BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME ■"' FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF BUetirg W. Sage lt.?>x-i:fcK4i^ »^ \yvj (t<;>. 9755-2 Cornell University Library PR 635.T7R59 English tragicomedy, its °"9'" i?"l!|,'|f,f° 3 1924 013 271 071 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013271071 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH ENGLISH TRAGICOMEDY ENGLISH TRAGICOMEDY ITS ORIGIN AND HISTORY BY FRANK HUMPHREY RISTINE, Ph.D. ^tio fork THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS IQIO Aff rights reserved A>^^'&"s6^ Copyright, igio By The Columbia University Press Printed from type September, 1910 PRESS OF The ne* eka PRiNTrnc Coupan> Lancaster, Pa. This Monograph has been approved by the Department of Eng- lish in Columbia University as a contribution to knowledge worthy of publication. A. H. THORNDIKE, Secretary. CONTENTS PAGE. Introduction vii Chapter I The Origin of Tragicomedy i Chapter II Early Foreign Developments 26 Chapter III The Beginnings of English Tragicomedy (1564-1600). 60 Chapter IV Some Transitional Developments (i6ck>-i6io) 96 Chapter V The Heyday of English Tragicomedy (1610-1642) .... m Chapter VI The Decline of Tragicomedy (1642-1700) 150 Chapter VII Concluding Aspects of English Tragicomedy 188 Appendix — ^A List of English Tragicomedies 207 Bibliography 229 Index 234 PREFACE This work is an attempt to present a comprehensive survey of a relatively unexplored field in English drama. In spite of the study and research lavished upon other phases of dramatic literature, the subject of tragicomedy has been consistently neglected in literary history and has almost escaped the atten- tion of the critical investigator as well. The only special monograph in the field, Dr. H. C. Lancaster's study of "The French Tragi-Comedy : Its Origin and Development from 1552 to 1628", deals, as the title proclaims, with a foreign aspect of the subject; and so far as England is concerned, the only important critical matter bearing directly on tragicomic drama is embodied in the researches of Professor A. H. Thorn- dike in the Beaumont-Fletcher plays and in a chapter of Professor F. E. Schelling's work on "Elizabethan Drama." The present study has presumed to cover somewhat dis- cursively the entire field of the subject in England and to de- termine, if possible, its position and importance in the drama of which it is a part. Naturally such an undertaking has been made possible only by taking advantage of the work of predecessors at every step. Apart from particular cases of indebtedness indicated throughout the discussion and the aid received from the works listed in the appended Bibliography, certain obligations call for special acknowledgment, particularly those incurred from the above mentioned studies. Wherein the plan and scope of the present work has necessitated retracing some of the ground already covered by Dr. Lancaster's dissertation, adequate acknowledgment, I trust, has been made, though I am conscious of other obligations to that able thesis which can not always be readily traced. Professor Schelling's monumental history of the Elizabethan drama has been of constant assistance, as it must be to all who work in that field. But my most personal obligations are to Professor Ashley H. Thorndike. To at- VI tempt to add to his discussion of the early tragicomic drama of Beaumont and Fletcher would be a work of supererogation ; while the indebtedness of my essay to his book on " Tragedy ", particularly in respect to general plan and to organization of material, will be readily apparent to anyone familiar with that volume. And if my debt to Professor Thorndike's printed work has been much, my debt to his personal assistance has been more ; for to him this study owes its inception, and under his personal direction it has been prosecuted to completion. My thanks are due also to the other members of the depart- ments of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia under whom I have studied, especially to Professor Brander Matthews, Professor William W. Lawrence, and Professor Jefiferson B. Fletcher, who have kindly read the manuscript and given me the benefit of their helpful suggestions; and to my friend and fellow student, Dr. Ernest Hunter Wright, who has contributed certain bibliographical matters inaccessible to me in the British Museum. F. H. R. Wabash College, May, 1910. ENGLISH TRAGICOMEDY ITS ORIGIN AND HISTORY INTRODUCTION The difficulties and problems confronting one who would trace the evolution of that phase of the English drama known as tragicomedy are as persistent as they are perplexing. Per- haps the main crux hinges on the very lack of distinctiveness that is and always has been attached to that word of dramatic nomenclature. Just what tragicomedy is, and what plays should be considered in a history of that species are questions that will occur at once to any student of the English drama. To the lay mind, the word is perhaps only thought of sec- ondarily in relation to dramatic composition; for plays de- scribed as tragicomedies have long since ceased to be a part of the living drama."^ Present-day popular usage doubtless employs the term oftener in some figurative capacity than in respect to stage plays. Yet tragicomedy as the name of a once consequential and recognized dramatic species is a fact known to every one familiar with the history of modern drama ; and while the initial difficulties attending an approach to the sub- ject in hand may not be totally effaced by an introductory discussion, they may be limited and in some degree minimized. A bare statement of the part played by so-called tragicomedy in the history of dramatic literature in general and in that of England in particular is convincing proof of its importance as a literary genre and of its claim to independent study. The bald facts are : that sporadic productions denominated tragicomedies ' Henry Arthur Jones, indeied, described his Galilean's Victory (later called the Evangelist), 1907, as a Tragi-Comedy of Religious Life in Eng- land; but instances of the sort are certainly rare in modern drama. VUl began to appear almost simultaneously in the sixteenth cen- tury vernacular dramas of Italy, Spain, France and England, following the contact of the medieval stage with humanistic innovation ; that these productions steadily increased in number and popularity with the growth of the drame litre, assuming in course of time more or less definite characteristics, enhst- ing critical defenders and opponents, and forming no incon- siderable part of the seventeenth century national drama of 'each country; and finally, that after a period of varied ascend- iency the vogue of the tragicomedy declined, until by the eigh- teenth century plays so entitled practically disappeared from the popular stage. The English phase of this transient dra- matic evolution assumes a special interest on a realization of its importance as a factor in the great Elizabethan drama. Developing out of the pre-Shaksperian stage, English tragi- comedy first sprang into full-blown existence in the early seven- teenth century; thence it speedily grew in popular favor, en- listing the best efforts of the last of the great Elizabethans, and maintaining preeminence over all other forms of drama until the civil wars closed the theaters. With the Restoration its popularity began to abate; changes in social and theatrical conditions accomplished its steady decay ; and by the dawn of the Augustan era the type in England was a relic of the past. By tragicomedy, then, we are to understand, first of all, an extinct dramatic species, and one whose origin and develop- ment, while paralleled in several countries alike, we propose to trace in English drama alone, with only incidental notice of its related foreign aspects. Under these limitations, we are, therefore, not concerned with parceling out the whole of Eng- lish drama according to some empiric standard of what may or ought to constitute this or that dramatic kind. English tragicomedy, properly so-called, enjoyed but a transient exist- ence; and consequently it is futile to look beyond certain definite bounds for plays of the species. With the scope of the subject thus roughly indicated, let us consider for a moment the nature of tragicomedy in the abstract. While baffling final definition, the word as it stands may be taken to convey an idea of something that is neither tragedy nor comedy — in the popular acceptation of those terms — and yet in some sense both; an idea that need not seem so paradoxical when we consider the variable character of all drama, or, indeed, the natural course of human events, of which the drama is but the reflection. It is not difficult in actual life to conceive of a happening or a series of happen- ings that fulfils the requirements of the above elemental defi- nition. What we consider as tragical and comical have a way of shading into one another by imperceptible advances, until the juncture is lost; or what may appeal as tragic to one will be comic to another. Many a serious event has its humorous side ; that the pathetic iS- akin to the comical and laughter neighbor to tears are truisms of long-standing acceptance;^ while the comparison of life to a tragicomedy is almost as old as the word itself.^ What is true of actual experience is equally true of drama. While tragedy and comedy, the recognized main divisions of dramatic composition, are theoretically of antipodal emotional effect, the one is constantly blending with the other, and he would be a bold man who would presume to distinguish them absolutely. Fontenelle attempted to put the situation concretely by distributing the emotions aroused by drama in a sort of prismatic scale, as the terrible, the sublime, the pathetic, the tender, the amusing, the absurd ; alloting the first two divisions ' Cp. Shelley, Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. ' The following passage occurs in the writings of the third century Neoplatonist, Porphyry : " For none of these causes did I choose another to be partner of my life, but there was a twofold and reasonable cause that swayed me. One part was that I deemed I should thus propitiate the gods of generation ; just as Sokrates in his prison chose to compose popular music, for the sake of safety in his departure from life, instead of his customary labors in philosophy, so did I strive to propitiate the divinities who preside over this tragi-comedy (KafjufSoTpaycfiSla) of ours." Porphyry the Philosopher to His Wife Marcella. Translated with Introduction by Alice Zimmern, London (1896), p. 54. See below, p. 8, note 29. of the spectrum to tragedy, the lastvtwo to comedy, and as- signing the intermediate to a neutral sphere, properly neither the one nor the other but mingled of both, to which one might give a special name.