variance with the wishes of the people of Spain. The result, however, of the war of the Spanish succession was the triumph of the cause England had opposed; notwithstanding which, none of the dreadful consequences that had been anticipated ensued. This is a striking illustration of the danger of acting

against the unanimous desires of a nation, and should be an additional in-, ducement to us, in dealing with the eastern question, to pay due regard to the wishes of the people, especially of the Christian population, of Turkey, and not to attach too much importance to remote and improbable contingencies.

Most travellers who have passed during this summer through the neighbourhood of Munich, or of Innsbruck, will have heard of the dramatic representation of the history of the Passion in the village of Ober-Ammergau, which, according to custom, occurred in this the tenth year from the time of its last performance. Several circumstances have, in all probability, attracted to it a larger number of our countrymen than has been the case on former occasions. Its last celebration, in 1850, has been described in the clever English novel of "Quits." Its fame was widely spread by two Oxford travellers who witnessed it in that

same year. It forms the subject of one of the chapters in the "Art Student of Munich." There is reason, therefore, to believe that many Englishmen who will have frequented the spot in this year will not be unwilling to have briefly recalled to their thoughts some of the impressions left on one who, like themselves, was an eye-witness of this remarkable scene. These reflections shall be divided into those suggested by the history of the spectacle, and those suggested by the spectacle itself.1

1 Three printed works have been used for

this description, over and above the personal

observation of the writer :

1. The Songs of the Chorus, with the general Programme of the Drama, and a short Preface.

2. "The Passion Play in Ober-Ammergau." By Ludwig Clarus. 2d Edition. Munich, 1860.

3. A similar shorter work, by Devrient, published at Leipsic in 1851.

I. Ober-Ammergau is, as its name implies, the uppermost of two villages, situated in the gau, or valley of the Ammer, which, rising in the Bavarian highlands, falls through this valley into the wide plains of Bavaria, and joins the Isar not far from Munich. Two or three peculiarities distinguish it from the other villages of the same region. Standing at the head of its own valley, and therefore secluded from the thoroughfare of Bavaria on the one side, it is separated on the other side from the great highroad to Innsbruck by the steep pass of Ettal. Although itself planted on level ground, it is still a mountain village, and the one marked feature of its situation is a high columnar rock, called "the Covel," apparently the origin of its ancient name, "Coveliaca." At the head of the pass is the great monastery of Ettal, founded by the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria, which, though dissolved at the beginning of this century, exercised considerable influence in giving to the secluded neighbouring village its peculiarly religious, or ecclesiastical character. The inhabitants of the village have been long employed on the carving and painting of wooden ornaments, toys, and sacred images, which, whilst it required from them a degree of culture superior to that of mere peasants, also gave them a

There was a short but complete account of the representation this year in the Guardian Newspaper of July 25, 1860, which renders unnecessary any further consecutive descrip

tion.

familiarity with sacred subjects1 beyond what would be felt even amongst the religious peasantry of this part of Germany. Half the population are employed in these carvings. Half the houses are painted with these subjects.

In this spot, in consequence of a pestilence which devastated the surrounding villages, apparently in the train of a famine which followed on the ravages of the Thirty Years' War, a portion of the inhabitants made a vow, in 1633, that thenceforth they would represent every tenth year the Passion of Christ in a sacred play. Since that time the vow has been kept, with the slight variation that in 1680 the year was changed, so as to accord with the recurring decennial periods of the century.

Its date is important, as fixing its rise beyond the limit of the termination of the Middle Ages, with which, both in praise and blame, it is sometimes confounded. These religious mysteries, or dramatic representations of sacred subjects, existed, to a certain extent, before the Middle Ages began, as is proved by the tragedy of the Passion of Christ, by Gregory Nazianzen. They were in full force during the Middle Ages, in the form of "mysteries," or "moralities." But, almost alone of the ancient representations of sacred subjects to the outward senses, they survivd ethe Middle Ages and the shock of the Reformation. This very vow which gave birth to the drama at Ammergau was made, as we have seen, in the middle of the seventeenth century. Through the whole of that century, or even in the next, such spectacles were common in the South of Germany. They received, in Northern Germany, the sanction of Luther. "Such "spectacles," he is reported to have said,

often do more good, and produce more "impression, than sermons." The founder of the Lutheran Church in Sweden, Archbishop Peterson, encouraged them by precept and example.

