It appears at first exceedingly surprising that a nation, not only so gifted as the Italian, but so dramatically gifted, should not merely never have achieved a national drama, but should have no dramatic writer meriting to be ranked among the chief masters of the art. Lively, emotional, capable of being worked up to the most violent degrees of passion; at the same time observant, sagacious, reflective; members of a society comprising every variety of character and profession, and inheritors of a history replete with moving and tragic incidents, Italians should seem to have wanted no requisite for the creation of a flourishing stage. Prolific they were indeed: more than five thousand plays were written between 1500 and 1734. Perhaps there are not five which enjoy any considerable reputation out of Italy, or which, whatever their literary merit, can be considered characteristically Italian. The most potent of probable causes will be adduced in its place, but no single explanation, or any accumulation of partially satisfactory explanations, will entirely account for so remarkable a circumstance. One reason was probably the great development of Italian culture at an early period, compared with that of other European nations. The ablest men had become fully acquainted with Seneca and Terence, and looked upon them as painters looked upon Raphael, or sculptors upon Phidias. They deemed them the norm of excellence, and condemned themselves to a sterile imitation, which might and often did possess high literary merit, but which was entirely estranged from popular sympathies. Men like Politian and Pontano, who really could have created a national drama if they could have trusted their own instincts, were deterred from producing anything at variance with the canons in which they themselves believed. It must be said in extenuation of their error, that the classical school, with all its defects, was vastly in advance of the rude, amorphous beginnings of the romantic drama in every country but one. One little corner of Europe alone possessed in the early sixteenth century a drama at once living, indigenous, and admirable as literature. Nothing in literary history is more surprising than the gap between Gil Vicente and his contemporaries, whether classical or romantic. Had he been born an Italian instead of a Portuguese, the history of the Italian stage might possibly have been different. It nevertheless remains to be explained why no such person arose among so gifted a people, and why throughout their entire history, with one or two marked exceptions in particular departments, Italians have never had a drama that they could justly call their own.