemble the first scenes among the Greeks, and these French frogs, but with more fancy and taste.  Acosta writes, “The small theatre was curiously whitened, adorned with boughs, and arches made of flowers and feathers, from which were suspended many birds, rabbits, and other pleasing objects.  The actors exhibited burlesque characters, feigning themselves deaf, sick with colds, lame, blind, crippled, and addressing an idol for the return of health.  The deaf people answered at cross-purposes; those who had colds by coughing, and the lame by halting; all recited their complaints and misfortunes, which produced infinite mirth among the audience.  Others appeared under the names of different little animals; some disguised as beetles, some like toads, some like lizards, and upon encountering each, other, reciprocally explained their employments, which was highly satisfactory to the people, as they performed their parts with infinite ingenuity.  Several little boys also, belonging to the temple, appeared in the disguise of butterflies, and birds of various colours, and mounting upon the trees which were fixed there on purpose, little balls of earth were thrown at them with slings, occasioning many humorous incidents to the spectators.”

Something very wild and original appears in this singular exhibition; where at times the actors seem to have been spectators, and the spectators were actors.

THE MARRIAGE OF THE ARTS.

As a literary curiosity, can we deny a niche to that “obliquity of distorted wit,” of Barton Holyday, who has composed a strange comedy, in five acts, performed at Christ Church, Oxford, 1630, not for the entertainment, as an anecdote records, of James the First?

The title of the comedy of this unclassical classic, for Holyday is known as the translator of Juvenal with a very learned commentary, is TEXNOTAMIA, or the Marriage of the Arts, 1630, quarto; extremely dull, excessively rare, and extraordinarily high-priced among collectors.