* As a matter of fact, from time im- memorial there have been plays to which the terms tragedy and comedy in their traditional significance have been wholly inapplicable. The entire -body of Sanscrit drama with its pro- hibited tragic conclusion is a notable case in point.^ Euripides' "Alcestis," Shakspere's "Measure for Measure," Beaumont and Fletcher's "Philaster," Corneille's " Cid," Ibsen's "Doll's House," a popular melodrama, or a modern problem play, are all examples of the same thing. Certainly what we may term intermediate drama, or drama lying on the shadowy border-line of tragedy and comedy, has formed no small part of the popular drama from the very earliest times to the pres- ent ; and within this broad and indeterminate division we may safely fix the realm of tragicomedy. /Thus far our conception of tragicomedy involves broadly a type of intermediate drama which developed, flourished and waned upward of two centuries ago. To frame a more par- ticular and at the same time generally inclusive definition is well- nigh impossible, considering the many variations the type has permitted, and the diverse critical opinions it has called forth. Indeed, the far ramifications of the form have extended the name of tragicomedy to almost every variety of drama, — miracle pley, morality, school drama, pastoral, academic exer- cise, domestic tragedy, heroic play, political squib, farce — variant forms to be expected of any dramatic type; whereas the diversity of critical opinion regarding the practise is more or less peculiar to it alone. Whether due to the fact that tragicomedy has always labored under a critical opprobrium that would stamp it as a bastard form beneath serious con- sideration, or to the fact that the chief cultivators of the species have rarely fortified their practise with a critical theory, there * Preface G&neraU de la TragSdie & des six ComSdies de ce Recueil ((Euvres, 1764, VII, 8). ° Cp. M. Schuyler, Jr., A Bibliography of the Sanscrit Drama (New York, 1906), p. n. XI has been relatively little criticism of any sort on the subject of tragicomedy and less unanimity of opinion as to what con- stituted the same. 1 As the peculiar attributes of the type, there have been advanced : the serious nature of the plot, the absence of deaths, the freedom from rule, the noble rank of the characters, the romantic nature of the subject, the happy denouement, and perhaps most frequently, the mixture of tragic and comic parts." This last particular — ^the mixture of tragic and comic parts, or rather the introduction of comedy into tragedy — English criticism especially, whenever it deigned to notice tragicomedy at all, immediately seized upon and stubbornly retained as the constituent principle of the species, in direct defiance of actual stage tradition; — a perversity of criticism typifying the essential lack of coordination between English dramatic theory and practise which was characteristic of the time. Perhaps the Italian Guarini, the only real exponent of a carefully formulated theory of tragicomedy, in his volu- minous writings defending his famous " Pastor Fido " most nearly approximated the true essence of the perfected type. The gist of his argument is that tragicomedy, far from being a discordant mixture of tragedy and comedy, is a thoro blend of such parts of each as can stand together with verisimilitude, with the result that the deaths of tragedy are reduced to the danger of deaths, and the whole in every respect a graduated mean between the austerity and dignity of the one and the pleasantness and ease of the other — a theory shortly echoed in England, Spain and France, and doubtless instrumental in establishing the species. Altho anticipating later discussion, we may examine here briefly the stability of some of the criteria frequently advanced for tragicomedy. The mere mixing of tragic and comic ele- ments as the chief essential of the type may be summarily re- ° For an account of the most important French and German critical opinions on tragicomedy, see H. C. Lancaster, The French Tragi-Comedy (1907L p. xi ff. In the ensuing study all contemporary definitions bearing directly on English tragicomedy are, of course, given in chronological order. xu jected, as an idea of no foundation in actual practise, despite its prevalence in both critical opinion and popular notion; altho we shall find that interspersed comedy is a common tho not a peculiar characteristic of fully developed tragicomedy. Again, as our subject is essentially a product of the drame libre, its innate independence of the so-called dramatic rules and precepts goes without saying, altho, it may be noted, plays of the name have been written which are as regular as the most austere classical drama. Romantic subject and leading per- sonages of high rank are equally familiar but not inevitable' attributes; while the emotional effect intended by the action may range from that of the most harrowing tragedy to a point where its separation from the purely comic becomes a matter of individual opinion. Then again, the absence of deaths as a final test for the form breaks down decisively; for many are the professed tragicomedies which admit death in some shape or other. Seldom, however, is a fatal conclusion meted out to those with whom our sympathies are allied — a fact of no mean significance, correlating as it does the most pronounced and distinctive feature of the type, the happy denouement. True, the successful outcome of an unhappy or tumultuous action will not necessarily distinguish tragicomedy from trag- edy. Yet, whereas from the time of Aristotle the happy end- ing has been accepted as a permissible rather than as a natural accompaniment of tragedy, of tragicomedy it is the well-nigh indispensable adjunct. In fact, but a tiny fraction of all avowed plays of the latter kind would fail to meet the test of the happy denouement. The importance of this last ele- ment to the subject will be the more apparent in the sub- sequent pages. As supplementary to these somewhat general characteristics of tragicomedy . as a dramatic type, a more exact conception of the nature of the perfected species is ascertainable by dis- regarding its undefinable variations and other perplexing fea- tures and centering attention on what we may arbitrarily deter- mine to be typical tragicomedy, and that as illustrated in Eng- lish drama. While our subject has always been a variable quantity changing in accord with altering conditions and in- XIU fluences, yet almost any group of tragicomedies selected at random from Elizabethan and Restoration drama — such as Beaumont and Fletcher's " Philastfer," Massinger's " Bashful Lover," Shirley's "Young Admiral," Carlell's "Deserving Favorite," Davenant's " Love and Honor," Dryden's " Span- ish Friar " — constitute a more or less typical body and furnish certain definite characteristics, which define the peculiarities of the form and distinguish it from other kinds of intermediate drama. r Perhaps the first impression gained from reading any such group of plays is one of startling unreality. The reader is transported to a no man's land, beyond the ken of human ex- perience, where men take on superhuman characteristics, where strange events happen, and imaginary history is made and unmade in the twinkling of an eye. The checkered fortunes of monarchs, generals, and lords and ladies of high degree engross hi-s chief attention; war, usurpation, rebellion — actual or imminent — furnish a subordinate interest; while a comic touch or sub-plot is the diverting accompaniment of the roman- tic action. Love of some sort is the motive force; intrigue is rife; the darkest villainy is contrasted with the noblest and most exalted virtue. In the course of an action teeming with incident and excitement, and in which the characters are enmeshed in a web of disastrous complications, reverse and surprise succeed each other with a lightning rapidity, and the outcome trembles in the balance. But final disaster is inge- niously averted. The necessary dei ex machina descend in the nick of time : wrongs are righted, wounds healed, reconciliation , sets in, penitent villainy is forgiven, and the happy ending ,made complete. After reading a few such plays, one ceases to wonder that tragicomedy is a relatively unknown dramatic evolution and has generally received scant attention from the literary his- torian. The fact is that the very nature of the species pre- cluded any possibility of its permanence as drama. It is even doubtful if the form, in England at least, can be said to have left a literary monument. " Cymbeline " and the " Winter's Tale" both fall short of the full-blown type; for Shakspere's XIV career had closed before the new dramatic fashion became ascendent. And the " Philaster " of Beaumont and Fletcher, which by its historical position and long continued stage popu- larity is entitled to the first place among English tragicomedies, is little known to the general reader. Indeed, a large propor- tion of plays of the name must be sought in first editions. pThe essential lack of the integrating qualities that make for lasting drama is the besetting fault of tragicomedy. It pre- sents no transcript from life; it neglects portrayal of charac- ter and psychological analysis for plot and theatricality; it substitutes dramatic falsity for dramatic truth; it emphasizes novelty, sensation, surprise, startling effect. All is unreal, artificial, inadequate. But it appealed to the taste for which