people from whom perhaps all the cultivation of
the human race has been derived, plays were known long before they could
have experienced any foreign influence."

THE CHARACTER OF THE HINDU DRAMA.

Sanskrit plays are full of lyrical passages describing scenes or persons
presented to view, or containing reflections suggested by the incidents
that occur. They usually consist of four-line stanzas. The prose of the
dialogue in the plays is often very commonplace, serving only as an
introduction to the lofty sentiment of the poetry that follows.

The Sanskrit drama is a mixed composition in which joy is mingled with
sorrow, in which the jester usually plays a prominent part, while the
hero and heroine are often in the depths of despair. But it never has a
sad ending. The emotions of terror, grief, or pity, with which the
audience are inspired, are therefore always tranquillised by the happy
termination of the story. Nor may any deeply tragic incident take place
in the course of the play; for death is never allowed to be represented
on the stage. Indeed, nothing considered indecorous, whether of a
serious or comic character, is allowed to be enacted in the sight or
hearing of the spectators, such as the utterance of a curse,
degradation, banishment, national calamity, biting, scratching, kissing,
eating, or sleeping.

Love, according to Hindu notions, is the subject of most of their
dramas. The hero, who is generally a king, and already the husband of a
wife or wives, is suddenly smitten with the charms of a lovely woman,
sometimes a nymph, or, as in the case of Sakuntala, the daughter of a
nymph by a mortal father. The heroine is required to be equally
impressible, and the first tender glance from the hero's eye reaches her
heart. With true feminine delicacy, however, she locks the secret of her
passion in her own breast, and by her coyness and reserve keeps her
lover for a long period in the agonies of suspense. The hero, being
reduced to a proper state of desperation, is harassed by other
difficulties. Either the celestial nature of the nymph is in the way of
their union, or he doubts the legality of the match, or he fears his own
unworthiness, or he is hampered by the angry jealousy of a previous
wife. In short, doubts, obstacles and delays make great havoc of both
hero and heroine. They give way to melancholy, indulge in amorous
rhapsodies, and become very emaciated. So far the story is decidedly
dull, and its path