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 a hundred and twenty years together. They were made extempore,
and were, as the French call them, impromptus; 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 tuned 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.
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