It would introduce too long discussion, were I to enter on the much-agitated question concerning the advantages and disadvantages of masks in theatric representations. The latter are almost too apparent to be enlarged on or recapitulated. It is obvious to remark, that though masks might do very well for a Satyr and Cyclops, who have no resemblance to human features, they are totally unsuitable for a flatterer, a miser, or the like characters, which abound in our own species, in whom the expression of countenance is more agreeable even than the action, and forms a considerable part of the histrionic art. Could we suppose that a vizard represented ever so naturally the general humour of a character, it can never be assimilated with the variety of passions incident to each person, in the whole course of a play. The grimace may be proper on some occasions, but it is too fixed and steady to agree with all. In consequence, however, of the great size of the ancient theatres, there was not so much lost by the concealment of the living countenance, as we are apt at first to suppose. It was impossible that those alterations of visage, which are hidden by a mask, could have been distinctly perceived by one-tenth of the 40,000 spectators of a Roman play. The feelings portrayed in the ancient drama were neither so tender nor versatile as those in modern plays, and the actors did not require the same flexibility of features—there were fewer flashes of joy in sorrow, fewer gleams of benignity in hatred. Hercules, the Satyrs, the Cyclops, and other characters of superhuman strength or deformity, were more frequently introduced on the ancient than the modern stage, and, by aid of the mask, were more easily invested with their appropriate force or ugliness. By means, too, of these masks, the dramatists introduced foreign nations on the stage with their own peculiar physiognomy, and among others, the _Rufi persona Batavi_. Their use, besides, prevented the frequenters of the theatre from seeing an actor, far advanced in years, play the part of a young lover, since the vizard, under which the performer appeared, was always, to that extent at least, agreeable to the character he assumed. In addition to all this, by concealing the mouth it prevented the spectators from observing whence the sound issued, and thus palliated the absurdity of one actor declaiming, and the other beating time, as it were by gestures. Finally, as the tragic actor was elevated by his _cothurnus_, or buskin, above the ordinary stature of man, it became necessary, in order to preserve the due proportions of the human form, that his countenance also should be enlarged to corresponding dimensions. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