Satyrs can be traced the variegated dress of the modern Harlequin, as in
ancient Greek history mention is made of the performers enacting Satyrs
being sometimes habited in a tiger's skin of various colours, which
encircled the performer's body tightly, and who carried a wooden sword,
wore a white hat, and a brown mask. According to Servius (as we have
seen) Pan had also a bright spotted dress "in likeness of the stars."

From these rustic festivals originated the Satyr, or Satirical Drama, as
did its Italian prototype, the _Fabulae Atellanae_ or, _Laudi Osci_.
These rural sacrifices became, in process of time, a solemn fast, and
assumed all the pomp and splendour of a religious ceremony; poets were
employed by the magistrate to compose hymns, or songs, for the occasion;
such was the rudeness and simplicity of the age that their bards
contended for a prize, which, as Horace intimates, was scarce worth
contending for, being no more than a goat or skin of wine, which was
given to the happy poet who acquitted himself best in the task assigned
him.

From such small beginnings Tragedy and Comedy took their rise; and like
(as the best writers on these subjects tell us) every other production
of human art, extremely contemptible; that wide and deep stream, which
flows with such strength and rapidity through cultivated Greece, took
its rise from a small and inconsiderable fountain, which hides itself in
the recesses of antiquity, and is almost buried in oblivion; the name
alone remains to give us some light into its original nature, and to
inform us, that Tragedy and Comedy, like every other species of poetry,
owe their birth to Religion.

Appropriately does Horace observe:--

"Nor was the flute at first with silver bound,
Nor rivalled emulous the trumpet's sound;
Few were its notes, its forms were simply plain,
Yet not unuseful was its feeble strain,
To aid the chorus, and their songs to raise,
Filling the little theatre with ease,
To which a thin and pious audience came
Of frugal manners, and unsullied fame."

CHAPTER III.

The origin of the Indian Drama--Aryan Mythology--Clown and
Columbine--Origin of the Chinese Drama--Inception of the Japanese
Drama--The Siamese Drama--Dramatic performances of the South Sea
Islanders, Peruvians, Aztecs, Zulus, and Fijis--The Egyptian Drama.

Of the Indian Drama we learn that the union of music, song, dance, and
Pantomime took place centuries