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228 of such auspicious promise is justly ascribed by Symonds, in great measure, to the want of a representative public and a centre of social life. The emulation of a number of independent cities, so favourable to the development of art, prevented the development of the national feeling essential to a national drama. The political circumstances of these communities, moreover, were inimical to the existence of a popular stage. Theatrical representations remained the amusement of courts; and when the general public was allowed to participate in them, the play itself was so enveloped in show and spectacle as to appear the least part of the entertainment. It was not possible that under such circumstances the drama could deviate far from conventional models. Tragedy continued to be composed after the pattern of Seneca, an imitation of an imitation. Comedy, though also in bondage to classical precedents, could not avoid depicting contemporary manners, and hence displays far more vitality and vigour.

Latin plays had been written by Italians from the beginning of the fifteenth century, and had included comedies, now lost, by persons of no less account than Petrarch and Æneas Sylvius. The first vernacular tragedies worthy of the name were composed for the entertainment of the court of Ferrara, and were written in the octave stanza or terza rima. No genius could have adapted this form to the exigencies of the stage, and a great step was taken when in 1515 Trissino, whose epic on the Gothic wars has been previously noticed, wrote his tragedy of Sophonisba in blank verse, retaining nothing of the lyrical element but the chorus. The piece marks an era, and as such remains celebrated, notwithstanding its total want of poetry and passion. It would have