1 There is one other locality in Tyrol where the inhabitants are similarly employed-the Grödner Thal near Botzen.

The Lutheran Bishops of the Danish Church composed them down to the end of the seventeenth century. In Holland, a drama of this kind is ascribed to the pen of no less a person than Grotius. Even in England, where they were naturally checked by the double cause, first, of the vast outburst of the secular drama, and then of the rise of Puritanism, they were performed in the time of the first Stuarts; and Milton's first sketch of the "Paradise Lost," as is well known, was a sacred drama, of which the opening speech was Satan's address to the sun. There was a period when there seemed to be a greater likelihood of the retention of sacred plays in England, than of the retention of painted windows, or of surplices. Relics of these mysteries, of which the sacred meaning, however, has long past away, still linger in the rude plays through which, in some parts of England, the peasants represent the story of St. George, the Dragon, and Beelzebub.

The repugnance, therefore, which has, since the close of the seventeenth century, led to the gradual suppression of these dramatic spectacles, is not to be considered a special offspring of Protestantism, any more than their origin and continuance was a special offspring of the Church of Rome. The prejudice against them has arisen from far more general causes, which have affected, if not in equal degree, yet to a large extent, the public opinion of Roman Catholic as well as of Protestant countries. If in the Protestant nations the practice died out more easily, in Roman Catholic nations it was more directly and severely denounced by the hierarchy. In 1779 a general prohibition was issued by the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, whose high authority in the country which was the chief seat of these performances gives to his decree a peculiar weight and interest. All the objections which most naturally occur to the most refined or the most Protestant mind find expression in the Archbishop's manifesto-"The mixture "of sacred and profane "the ludi

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66 crous and disagreeable effect of the "bad acting of the more serious actors, or of the intentional buffooneries of "others"- "the distraction of the minds "of the lower orders from the more "edifying modes of instruction by 66 sermons, Church services, and revivals”

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"the temptations to intemperance "and debauchery, encouraged by the "promiscuous assemblages of large "numbers of persons "" "The scandal "brought on the Church and religion "by the exposure of sacred subjects to "the criticism and ridicule of free"thinkers." All these and other like objections stated by the greatest prelate of southern Germany were followed up, in 1780-1790, by vigorous measures of repression on the part of the Bavarian government and police.

Amidst the general extinction of all other spectacles of this nature, that at Ammergau still held its ground; partly from the special nature of its origin, more from the high character and culture of its inhabitants, arising out of the causes above specified. In 1810, however, the recent withdrawal of its natural protectors by the secularization of the Abbey of Ettal, and the increasing alienation of public opinion from any such religious exhibitions, induced the ecclesiastical and civil authorities at Munich to condemn its further celebration, as "being in its very idea a gross indecorum." Upon this a deputation of peasants from Ammergau went to plead their cause in the capital. The ecclesiastics were deaf to their entreaties, and bade them go home, and learn the history of the Passion not from the theatre, but from the sermons of their pastor in church. At this last gasp, the Ammergau spectacle was saved from the destruction to which the Church had condemned it by the protection of a latitudinarian king. The deputies procured an interview with Max-Joseph, the monarch whose statue in the square at Munich, which bears his name, rests on a pedestal characteristically distinguished by a bas-relief of the genius of Humanity endeavouring to reconcile a Roman Catholic prelate and a Lutheran

preacher. preacher. He received them kindly, and through his permission a special exception was granted to the Ammergau Passion Play.