it was written. Among an uncritical audience devoted to romantic extravagance it arose to the pinnacle of popular favor. With the coming of the age of prose and reason, fashions began to change: the vogue wore out; and English tragicomedy, deserted by poetry and at odds with taste, became an absurdity of the past — like the Arcadian pastoral, while many of its essentials were adopted into sentimental comedy, musical plays, melodrama and other forms of intermediate drama that sprang up in the eighteenth century. To gain some preliminary idea of the peculiar nature of tragicomedy, we have been considering it in its fully developed form. The ensuing study is rather an attempt to give an historical sketch of the subject: to trace its course from the beginnings thru its various stages of development, culmination and decay ; to note its varying aspects, influences, and the part it has played in the history of the drama and of criticism ; and to show it as a continuous growth, controlled by the same natural laws which preside over any evolutionary develop- ment. With this plan in mind, it has seemed necessary to begin with the very sources of modern drama for the origins of tragicomedy; and also to consider the early vernacular developments of the subject on the continent as well as in England. The early Elizabethan drama, being the formative period of the English species, has been examined in some de- tail, and plays of indirect as well as direct bearing on the XV subject noticed. Beginning with Beaumont and Fletcher, however, the field becomes more restricted, and only such plays have been considered which either offer some docu- mentary evidence of their contemporary recognition as tragi- comedies or manifestly fulfil the conditions of the type. In locating and collating this material, recourse has been had to a number and variety of sources, including many seventeenth and eighteenth century catalogs of plays — most of which are utterly unreliable — and the more authoritative lists of modern scholarship.' The list of plays forming the appendix is an attempt to give the sum of English tragicomedies. ' As most helpful for this purpose may be mentioned Langbaine's Dramatick Poets, the Biographia Dramatica, Genest's English Stage, the catalogs of the British Museum and of the Malone Collection in the Bodleian, and the play lists furnished by Halliwell, Fleay, W. W. Greg and Schelling; for which see Bibliography. CHAPTER I The Origin of Tragicomedy Modern tragicomedy, while first realized in the Renaissance, owes its inception to generating influences that extend back to the very beginnings of drama. In fact, the crude essence of the form is absent from no period or kind of dramatic composition. Far from being an unprecedented invention of modern times, it has both ancient and medieval prototypes; and its lines of descent are the same as those of its stronger and more regarded sisters, tragedy and comedy. To the classical stage of Greece and Rome it is indebted for a name and authoritative precedent; from the religious drama of the Middle Ages it inherits its traditions and dominant character- istics; and to the humanist imitators of classical models it owes its ultimate realization as a distinct form of drama. To examine the extent and character of this three-fold heritage will be the purpose of the present chapter. ( I ) The Relation of the Classical Drama to Tragicomedy The relation of the classical drama to the later development and history of tragicomedy is perhaps more vital than is com- monly thought. That the classical period of the drama, with its rigid distinctions between tragedy and comedy, is the one furthest removed from any connexion with an intermediate species, would be the natural deduction; yet, in two ways at least, there is a definite and important relation between tragi- comedy and the ancient drama. First, the mingUng of the motives of tragedy and comedy in one dramatic piece found its first expression in the earliest period of the drama ; secondly, and related thereto, the question whether or not tragicomedy could justify its existence by proving its classical parentage, was one of the most mooted points of discussion waged over 2 1 the practise during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To understand, then, an important influence in the history of our subject, some consideration of its connexion with the parent drama is necessary. The classical period of the drama is regarded as a time of exact distinctions between the provinces of the dramatic forms, a time of pure tragedy on the one hand, and pure comedy on the other; each carefully distinguished from the other by accepted theoretical definitions. Yet a superficial acquaintance with ancient drama is enough to show that tragedy and comedy were never so far apart in actual practise as classical tradi- tion would have them. Between the extremes of pure tragedy and pure comedy of the Aristotelian formulas there was always a " Tertium Quid," a something that manifestly overstepped the bounds of the one or of the other. The two forms were continually overlapping, blending one into the other, and creat- ing an intermediate type so obviously neither tragedy nor comedy that classical critics were at a loss to name it.^ The romanticists, or apologists for the free drama, on the other hand, seized upon every possible violation of the strict letter of decorum that the ancient drama could furnish, and turned it to account in defense of the mingling of tragic and comic. In fact, it is surprising how many excuses the classical drama afiforded those who sought to reconcile tragicomedy with the supposed teachings and practise of the ancients. In the Guarini controversy, the whole question of the legitimacy of the species was approached from the standpoint of ancient precedent; and the same is true in almost all contemporary criticism that championed or opposed the form. A review of the chief arguments advanced by the defenders of tragicomedy to show that the mixed type of drama was a legitimate pro- duction sanctioned by the theory and practise of the ancients, may best show the bearing of the classical drama on the subject. ■Minturno, De Poeta (1559), p. 108, lists three kinds of imitation, the Tragica, the Comica, and a Tertia, which, he adds, is tanquam his in- teriecta. No subtleties of casuistry were left untried by the critical advocates of the free drama in their efforts to justify tragi- comedy by ancient dramatic theory. Even the fact that the " Poetics " of Aristotle nowhere mentioned tragicomedy was no serious barrier to the defenders of the type. On the other hand, one passage of the " Poetics " was eagerly advanced in support of the claim that, if Aristotle did not speak of tragi- comedy by name, he yet described and gave a place to a dra- matic form so similar to it as to be practically the same.^ The passage in question is the one setting forth the second kind of tragedy: " In the second rank comes the kind of tragedy which some place first. Like the Odyssey, it has a. double thread of plot, and also an opposite catastrophe for the good and for the bad. It is accounted the best because of the weakness of the spectators ; for the poet is guided in what he writes by the wishes of his audience. The pleasure, however, thence derived is not the true tragic pleasure. It is proper rather to Comedy, where those who, in the piece, are the deadliest enemies — like Orestes and JEgisthus — quit the stage as friends at the close, and no one slays or is slain." = This recognition by the highest critical authority of the pos- sibility of a tragedy of double plot and happy ending was made much of, not only by Guarini and his coterie, but also by other critics who interpreted it as a veritable admission of the legiti- macy of tragicomedy itself.* It is to be noticed in this passage that Aristotle, while expressly stating his disapprobation of this kind of tragedy, observes that it usually passes for the best, and excuses its popularity on the grounds of the weakness of the spectators for a play of happy ending, happy at least for the virtuous. Popular taste in the drama apparently has remained the same since the time of Aristotle. It became a common- place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to apologize for tragicomedy, or indeed any mixture of gravity and mirth, on the grounds that it pleased the play-going public ;° and, ' A' main argument of Guarini, see below, p. 39. 'Poetics, XIII. Translation of S. H. Butcher, 1898. * Cp. A. Donatus, De Arte Poetica (1630), Cap. LVIII, De Tragicowuedia. See also below, p. 31. ' Cp. Giraldi, Lope de Vega, Ricardo del Turia, below, pp. 29, 49, 51. indeed, if we examine the drama of today, we notice that the happy ending is usually still a first requisite for a popular play. While the Aristotelian recognition of a tragedy of )iappy ending was advanced in support of tragicomedy, the practise of the dramatists themselves in that regard was emphasized ieven more. The ancient drama afforded a number of trage- ^dies whose endings were "proper rather to Comedy"; and, > on the other hand, classical comedy could at times be con- demned for a corresponding overstepping of decorum. Even classical critics admitted that tragedy and comedy were not ; always pure. Scaliger, after stating that a genuine tragedy is altogether serious, adds that there are not a few tragedies which end happily, and many comedies which end unhappily tor some of the characters.® Vossius observes that tragedy and comedy were often of a mixed kind ; " comcedia, si vehe- mentiores recipiat affectus; tragoedia, si leniores."' Lope de I Vega, a classicist in theory at least, reproaches Plautus for I raising the style of comedy to a tragic loftiness, which Terence \ never does.