the Heiligenberg and
Hirschgasse, and how now and then a knight and a dame from the court
of the Kurfuerst came down the Schlossberg to see it all. What Reuchlin
began, came by no means to a speedy end. In the Jesuit seminaries in
Germany, in Italy too, and elsewhere, as the Reformation came on, I
find the boys were acting plays. This feature in the school was
held out as an attraction to win students; and in Prague the Fathers
themselves wrote dramas to satirise the Protestants, introducing
Luther as the comic figure. But what occurred in the Protestant world
was more noteworthy. As the choral singing of the schoolboys affected
in an important way the development of music, so the school-plays had
much to do with the development of the drama. Read Gervinus to see how
for a century or two it was the schools and universities that remained
true to a tolerably high standard, while in the world at large all
nobler ideals were under eclipse. It was jocund Luther himself who
took it under his especial sanction, as he did the fiddle and the
dance, in his sweet large-heartedness finding Scriptural precedents
for it, and encouraging the youths who came trooping to Wittenberg to
relieve their wrestling with Aristotle and the dreary controversy with
an occasional play. Melancthon, too, gave the practice encouragement,
until not only Wittenberg, but the schools of Saxony in general, and
Thuringia, whose hills were in sight, surpassed all the countries of
Germany in their attention to plays. In Leipsic, Erfurt, and Magdeburg
comedies were regularly represented before the schoolmasters. But
it was at the University of Strassburg, even at the time when the
unsmiling Calvin was seeking asylum there, that the dramatic life of
the German seminaries found a splendid culmination. Yearly, in the
academic theatre, took place a series of representations, by students,
of marvellous pomp and elaboration. The school and college plays were
of various characters. Sometimes they were from Terence, Plautus, or
Aristophanes; sometimes modifications of the ancient mysteries, meant
to enforce the Evangelical theology; sometimes comedies full of the
contemporary life. There are several men that have earned mention in
the history of German literature by writing plays for students.
The representations became a principal means for celebrating great
occasions. If special honour was to be done to a festival, or a
princely visit was expected, the market-place,