ur own quiet homes to satisfy ourselves,
that dramatic representations are natural to man. All children
delight in mimicking action; many of their amusements consist in such
performances, and are in every sense _plays_. It is curious, indeed,
to observe at how early an age the young of the most imitative animal,
man, begin to copy the actions of others; how soon the infant displays
its intimate conviction of the great truth, that "all the world's a
Stage." The baby does not imitate those acts only, that are useful
and necessary to be learned; but it instinctively mocks useless and
unimportant actions and unmeaning sounds, for its amusement, and for
the mere pleasure of imitation, and is evidently much delighted
when it is successful. The diversions of children are very commonly
dramatic. When they are not occupied with their hoops, tops, and
balls, or engaged in some artificial game, they amuse themselves in
playing at soldiers, in being at school, or at church, in going to
market, in receiving company; and they imitate the various employments
of life with so much fidelity, that the theatrical critic, who
delights in chaste acting, will often find less to censure in his own
little servants in the nursery, than in his majesty's servants in a
theatre-royal. When they are somewhat older they dramatize the stories
they read; most boys have represented Robin Hood, or one of his
merry-men, and every one has enacted the part of Robinson Crusoe,
and his man Friday. We have heard of many extraordinary tastes and
antipathies; but we never knew an instance of a young person, who
was not delighted the first time he visited a theatre. The true
enjoyment of life consists in action; and happiness, according to
the peripatetic definition, is to be found in energy; it accords,
therefore, with the nature and etymology of the drama, which is,
in truth, not less natural than agreeable. Its grand divisions
correspond, moreover, with those of time; the contemplation of the
present is Comedy--mirth for the most part being connected with the
present only--and the past and the future are the dominions of the
Tragic muse.

_GRECIAN THEATRES._

The climate of Athens being one of the finest and most agreeable in
the world, the Athenians passed the greatest part of their time in the
open air; and their theatres, like those in the rest of Greece and
in ancient Rome, had no other covering than the sky. Their structure
accordingly differed greatly