^ Nicholas Grimald, the English humanist, defends the tragicomic character of his " Christus Redivivus " by citing the precedent of Plautus' " Captivi."" And d'Aubignac would correct the misapprehension that tragedy always ends unhap- pily, and comedy happily, offering examples from the classics in support of the point. ^" Among Greek tragedies of mixed character the " Ion," "Orestes," "Iphigenia," "Helen," "Electra," "Alcestis" of jluripides, the " Eumenides '^_and_l' Suppliants L5f_^sch3dus, and others, were repeatedly cited as proof that the ancients themselves did not always conform to the strict canons laid " Poetices (1561), III, 97. '' Poeticarum Institutionum (1647), I, xx, 7. Elsewhere Vossius states that there are two kinds of tragedy: "the pure, where there is nothing that is not tragic; and the mixed, where Satyrs are added, or which is given a happy ending." Ibid., II, xvii, 2. 'Arte Nuevo de Hacer Comedies (1609). Cp. Ben Jonson, Every Man out of his Humor (1599), III, 2. " See below, p. 24. "La Pratique du Theatre (1657), English translation, The Whole Art of the Stage (1684), IV, s. ^4°- down for pure tragedy.^^ And the fact that the characters appropriate to tragedy and comedy were frequently mingled by the ancients was likewise quoted by the defenders of the mixed drama. Guarini reminds his opponents that Sophocles introduces the lowly persons of comedy in the " CEdipus," and that in Aristophanes there are mingled characters, gods, citi- zens, rogues, etc.^^ Lope de Vega defends the mingling of high and low persons by the example of Plautus ;^^ and Scali- ger, in the same connexion, remarks that " novelty pleases us in things dramatic, even when a play is distorted to secure it."^* But besides tragedies and comedies that in one way or another overstepped the bounds of strict decorum, the ancient drama afforded yet another precedent for the mingling of tragic and comic. The Greek satyric drama of the tragic poets, judged from the sole extant specimen of that type of play, the " Cyclops " of Euripides, was obviously a composi- tion that united the motives of both forms. The humanists and Renaissance critics frequently described the satyric drama as belonging to a mixed species, part tragedy and part comedy. Perhaps the definition given by the sixteenth century humanist, Casaubon, may be taken as typical of the Renaissance view of the type. According to him, the ancient satyric play is a " dramatic poem, joined on to tragedy, having a chorus of satyrs, setting forth a notable action, partly serious and partly comic, of illustrious persons, in a merry style, and with an end- ing full of joy."^° Scaliger, commenting on the type as a by- product of tragedy, says, "there have been some satyrical "Cp. Giraldi, Barreda, Vauquelin, below, pp. 29, 51, 55; also Hugo Grotius, Sophompaneas (1635), Epistle Dedicatory, "/i Verrato, 1588 {Opere, II, 237). Cp. also Ricardo del Turia, below, p. 51. " Arte Nuevo, " In this we draw near to the ancient comedy, in which Plautus did not fear to place even gods, as the part he gives Jupiter in the Amphitryon proves." ^Poetices, I, 7. "De satyrica Gracorum poesi et Romanorum satyra (1605), I, 3. Vos- sius, commenting on this definition, adds that the chorus of satyrs dis- tinguishes the type from tragicocomcedia and the Phlyacographia of Rhinthon. Poet. Instit., II, xix, 4. plays which differed little from comedies save in the gravity of some of the characters. We have an illustration in the Cyclops of Euripides, where all is wine and jesting, and where the outcome is so happy that all the companions of Ulysses are released, and the Cyclops alone suffers in the loss of his eye."^* Guarini boldly claims the ancient Satyr-plays to be tragicomedies, and quotes the passage on the satyric drama in the " Ars Poetica "" of Horace as perfectly expressing the "nature and art of tragicomedy."^* The same arguments are advanced by Giovanni Savio, who declares that tragicomedy is an ancient poem, as the satyric drama is proved to be tragi- comic ; and that the " Cyclops " of Euripides, under the name of tragedy, is nothing more than a tragicomedy.^' The six- teenth century French grammarian and translator, Florent Chrestien, in his "Versio et Notse in Euripides Cyclopem," also terms the " Cyclops " a tragicomedy.^" In fact, one of the riiost important defenses of tragicomedy in vernacular criti- cism, that of Frangois Ogier, is based on the satyric example of the ancient drama; to Ogier the satyrical play seems only " a tragicomedy full of jesting and wine."^^ Apparently, then, tragicomedy could be justified by both the theory and practise of the ancient Greek drama; an added argument in favor of its classical parentage was the fact that it owed its name as well as its earliest expression to classical precedent. The invention of the word tragicomedy is usually ascribed to Plautus, who is credited with having coined the term in the well-known prolog to the " Amphitruo " : " What ? do you frown because I said that this would be a tragedy ? I am a god, and I will change it. From a tragedy, if you like, I will make ^' Poetices, III, 97. " " He who contended in tragic poetry for the paltry prize of a goat, soon afterwards disclosed wild Satyrs; and, uncouth, attempted jest, with- out sacrificing the dignity of his subject; because in this way, the spectator, having performed the rites of Bacchus, and drunken and lawless, had to be detained by allurements and agreeable novelty." (11. 220-4). " See below, p. 36. '"Ibid., p. 42. ^ Cp. Creizenach, Geschichte, II, 104. *' See below, p. 58. this a comedy, with all the lines the same. Do you wish thi^ or not? But I am too silly, as if I, who am a god, did not know that you wished it. I know what your mind is upon this thing : I will make it be mixed ; let it be a tragicomedy ( tragico comcedia^) . For I do not think it fair to make this entirely a comedy, where kings and gods appear. What then? Since this servant also has a part, just as I have said, I will make it be a tragicomedy." " It is to be noticed that there is no hint in this passage of the ideas that later came to be associated with the word tragi- comedy. Apparently Plautus uses the word jestingly, finding it a happy expression to cover up his violation of decorum in introducing the divine characters of tragedy in a comedy.^* The term was obviously ill-applied; and tragicomedy retained the meaning that Plautus invented for it only among the humanist lexicographers and the classical critics. Such an interpretation of the word is preserved in the definition of comedy given by Ambrogio Calepino : " If the persons of gods or rulers happen to be mingled in comedy, they are not properly called comedies, but tragicomedies."^" And d'Aubignac insists , that the only real tragicomedy is that invented by Plautus, so ^ The word appears thus in the MS., but it is to be noted from the emended Latin text below that this form of the word may be the result of an error of dittography on the part of the scribe, in which case the more logical tragicomcedia represents the proper form of the term as used by Plautus, ^ quid ? contraxistis f rontem quia tragoediam dixi futuram banc? deu'sum, commutauero. eandem banc, si uoltis, faciam(iam) ex tragoedia comoedia ut sit omnibus isdem uorsibus. utrum sit an non uoltis? sed ego stultior, quasi nesciam uos uelle, qui diuos siem. teneo quid animi uostri super hac re siet: faciam ut commixta sit; (sit) tragico[co]moedia; nam me perpetuo facere ut sit comoedia, reges quo ueniant et di, non par arbitror. quid igitur? quoniam hie seruos quoque partis habet, faciam sit, proinde ut dixi, tragico[co]moedia. Prologvs, 52-63. Plavti Comwdice, edited by W. M. Lindsay, Oxford, 1903, 2 vols. '* Altho, as Vossius observes, " In veteri tamen comoedia etiam Deum inducebant." Poet. Instit., II, xxiv, 8. '^ Dictionarum Latino Greecum (first ed., 1502). 8 that the modern so-called tragicomedy is a complete mis- nomer.^^ Romantic critics occasionally attempted to stretch the Plautine definition to conform to their own views of the type. For example, Giraldi states that the tragicomedy of Plautus illustrates the mixed type of tragedy recognized by Aristotle; and the anonymous critic of Speroni's tragedy of " Canace " likewise finds occasion to identify the Plautine play with the Aristotelian tragedy of double plot, and further claims that Plautus called the "Amphitruo" a tragicomedy not only on account of the mingled characters, but also because of the happy ending.^^ As mentioned above, Plautus is usually accredited with being the inventor of the name tragicomedy. No doubt the word was taken over by the drama of Renaissance Europe ■from the example of Plautus, whose " Amphitruo " was widely known in humanistic circles during the sixteenth century. Yet the Roman playwright cannot be considered the inventor of a name to denote a mixed type of play any more than he can be said to have been the first to mingle the features of tragedy and comedy. The name tragicomedy really owes its origin to the Greek comic poets, whose plays — dating from an era preced- ing Plautus — survive only in fragments or titles. The meager records of these lost dramatists preserved to us by Byzantine lexicographers throw a little light on an unnoticed chapter in the early history of tragicomedy. These early accounts indi- cate that a certain Anaxandrides,^* one of the most highly esteemed writers of the so-called Middle Comedy, wrote a play entitled Comoedotrago^diaf^ and that a lost play by a later Athenian comic poet, Alcasus,'" likewise bore the title of "La Pratique du Theatre {Whole Art of the Stage, IV, 5, 146). Cp. below, p. 185-6. " See below, p. 31, note 11. ^ c. B. C. 404-330. See Meineke, Fragmenta Comicorum Grcecorum (1839-57), I, 371. " KdifiifidoTpayifiSla. For metaphorical use of the word, see Porphyrius in Stobaeus' Florilegium, XXI, 28 ; also Porphyrius' Epistle ad Marcellem, above, p. ix, note 3. °° Contemporary of Aristophanes. Comcedotragcsdia.^^^^ Also, Dinolochus,^^ a celebrated Syra- cusian comic poet, is said to have written a play similarly desig- nated. Little may be gleaned of the character of these so-called " comico-tragedies." It has been supposed that they were comedies with some tragic admixture possibly not unlike the " Amphitruo " of Plautus, which very likely owes its name of tragic omoedia to some such precedent. Their main interest here lies in the fact that from them really dates the origin of. a name. to denote a play compounded of tragedy and comedy, altho it was the variant form used by Plautus that ultimately survived. Comico-tragicum, however, may be found on the title of numerous plays of the neo-Latin period, where it apparently was quite as popular as the reversed form of tragi- comcedia.