The cause of the failure of the drama to establish itself in the land of opera is certainly not to be found in any preference on the part of the public for the tedious psychological analysis of the modern school of fiction over the rapidity and variety of the stage, but rather in some deep-seated trait of the national character. This is most probably the prevailing sensuousness of the people--a term not here used in any disparaging sense, but as expressing the national preference for the eye to the ear. _Segnius irritant_, as an ancient Italian has it. The shows of the _Rappresentazioni_ were undoubtedly more attractive to the Florentine public than the verses which expounded them; and we have seen that magnificent scenic equipments were needed to bring the people to share the dramatic amusements of the courts of the sixteenth century. This tendency would probably be found to be inveterate, and to date from the period when the Atellan farces of Latium prefigured the _Commedia dell’ Arte_. It was not mere love of bloodshed that made gladiatorial shows popular at Rome. Professor Mahaffy remarks that while the refinement of Terence’s translations from the Greek in comparison with Plautus attests the improvement of the taste of the Roman aristocracy, “this brilliant success was not popular with the masses, and led to no further attempts in the same direction.” CHAPTER XXIII THE REVIVAL We have seen that the Italy of the eighteenth century had fully entered into the general intellectual movement of the rest of Europe. Scarcely any trace remained of the special characteristics of the Cinque Cento except the imperishable tradition of culture and refinement which still kept literature at a high level of style. The vagaries of the seventeenth century had passed without leaving a trace. The prevailing taste was that of France. The chief exception to this polished uniformity was found in the drama. On the lyrical stage, Italy, favoured by the musical capabilities of her language and the superior aptitudes of her vocalists, had created something really novel and national; and in the allied realm of instrumental music had emulated the architectural and pictorial triumphs of the sixteenth century. In tragedy and comedy, moreover, she had at length attained to a semblance of a national drama; but this, being the achievement of two exceptionally gifted men, who in comedy at all events left no worthy successors, was comparatively apart from the national life, and could not be expected to prove an important element in the literary development of the future.