As a just equivalent for this permission, the directors of the spectacle undertook to remove from it all reasonable causes of offence; and it is to this compromise between the ancient religious feelings of the locality and the exigencies of modern times that we owe the present form of the drama. Three persons are named as having contributed to this result. Weiss, an ex-monk of Ettal, and afterwards pastor of Ammergau, rewrote the dialogue and recast the plot. To him are ascribed the strict adhesion to the Biblical narration, and the substitution of dramatic human passions and motives, especially in the case of Judas, for the ancient machinery of devils, and also the substitution of scenes or tableaux from the Old Testament for the allegorical personages who filled up the vacant spaces in the older representations. The music was composed by Dedler, the schoolmaster and organist. According to competent judges, though for the most part inadequate to the grandeur and elevation of the subject, it is much beyond what could be expected from so humble a source. prologue was written by an ecclesiastical dignitary (Dom-Provost), apparently of the rank of archdeacon or rural dean, Alliani, known as the Roman Catholic translator of the Bible into German.

The

It is evident from this account, that, as a relic of medieval antiquity, the Ammergau representation has but a very slight interest. It is on more general grounds—namely, of its being a serious, and perhaps the only serious existing attempt to reproduce in a dramatic form the most sacred of all events-that the spectacle can challenge our sympathy and attention.

But before proceeding to enlarge on these grounds, a few words must be devoted to the form and conditions under which the representation exists, and which can alone render its continuance justifiable or even practicable.

It is perhaps the strongest instance

that could be given of the impossibility of transferring an institution from its own sphere to another. There cannot

It

be a doubt that the same representation in London, in Paris, in Munich, would, if not blasphemous in itself, lead to such blasphemous consequences as to render its suppression a matter of absolute necessity. But, in fact, it would not be the same representation. would be something the very opposite of that which it is. All that is most peculiar in the present performance present performance would die in any other situation. Its whole merit and character lies in the circumstance that it is a product of the locality, nearly as peculiar to it as the rocks and fruits of the natural soil.

The theatre almost tells its own story. Although somewhat more akin to ordinary dramatic representations than when the play was performed1 actually in the churchyard, it still retains all that is essential to divide it from a common stage. It is a rustic edifice of rude planks and benches, erected on the outskirts of the village. The green meadow and the circle of hills form the background-its illumination is the light of the sun poured down through the long hours of the morning on the open stage. Its effects of light and shade are the natural changes of the advancing and declining day and of the passing clouds. The stage decorations and scenery, painted in the coarsest and simplest style, as well as the construction of the theatre and the dresses of the actors, are the work of the villagers. The colours of the dresses, the attitudes of the performers, are precisely the same as the paintings and sculptures along the waysides, and on the fronts of the houses in Ammergau and the surrounding country. The actors themselves, amounting nearly to 500, are all inhabitants of Ammergau, and exhaust a large part of the population of the village. How far they are led to look upon their calling as an actually religious service-in what spirit they enter upon it-how far the parts are assigned according to the moral

1 As was the case till 1830.

characters of the performers-are questions to which, under any circumstances, an answer would be difficult, and on which, in fact, the statements are somewhat contradictory. The only inference which a stranger can draw is from the mode of performance, which will be best noticed as we proceed. The completely local and unprofessional nature of the transaction is further indicated by the want of any system for the reception of the influx of strangers. Nothing can exceed the friendliness and courtesy of the villagers in accommodating the guests who seek shelter under their roof-but the accommodation itself is of so homely a kind as to be sure of repelling the common sight-seer or pleasure seeker. For a similar reason, appa rently, there is no possibility of procuring either a printed text of the performance, or any detailed pictorial representation of the scenes. Lastly, the spectators are equally unlike those of whom an ordinary theatrical audience is composed. Although a few of the very highest classes are present, as for ex ample, on one occasion this year, the Queen and Crown Prince of Bavaria, with their attendants-and although the covered seats are mostly occupied either by travellers or persons above the rank of peasants, yet more than three-fourths of those present must be of the humbler grades of life, who have come on foot, or in waggons, from localities more or less remote, to witness what, it cannot be doubted, is to them (whatever it may be to their superiors in station) an edifying and instructive spectacle. From them is derived the general atmosphere of the theatre. There is no passionate display of emotion or devotion. But their demeanour is throughout grave and respectful. Only in one or two passages, where the grotesque is evidently intended to predominate, a smile or "sensation" of mirth may be observed to run down the long lines of fixed and attentive counte