^^ There is probably no connexion between the Comwdotra- goedia of these lost dramatists and the later Hilaro-txagcsdia^* of Rhinthon, a Syracusian playwright who flourished in the reign of Ptolemy I, King of Egypt (a. 320-285 B. C.) ;'° yet from the accounts of the Rhinthonica, as plays of this type were called, one may judge that they also represented some mingling of tragic and comic material. Practically the sole information about these plays is derived from early lexi- cographers,^^ on whose accounts Renaissance commentators based their conclusions regarding the type. The humanist Gregorius Giraldus states that the Hilaro-tragcedice of Rhin- thon were mixed of tragedy and comedy, "unde Tragi- comoedia dicta est."*' Donatus affirms them to be related to satyric drama, and to be of a middle nature between tragedy and comedy.*' And the impression generally regarding this lost species of drama seemed to be that it represented a mix- " For mention of the KwiupdoTpaytpSia of Alcaeus, see Lexicons of Harpo- cration, Photius, Suidas, under ASriip&yos. Cp. Meineke, I, 247. '^ Flourished B. C. 488. See Meineke, I, 247. "^ See below, p. 23. " VKapoTpaytfSla. °° Suidas, Lexicon, 1498. ™ Suidas, Stephanos, Donatus, etc. '^ Historia Poetarum, Grmcorum ac Latinorum (1545). ^ Prolog to Adelphorum, see Vossius, II, xxi, 1. 10 ture of tragedy and comedy, and was perhaps to be identified with tragicomedy itself.^" At any rate, the practise of Rhin- thon and his followers afforded another " classical " precedent to the champions of tragicomedy, and one which was made much of by Guarini and his followers.*" So much, then, for the various ways in which the ancient drama has played a part in the development and history of tragicomedy. It is quite evident that a name to denote the intermediate species is not the sole inheritence that the clas- sical drama has handed down to tragicomedy. Two other facts are evident: That the mingling of tragedy and comedy in some way or other far antedated the earliest of Renais- sance tragicomedies; and, that the defenders of'M;he mixed drama were not slow to make use of this ancient precedent to justify their own practise. On the other hand, the arguments advanced for reconciling tragicomedy with the teaching and practise of the ancients were as actively contested by those who opposed the free drama. For example, the opponents of the Italian tragicomedy scorned the idea that the new form could be accounted for as the offspring of the satyric drama. And, as the Hilaro-tragoedia was not a regular dramatic poem but a monstrous and abortive growth, nothing was proved by showing its similarity to tragicomedy.*^ The detractors of the " Pastor Fido " were also fond of quoting Cicero on the best kind of oratory, "turpe comicum in tragoedia, et turpe tragicum in comoedia;" and one critic wished to know how anyone could produce tragedy and comedy together, when Plato in the " Republic " expressly asserted that the two forms were so distinct that the same writer could not produce them separately.*^ Such objections continued to be urged against " Modern scholarship seems inclined to regard the Rhinthonica as ex- hibitions treating of tragic subjects in the spirit and style of comedy. Some half dozen surviving titles indicate that the subject matter was that of tragedy ; while the fact that they were called " merry tragedies " (,l\apoTpayipSlac) and " chatter-writing " i4>\vaKoypa edy and pure comedy. Again and again he reiterates that | "tragicomedy is not a compound of two favole, one of which is a perfect tragedy and the other a perfect comedy, nor is it a tragical history corrupted with the baseness of comedy, nor a comical tale contaminated with the deaths of tragedy, but itl is a mixture of those tragic and comic parts which can stand] together with probability." ^* With the great spread and popularity of the " Pastor Fido " this idea of tragicomedy was sown broadcast, and became part and parcel of the dramatic theory of the genre abroad. Its appearance in England will demand attention later. The continuance of the controversy that followed in the wake of Guarini's controversy with De Nores need call for no special consideration. It was largely concerned with a re- hashing of the arguments pro and con already advanced, and " De Nores, indeed, mentions a play by " a certain Spaniard, entitled Calisto and Melibea," as the only tragicomedy known to him other than that of Plautus, but adds that he does not think that " it is yet approved by the judgment of those who proportion poetry with reason and with the rules of Aristotle." Apologia, (ed. 1590), p. 29. " Cp. // Verato Secondo (Opere, III, 167). 42 turned from the general question of tragicomedy to the more particular subject of the "Pastor Fido" itself, without adding anything especially new or important to what had gone be- fore. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Paduan rhetorician, Faustino Summo, devoted two of his twelve "Discorsi poetici" (1600)^' to the questions of the dispute. In one he substantiated De Nores in decrying tragi- comedies and pastorals as illegitimate poesies by the rules of Aristotle, and in the other he critically dissected the " Pastor Fido " scene for scene. The same year saw the publication of " Considerationi intorno al Pastor Fido,"'"- in which the author, Giovanni Malacreta, advanced a series of critical dubbi, cen- suring the art and construction of the piece. Other similar dubitazioni were immediately added by a Paduan professor, Paolo Beni, in a "Risposta" (1600)^^ to Malacreta. In both these pamphlets the dispute turned entirely from the question of tragjicomedy, and centered on absurd bickering over such aspects of the play itself as the probability of the story, the morality of each scene, the characters, the length, the style, and above all the name of the piece. In the following year, 1601, two defenses of the play ap- peared. Giovanni Savio in an " Apologia "^^ reiterated Guar- ini's arguments with much fulsome eulogy of both the author and his production. This pam.phlet is in three parts. In the "Due Discorsi, L'uno contra le Tragicommedie , e le Pastor ali; L'altro contra II Pastor Fido Tragicommedia Pastorale deH'illastre Signor Cavaliere Battista Guarini. Di Faustino Summo (Padova, 1600), Guarini, Opere, III, S43-S96. '° Considerazioni intorno al Pastor fido dell'Eccellentiss. Sig. Dottor Giovanni Pietro Malacreta (Venice, 1600). Ibid., IV, 1-122. "■Risposta alle considerazioni o dubbi dell'eccellentissimo Signor Dottor Malacreta accademico ordito Sopra il Pastor fido con altre varie dubitazioni tanto contra detti dubbi e considerazioni, quanto contra I'istesso Pastor fido. Con un discorso nel fine per compendio di tutta I'opera. Di Paolo Beni (Padova, 1600). Ibid., IV, 123-300. '' Apologia Di Gio. Savio Venezianod. In difesa del Pastor Fido Tragi- commedia Pastorale Del Molto Illustre Signor Cavalier Battista Guarino Dalle opposizioni fattegli dagli eccellentissimi Signori Faustino Summo Gio. Pietro Malacreti, e Angela Ingegno. Divesa in tre parti (Venice, i6oi). Ibid., IV, 303-643. 43 first, the author champions tragicomedies in general. Why, he asks, if poetry is a mirror of human life, can it not be tragicomic? Is it possible that art wishes only to imitate the extremes, which are represented in tragedy and comedy, and not the mean, which is the perfection peculiar to tragicomedy ? Moreover, " all the world approves of tragicomedies, and loves and admires the ' Pastor Fido ' in particular." In Venice it has been printed fourteen times, in France not only printed but translated, and in England the same.^^ The second and third parts of the discourse are taken up with defending the " Pastor Fido " itself, maintaining that the play has unity, that it is not excessively long, that the nature of the story is tragicomic, that the title of " Pastor Fido " is well applied — a point of great dispute, — and lastly that the style is mediocre, that is, halfway between the styles of tragedy and comedy, and 'therefore, precisely suited to tragicomedy. The same exor- bitant praise of the play was maintained by Orlando Pescetti in a "Risposta" (i6oi)^* to the doubts of Summo, Malacreta and Beni, which thrashed over the already well-worn points of controversy without adding anything new. But it im- mediately brought forth a counter-reply from Summo in a republication of his former two " Discorsi " with a specific "Replica" (i6oi)^° to Pescetti; while, on the other hand, a third defense of the " Pastor Fido " by Gauges de Gozze of Pescaro is known to have circulated in manuscript about the " The Pastor Fido was not, so far as we know, translated into English until the following year, 1602. Below, p. 104. "Risposta D' Orlando Pescetti All'undecimo (and dodicesimo) de' Discorsi poetici dell'Eccell. Sig, Faustin Summo. Risposta alle Considerazioni Dubbi dell'Eccellentiss. Sig. Gio. Pietro Malacreta, Sopra II Pastor-fido. D'Orlando Pescetti. Scioglimento de i Dubbi del M. R. Sig. D. Pagolo Beni mossi contra il Pastorfido Nella sua risposta alle considerazioni dell'- Eccellentiss Sig. Dottor Malacreta accademico Ordito. D'Orlando Pescetti. Verona, 1601. "Due discorsi, I'uno contra le Tragicommedie et moderne pastorali, I'altro particolarmente contra il Pastor Fido dell'Ill. re Sig. Cav. B. G. Con una replica dell'istesso autore alia difesa del detto P. F., pubblicata sotto name di Orlando Pescetti et insieme una risposta del medisimo in difesa del metro nelle poesie e nei poemi, contro il parere del molto Rev. Sig. Paolo Beni, Venice, 1601. 44 same time.^' In 1603, a Sicilian, Luigi d'Eredia, arrayed himself on the hostile side with an "Apologia,"^' disputing certain statements of Guarini; and similar echoes of the con- troversy continued on into the seventeenth century.