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 ( 19 ) CHAPTER II.

ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF PUPPET-PLAYS IN ENGLAND.

we proceed farther, it will be necessary to consider, briefly, the antiquity and nature of puppet-plays in this country. It is the more proper to do so, because they form a branch of our drama which has never been examined by the historians of our stage with as much interest and industry as the subject deserves. When we mention that no less a man than Dr. Johnson was of opinion, that puppets were so capable of representing even the plays of Shakspeare, that Macbeth might be performed by them as well as by living actors; it will be evident from such a fact only, that the inquiry is far from unimportant. In connection with this opinion, and confirmatory of it, we may add, that a person of the name of Henry Rowe, shortly before the year 1797, did actually by wooden figures, for a series of years, go through the action of the whole of that tragedy, while he himself repeated the dialogue which belongs to each of the characters.

Puppet-plays are of very ancient date in England; and, if they were not contemporary with our Mysteries, they probably immediately succeeded them. There is reason to think that they were coeval, at least, with our Moralities; and, in Catholic times, it is not a very violent supposition