2 It is said that great care is employed in the selection of the best characters for the chief actors; that they are consecrated to their work with prayer; and that a watch over their conduct is maintained by the Committee.

nances. Almost every one holds in his hand the brief summary of the drama, with the choral songs, which alone are to be purchased in print. Every part, even the most exciting, is received in dead silence; the more solemn or affecting parts, with a stillness that can be felt.

II. In such an assemblage of spectators there is a contagion of reverence, which, at least on the spot, disarms the critical or the religious objector. What is not profane to them, ought not to be profane to any one who for the moment casts his lot with them. If he has so far overcome his prejudices or his scruples as to come at all, there is nothing in the surrounding circumstances to revive or to aggravate them. He may fairly hope to receive from the spectacle before him without hindrance whatever instruction it is calculated to convey beyond the circle of those for whom it is specially intended.

(1.) The first impression which an educated man is likely to receive, is one which, as being most remote from the actual scope or intention of the spectacle, shall be mentioned at starting, the more so as it is suggested in the most forcible manner at the very beginning of the performance. In that vast audience of peasants, seated in the open. air, to witness the dramatic exhibition of a sacred story, bound up with all their religious as well as local and national associations, and represented according to the traditional types most familiar to them, is the nearest approach which can now be seen to the ancient Athenian tragedy. Precisely such a union of rustic simplicity and high wrought feeling-of the religious with the dramatic element-of natural scenery with simple art-was exhibited in the Dionysian theatre, and, as far as we know, has been exhibited nowhere since, through all the numerous offspring of dramatic literature which have risen from that great original source. The very appearance of the proscenium is analogous. Instead of the palace of Mycenæ, or the city of Thebes, before

which the whole action of a Greek tragedy was evolved, is the palace of Pilate and of Annas, and the streets of Jerusalem, remaining unchanged through the successive scenes. And the spectacle is opened by a sight, which, if not directly copied from the one institution peculiar to the Greek drama, is so nearly parallel, as to convey an exact image of what the ancient chorus must have been. From the opposite sides of the stage advance two lines of solemn figures, ascending from childhood up to full grown age, who range themselves, eight on each hand, at the sides of a Coryphæus, who in a loud chant announces to the audience the plan of the scene which is to follow, and then, in conjunction with his companions, sings an ode, precisely similar to those of the Athenian chorus, evoking the religious feeling of the spectators, recalling to their minds any corresponding events in the ancient Jewish history, and then moralising on the joint effect of the whole. It would be interesting to know how far this element of the sacred drama is a conscious imitation of the Grecian chorus, or how far it is the spontaneous result of parallel circumstances. it is, in essential points, of indigenous growth, may be inferred from the fact that its part was in earlier times performed by a personage called "the Genius of the Passion." And such a personage appears in other religious solemnities of Southern Germany. In a quaint picture preserved at Landek (in the Tyrol) of the jubilee of the consecration of the village church, the "Genius," draped in a gay court costume, marches at the head of the procession of sacred banners and images which passes through the town and neighbourhood.

That

(2.) In one respect, this chorus of guardian spirits is less directly connected with the religious element of the drama, than was the case with their Pagan prototypes, who actually performed their evolutions round the altar erected in front of the stage. But this difference is compensated by the uniformly sustained elevation of their choral odes, and the stately stillness with which they