^* As late as 1625 we find one of the "Dialoghi"'* of Lodovico Zuccolo devoted to praise of the pastoral ; while at the end of the same year, Benedetto Fioretti (Udeno Nisiely) in his " Progin- nasmi Poetici " declared tragicomedy to be " a monster of poetry so enormous and counterfait that the centaurs, the hippogriffs, the chimera, in comparison with it have graceful and perfect parts."*" During all this time the fame of the " Pastor Fido " spread, and grew to be quite commensurate with the critical discussion that it had aroused. Its popularity dates from its first ap- pearance, and steadily continued in spite of hostile criticism, as testified both by stage performances — which became in- creasingly frequent toward the close of the century both in public and private theaters in all the chief cities of Italy — and more particularly by innumerable editions and translations of the text. In Italy the 1602 edition claimed to be the twentieth imprint of the play.*^ The seventeenth century produced not less than forty editions in Italian, and the next century con- tributed as many more. A French translation was made prob- ably as early as 1593;*^ in 1602 appeared Spanish and EngHsh versions; and later the play was turned into German, Greek, Polish, Swedish, Dutch, Indian and Persian, not to mention two Italian dialects and various renderings in Latin. The in- fluence thus brought to bear in commending the practise of "' See Rossi, p. 247, note 2. '^ Apologia di D. Luigi di Eredia nelle quale si defendono Teocrito e i doviesi poeti ciciliani dalle accuse di B. G. et per incidenza si mette in disputa il suo P. fido, Palermo, 1603. "See F. Foffano, Ricerche Litterarie (1897), p. 234; Rossi, p. 248 ff. °' II Guardino ovvero della eminensa delta pastorale, Dialoghi di Lodovico Zuccolo, Venice, 1625. *° Proginnasmi Poetici, s vols., Firenze, 1 620-1 639. Proginn., 51-S3 treat of tragicomedy. "Rossi tabulates eighteen known editions before this date. See p. 314. *" Rossi, p. 237. / / 45 tragicomedy to the romantic playwrights of the seventeenth century needs no further comment. (2) Spain To Spain belongs the distinction of having produced the earliest vernacular tragicomedy known, the famous " Celes- tina," entitled in the 1502 edition " Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea."*^ This composition, which is more a prose romance in dialog than a proper drama and could never have been in- tended for stage production, presents in a series of twenty-one acts the well-known story of the passion of Calisto for Melibea, its attairmient thru the help of the enchantress Celestina, and its tragical ending in the death of all the chief characters. While the plot turns on a romantic and tragical love story, the main interest centers more on the realistic picture of contem- porary life afforded by Celestina and the minor characters, in which respect the play is closely allied to Plautus and Terence. The Senecan catastrophe, however, destroys the force of the piece as a comedy, and hence the classification of tragicomedy, which the prolog of the 15 14 edition explains as follows: " Others have contended about the name, saying that it ought not to be called a comedy, because it ends in sorrow and mourning, but rather termed a tragedy. The author himself would have it take its denomination from its beginning, which treats of pleasure, and therefore called it a comedy. So that I, seeing these differences, between their extremes have parted this quarrel by dividing it in the midst, and call it a tragi-comedy." " This use of the genre name as an arbitrary compromise be- tween the claims of a piece to the title both of tragedy and comedy is common enough among early tragicomedies; but the Renaissance connotation of the mixed title practically always involves the happy ending as a first requisite. The " Celestina," therefore, due to its tragic catastrophe, is vir- tually anomalous as a tragicomedy; and can neither be "The first extant edition of the Celestina dates from 1499, but the play has been assigned as early as 1483. Fernando de Rojas is the supposed author of the greater part of it. For a full summary of the critical opinions as to date and authorship, see edition of H. Warner Allen (Library of Early Novelists), 1908, Appendix II, p. 303. "Translation of James Mabbe, 1631. 46 reckoned an important influence in shaping the form of later tragicomic drama nor the conceptions that were becoming as- sociated with that species, altho, due to its tremendous popular- ity and wide dissemination thruout western Europe in trans- lations and adaptations, it doubtless contributed to the spread of the name.*' The second link connecting early Spanish drama with tragi- comedy is furnished by a group of plays of the title name found in the dramatic work of the Portuguese playwright and actor, Gil Vicente. These productions, ten in number, date from 1513 to 1533 and are composed indiscriminately in Cas- tilian, Portuguese, or in both tongues. Eight are of the nature of festive interludes, written for special gala occasions at the court of King Manuel.*^ They are all slight composi- tions, animated and fanciful, drawing on classical mythology and medieval allegory for subject matter, and admitting a local element in some comic and realistic admixture. The other two are more pretentious attempts at actual drama, pre- senting episodes from chivalric romance and containing more of the elements of the coming national theater.*' In every case the title distinction seems to have been conferred with the same indiscrimination and lack of purpose already noticed in the earliest vernacular tragicomedies in Italy. Thus, while of considerable importance in the development of the Spanish drama, as tragicomedies Vicente's plays have chiefly a curious and historical interest.** " The Celestina was known in translated or redacted form in Italian, French, English, German, Dutch and Latin. Among the many later Spanish imitations may be mentioned one, a prose continuation by Sancho de Munon, which took over the genre name : Tragicomedia de Lisandro y Roselia (1542), reprinted in Collecion de Libros Espanoles raros 6 curiosos, Madrid, 1872, III. The influence of the Celestina in England will call for attention later. " Exortagao a la Guerre (1513), Cortes de Jupiter (1519), Fragoa d'Amor (1525), Templo d'Apollo (1526), Nao d'amores (1527), Serra da Estrella, tragicomedia pastoril (1527), Triumpho do Inverno (1530), and Romagem de Aggravados (1S33). "Don Duardos (1525) and Amadis de Gaula (1533). " On Vicente's tragicomedies, see Creizenach, Geschichte, III, 190 ff. ; Schack, Geschichte, I, 174-5; Lancaster, pp. 27-28, 156. The tragicomedies 47 So much for the tragicomedies that prelude the real national Spanish drama as it came into being toward the close of the sixteenth century. Tragicomedy by name does not seem to have commended itself to playwrights during the period be- tween Vicente and the first great master of the Spanish drama, Lope de Vega.^' Conditions had not made for interest in dramatic distinctions. The few attempts to create a popular drama had had no dependence on classical precedent or foreign example, but had followed unhindered along the lines of medieval heritage ; and dramatic theory was a thing yet un- known in Spain. Moreover, the dramas of this period are few in number, diverse in form, and undecided in character ; and, while some are of tragicomic plot, they offer no particular jinterest here. It was with Lope de Vega and his invention of 'the so-called Comedia de Capa y Espada that the Spanish drama first took definite and fixed form ; and it is in relation to this aspect of the national theater that the later question of tragicomedy in Spain has to do. The character of th e Cloak and Sword drama is well known. It is distinctly an outgrowth of the drame libre, national in ' spirit and popular in appeal, and with much the same inde- pendence of rules and precepts characteristic of similar devel- opments abroad. Personages from the upper walks of society occupy the leading roles ; gallantry is the moving force ; and the emphasis is primarily directed on the plot, usually an in- vented story of intrigue, comprising a sentimental or romantic interest, full of complications and action, and melodramatic in the extreme. As a type form, the Cloak and Sword drama is properly neither tragedy nor comedy. On the one hand, it is full of violence, fighting and bloodshed ; on the other, it has are reprinted in Vol. II of Feio and Monteiro, Obras de Gil Vicente, Hamburg, 1834. '" In fact, beside those already mentioned, only two Spanish tragi- comedies are recorded before Lope de Vega, about 1587. They are, an anonymous moral representation entitled, Tragicomedia alegdrica del paraiso y del infierno (1539) — imitated from Vicente's Auto de moralidade (1519) — and Juan de Timoneda's Tragicomedia llamada Filomena (1564), a sort of interlude treating the story of Tereus and Philomela. See De Moratin, Orlgenes del Teatro Espanol, Paris (1838), pp. 78, 94. 48 a happy ending and always admits some sort of comic by-play, often in the shape of an underplot shadowing the main design. Thus Lope, out of the traditions of his predecessors, devel- _oped a new kind of drama, which was independent of the stric- tures of Renaissance dramatic theory, and which in theme, characters, action and style was an intermediate between Re- naissance notions of tragedy and comedy. Yet in spite of its essentially composite character, the new form was almost in- variably denominated comedia, doubtless by reason of the prevalence of happy endings, which would naturally give the preference to the milder of the only two terms of dramatic nomenclature known to the national theater. Whatever the reason, among playwrights comedia grew to be the accepted denotation for every type of drama from farce to tragedy — excepting the religious auto — in defiance of its traditional connotation. Occasionally the more discriminating made use of the title tragic omedia;^° but as a rule all dramatic distinc- tions were dissolved in the one term comedia, which, as the seventeenth century progressed, came to be only an equivalent for drama in general.