During the space of almost four hundred years, since the building of their city, the Romans had never known any entertainments of the stage. Chance and jollity first found out those verses which they called _Saturnian_, and _Fescennine_; or rather human nature, which is inclined to poetry, first produced them, rude and barbarous, and unpolished, as all other operations of the soul are in their beginnings, before they are cultivated with art and study. However, in occasions of merriment they were first practised; and this rough-cast unhewn poetry was instead of stage-plays, for the space of an hundred and twenty years together. They were made _extempore_, and were, as the French call them, _impromptùs_; for which the Tarsians of old were much renowned; and we see the daily examples of them in the Italian farces of Harlequin and Scaramucha. Such was the poetry of that savage people, before it was turned into numbers, and the harmony of verse. Little of the Saturnian verses is now remaining; we only know from authors, that they were nearer prose than poetry, without feet, or measure. They were #enrythmoi#, but not #emmetroi#. Perhaps they might be used in the solemn part of their ceremonies; and the Fescennine, which were invented after them, in the afternoon's debauchery, because they were scoffing and obscene. The Fescennine and Saturnian were the same; for as they were called Saturnian from their ancientness, when Saturn reigned in Italy, they were also called Fescennine, from Fescennia, a town in the same country, where they were first practised. The actors, with a gross and rustic kind of raillery, reproached each other with their failings; and at the same time were nothing sparing of it to their audience. Somewhat of this custom was afterwards retained in the Saturnalia, or feasts of Saturn, celebrated in December; at least all kind of freedom in speech was then allowed to slaves, even against their masters; and we are not without some imitation of it in our Christmas gambols. Soldiers also used those Fescennine verses, after measure and numbers had been added to them, at the triumph of their generals: of which we have an example, in the triumph of Julius Cæsar over Gaul, in these expressions: _Cæsar Gallias subegit, Nicomedes Cæsarem. Ecce Cæsar nunc triumphat, qui subegit Gallias: Nicomedes non triumphat, qui subegit Cæsarem_. The vapours of wine made those first satirical poets amongst the Romans; which, says Dacier, we cannot better represent, than by imagining a company of clowns on a holiday, dancing lubberly, and upbraiding one another, in _extempore_ doggrel, with their defects and vices, and the stories that were told of them in bake houses and barbers' shops.