^'- Among critics, however — and by the time Lope was embarking on his public dramatic career, Italian criticism was beginning to claim its opponents and adversaries in Spain — the new Cloak and Sword drama, by reason of its mingled character, was frequently hailed as tragicomedy, and condemned or defended accordingly. This brings up the whole question of the critical dispute over the legitimacy of the Spanish national drama, which was waged thruout the first °° Schack, in speaking of the little discrimination used by playwrights in classifying their plays, notices that when Lope himself employs the term tragicomedia in the superscription, in the dedication or preface he returns to comedia. Ceschichte, II, 75 n. °'In 1668 Juan Caramuel Lobkowitz wrote: " Comwdia has a broader meaning than tragcedia; in fact, every tragwdia is a comadia, but the inverse is not true. The comwdia is the representation of an historical or fictitious event, and can have an happy or an unhappy issue. In the first case, it simply keeps the name of comcedia, in the second, it is called comxdia tragica or tragi-comcedia, or again tragcedia. Such is the true dis- tinction of these words, altho others can find fault with it." Primus calamus. Campanise, 1668, t. II (Rhythmica), p. 701. On this general sub- ject, cp. Morel-Fatio, La Comedia Espagnole du XVIIe SiMe, Paris, 1885. 49 quarter of the seventeenth century between the detractors of Lope, on the one hand, and his defenders, on the other, and which ended in a virtual vindication of the popular theater.^^ The national drama confessedly disregarded the unities, set at naught the authority of the ancients, and mingled tragic and .comic. The classicists protested, and the disciples of Lope arose in defense ; and thus ensued a critical controversy, which — it is interesting to note — so far as it touched tragicomedy, strongly echoes the earlier Guarini discussion. Yet Lope himself, while the inventor of a tragicomic type of play, was not the uncompromising defender of that species of drama as Guarini had been. In theory at least he was a classi- cist himself, but a classicist who realized the inadequacy of the rules for practical playwriting; and it is in this spirit that he formulates his dramatic creed and states his position in regard to the tragicomic character of his dramatic invention. Thus in the "Arte Nuevo de Hacer Comedias" (1609), he expressly says : " In mingling the tragic and comic, and Terence with Seneca (from which results a species of monster like the Minotaur), you will have one part of the piece serious and the other farcical. But this variety pleases very much. Nature herself gives us the example of it, and it is from such contrasts that she gains her beauty.'' The mingled drama, then, judged by the canons of art, is dis- tinctly improper, but the exigencies of popular taste demand it,°^ and, moreover, it is not wholly without support, for the example of nature sustains it. Such is Lope's apology for tragicomedy ; a more unqualified vindication he left to his later disciples. In the meanwhile, however, the rigid exponents of classi- cism were not silent. Lope's defense of his dramatic creed °^ For accounts of this controversy, see Menendez y Pelayo, Historia de las Ideas BstSticas en Espaiia (Madrid, 1884), Vol. XI, chap. X; Schack, Geschichte, II, 505 ff. ; Morel-Fatio, Les Defenseurs de la Comedia, Bul- letin Hispanique (1902), IV; Martineche, La Comedia esp. en France (Paris, 1900), chap. I. ■^ Elsewhere in the same treatise Lope declares : " After all, it is the public who pays for these absurdities, 'tis but just that it be served to its taste.'' 5 50 was followed by a number of critical rejoinders from classi- cists who contested his doctrine and harshly assailed the irregu- larity of the national drama, lamenting that modern play- wrights disregarded the rules of art to cater to the taste of the Spanish public, that they introduced kings in comedies and vulgar persons in tragedies, that their plays were medleys of everything and were contrary to reason, nature and art.^* Among protests of this sort, that expressed in the " Tablas Poeticas" (1616) of the learned Francisco Cascales may be taken as typical of the extreme classicist's abhorrence of the contemporary drama, its defiance of rule and its mingling of genres. The so-called comedies of the day, he maintains, altho they end happily, are not comedies; for they contain tragic adventures, revolutions, affairs of honor, duels, wounds, deaths, and like measures opposed to the comic genius. They are hermaphrodite creations, monstrosities of poetry. Nor can they be permitted as tragicomedies, for " there is no such thing in the world as a tragicomedy, and if that title has been given to the 'Amphitruo' of Plautus, it has been done incon- siderately." The purposes of tragedy and comedy are dia- metrically opposed and cannot be united. " Banish, banish," he concludes, "the monstrous tragicomedy straightway from your thoughts, for its existence is an impossibility according to the laws of art. I grant you gladly that almost all plays represented on our theaters are of this kind; but you will not deny me that they are made against the laws of reason, nature and art."== On the other hand, apologists of the national theater straight- way arose to contest these objections. In the same year of Cascales' "Tablas Poeticas," a certain poet of Valence, who wrote under the pseudonym of Ricardo del Turia, published an " Apologetico de las comedias espanolas,"^' in which he de- °* Cristobal de Mesa, Rimas (1611), and Cristobal Suarez de Figueroa, Plaza universal de todas las ciencias (1615), p. 515, and El Pasajero (1617) ; cp. also, Antonio Lopez de Vega, Herdclito y DemScrito (pr. 1641). See Menendez y Pelayo, XI, 433-437. '^Tablas Poeticas (1779 ed.), pp. 165-7, 187-8. See Menendez y Pelayo, XI, 429 ; Schack, II, 309 ft ™ Reprinted by Morel-Fatio, Les Defenseurs de la Comedia (Bulletin Hispanique, IV, 1902), p. 47. 51 fended the tragicomic nature of the Spanish drama with argu- ments taken directly from Guarini. The popular comedia he admits is no comedy, properly speaking, " but a tragicomedy, which is a mixture formed from tragic and comic, taking from the one the noble characters, grand action, pity and terror, and from the other the particular subject, the laughter and pleas- antry ;''' and no one," he continues, " can consider this mixture improper, since it is not repugnant to nature and to poetic art, wherein noble and lowly persons are mingled in the same story." Kings and servants are joined in the " CEdipus " of Sophocles, and even beasts are introduced by Aristophanes. Moreover, tragicomedy is not a composition of two separable parts, as some have thought, but a unified mixture blended ac- cording to the principles of philosophy.^* Nor need it call philosophy or metaphysics to its support or even the success- ful example of foreign poets, but it is vindicated sufficiently by its appeal to popular taste and its great success on the Spanish stage. °° Other defenders of the national comedia — or tragicomedia, as it was often interchangeably called — only reasserted the arguments of Ricardo. The independence of art from ancient rules on the ground that nature is the first and last guide of all poetry, is again maintained by Alonso Sanchez, in a contri- bution to an " Expostulatio Spongiae" (1618), published by the disciples of Lope in answer to an attack on their master. If Lope has discarded the ancient rules, he has respected the principal precept of art, which is to imitate nature ; and if the Spanish comedia is to adjust itself to the rules and laws of the ancients, it will run contrary to nature and the foundations of poetry.'" Much the same position is taken by Francisco de la Barreda in his "El mejor Principe Trajano Augusto" (1622). " Why should we not mingle the happy and the sad," he asks, ^"if nature mingles them?" Moreover, the ancients have joined laughter and tears, and united the noble with the lowly, " Cp. Guarini, above, p. 37. '^Ibid. "' See Bulletin Hispanique, IV, 48 fE. ; Menendez y Pelayo, XI, 467-9. " Menendez y Pelayo, XI, 459 ff. 52 as ^schylus and Euripides bear witness."^ And Tirso de Molina, in the last and most convincing of all the apologies for the Spanish drama, following the same argument, reiter- ates, "What wonder if the comedia oversteps the laws of its predecessors and constantly mingles the tragic with the comic, producing a pleasant mixture of those two opposite poems ? "°^ Thus the drama of Lope, vindicated by critical theory as well as by popular verdict, rode triumphantly over all opposition and became established as the national species. In retrospect the following facts are evident : That the Spanish comedia, as it took shape at the close of the sixteenth century, was a dra- matic species frankly irregular in more ways than one, espe- cially in mingling tragic and comic ; whence it came about that in critical opinion at least it was frequently identified with tragicomedy ; and furthermore, that in reply to critical assaults, a group of apologists arose, who, strongly influenced by Guarini, upheld the tragicomic character of the national species on three counts — ^the example of nature, the precedent of the ancients, and the approbation of the people; and lastly, that these arguments prevailed and the Spanish comedia remained a pure product of the drame litre. (3) France Tragicomedy by name appeared independently both in the Italian and Spanish vernacular dramas before it showed it- self in France, where its introduction is doubtless to be accounted for as one of the many literary heritages that the latter country owes to the earlier Renaissance activity of her two peninsular neighbors. Not until the middle of the six- teenth century is there record of a French play of the title name, altho it is certain that the form was not unknown — to the learned at least — ^at an earlier period.®^ Yet from the middle until the close of the century the frequent appearance of "^Ibid., 479-80. "^ Cigarrales de Toledo, 1624, reprinted by Morel-Fatio, Bulletin His- panigue, IV, 43 ; see also Menendez y Pelayo, XI, 473 ; Schack, II, 560. "^ For example, Rabelais, Pantagruel (1533), IV, 12: " Alors soyez prests, et venez en salle jouer la tragique comedie, que vous ay espouse." 53 so-called tragicomedies among plays of the popular theater indicates that the new name was commending itself to French vernacular playwrights even more generally than to their com- rades in Italy and Spain. And moreover, at the close of this formative period, tragicomedy in France had ceased to be sporadic, and was rapidly assuming the character of a definite dramatic kind, which was destined to flourish in the next century as the most popular stage form before the period of classicism. As this whole question of the origin and de- velopment of French tragicomedy has been made the subject of a detailed investigation by Dr. H. C. Lancaster,^* it will be enough here to review briefly the main facts of the situation and indicate their relation to the development of tragicomedy generally. Contrary to the precedent of Italy and Spain, where the earliest vernacular tragicomedies are found to be plays of secular theme, in France the first productions of the name are religious presentations of direct medieval outgrowth; and, moreover, of the same type are the majority of all their im- mediate successors, at least those antedating the ascendency of Alexandre Hardy on the Parisian stage about 1600,"° which may be taken as a logical terminus ad quern of the formative period of the species in France."" In other respects, however, early French tragicomedies differ little from their foreign pro- totypes. They are all plays of the indigenous stage, showing classical influence only in some aspects of external form, and having little in common unless it be the happy ending. Brief accounts of a few of the most representative may sufficiently indicate the general tenor of the group. As typifying the essentially medieval cast of most of early French tragicomedy, the two very first plays to bear the name are good examples. The " Tragique Comedie Frangoise de " The French Tragi-Comedy, Its Origin and Development from 1552 to 1628 (Dissertation, Johns Hopkins, 1907), which I have drawn upon freely for the material of this section. " Of the sixteen known tragicomedies cataloged by Dr. Lancaster as written before this date, eleven are Biblical or religious and only five secular. "Lancaster, p. 36, note 2. 54 rhomme iustifie par Foy," written by Henry de Barran in 1552, is a pure morality, given an act and scene division but displaying all the essentials of the medieval type: didactic purpose, character abstractions, symbolic action and moral struggle. Between the forces of good and evil man's fate trembles in the balance, but truth and righteousness prevail in the end and his ultimate salvation is accomplished. On the other hand, the second play of the name is a Biblical mystery, entitled " Tragi-comedie. L'Argument pris du troisieme chapitre de Daniel: avec le cantique des trois enfans, chante en la fornaise," the work of Antoine de la Croix in 1561. Barring the classical features of prolog, epilog and chorus, the play offers nothing distinctive over any other crude presenta- tion of Old Testament story; altho, as the title indicates, the subject is one of marked tragicomic possibilities — a fact of some significance in estimating the probable interpretation of the Plautine term among vulgar playwrights. As already intimated, the majority of sixteenth century French tragicomedies conform to the types represented by the above two plays, being essentially medieval in spirit, crude in construction and obscure in authorship. Yet one notable ex- ception occurs. In 1582, a regular dramatist, Robert Gamier, produced the " Bradamante," a tragicomedy which, as it most nearly anticipates the form of the later developed product, is usually considered the real starting-point of the genre in France. Here the subject is a tale of romantic love, taken from the " Orlando Furioso," and given a freedom of treat- ment surprising in a classical playwright. A complicated plot, serious action, comic admixture and crowning happy denoue- ment for all concerned, further identify the play not only with the conventional type of French tragicomedy as established by Hardy and his contemporaries, but with corresponding devel- opments in other countries as well. Doubtless to the author, however, it was the general departure of his piece from classi- cal dramatic form rather than the happy solution of tragical entanglements that called forth the mixed title. Be this as it may, the " Bradamante " stands as a tragi- comedy well worthy the name, and as such it is practically 55 isolated in sixteenth century French drama.'^ From the ex- tremes of morality, mystery and even farce°^ — ^which make up the sum of contemporary pieces of the title name — it is evi- dent that anything approaching a definite conception of tragi- comedy was far from existing in France before the seven- teenth century. Probably the name connoted to those who used it only an indefinite idea of dramatic freedom,*' and was reckoned applicable to any type of irregular composition that fell short of tragedy. A more positive inference would be hard to substantiate. France had as yet produced no critical exponent of the drame libre to champion the cause of tragi- comedy. Even recognition of the form in contemporary French criticism of any sort is rare. Vauquelin, indeed, in his "Art Poetique" (1574-1589), mentions the mixed play of happy ending — perhaps with the " Bradamante " in mind — but only to condemn the name of tragicomedy to denote it, since tragedy itself may end happily as ancient precedent proves.'"* It was well into the seventeenth century before the Guarini controversy aroused an echo in France. °' Many editions testify to the wide dissemination and long continued popularity of the Bradamante; and as an acting play it long kept the boards in the early seventeenth century. Cp. Rigal, Alexandre Hardy, P- 93- '"La Nouvelle tragicomique (1597) of Marc de Papillon is a farce, if a drama at all, °° This seems to be the idea conveyed by the following lines from the preface of La Nouvelle tragicomique, the sole instance of any expressed apology or explanation for the use of the title among these plays : Je n'ensuy en cette oeuvre icy La fagon de I'ardeur antique, C'est pourquoi je la nomme aussi La Nouvelle tragi-comique. See Lancaster, p. xii. '° On fait la Comedie aussi double, de sorte Qu'avecques le Tragic le Comic se raporte. Quand il y a du meurtre et qu'on voit toutefois, Qu'a la fin sont contens les plus grands et les Rois, Quand du graue et du bas le parler on mendie, On abuse du nom de Tragecomedie ; Car on pent bien encor par vn succez heureux, Finir la Tragedie en ebats amoureux : Telle estoit d'Euripide et I'lon et I'Oreste, LTphiginie, Helene et la fidelle Alceste. Lib. Ill, 1. 163 R. 56 It is evident, then, that tragicomedy remained an uncertain quantity during the formative period of the French drama. As yet it had existed only sporadically among various surviv- ing forms of the medieval stage, without having aroused criti- cal approval or special condemnation. But with the new era in French drama ushered in by the coming of Alexander Hardy to Paris in 1593, and with the impetus that the irregular drama received in his hands, tragicomedy enters on a period of new existence; its future is determined and its success assured. With Hardy and his contemporaries it^is the play of romantic theme and happy ending — ^the formula anticipated by the " Bradamante " of Garnier — that becomes the accepted vehicle for tragicomedy, and by the side of which all other types of the species sink into insignificance. ^TAs to Hardy himself, the virtual founder and the chief ex- ponent of the new kind, abundant information is readily ac- cessible in the able treatise of Rigal.''^ His dramatic activity at the Hotel de Bourgogne, extending from 1593 to 163 1, was the paramount influence in the formation of the modern French theater ; it broke the classical tradition and transformed the drama from an academic to a popular performance. In fecundity he was only rivaled by Lope himself f' and as about half of his forty-one surviving plays are tragicomedies, his real contribution to the form may have been — as Dr. Lancaster .guggests^' — proportionally enormous. Thus we may gain some idea of the importance of his position in the development of the subject. If Hardy cherished any theory of tragicomedy, it is not preserved. He was a practical playwright, bound by no literary laws or authority, and probably cared little or nothing for the theoretical side of the drama so long as his plays received the plaudits of the crowd.''* Indeed, a distinc- tion between some of his professed tragedies and tragicomedies is not always easily drawn, which goes to show his evident un- " Alexandre Hardy et le Theatre frangais i la fin du XVIe et au com- mencement du XVIIe Slide (Dissertation, Paris, 1889). " His plays are estimated by Rigal at seven hundred. " The French Tragi-Comedy, p. loi. " In his own words, " Everything which is approved by usage and the public taste is legitimate and more than legitimate." 57 concern for any guiding critical theory. The general charac- teristics, however, of his tragicomedies and those of his chief contemporaries, Du Ryer and Mairet, sufficiently indicate the conventional lines that the form was assuming in France at the beginning of the seventeenth century. ,— r..^ First of all, tragicomedy, being per se an irregular form,, displayed all the qualities of the drame libre: it confused the'i methods of romance and drama, exercised the greatest freedom in structure and materials, and threw overboard the unities and classical decorum generally. Secondly, the more distinc- tive features of the form comprised a romantic story of classi- cal or popular source, love as a main motive, personages of ' mingled social station, and the happy ending for the chief i characters, in spite of an action admitting violence, bloodshed/ and sometimes deaths. Such plays were directly akin to the " tragedies of happy ending " that Giraldi had earlier invented' for Italy, and not far removed from the contemporary " CloaH and Sword " comedies of Lope. All were independent out! growths of the irregular theater, and all owed their tragicomic character to the exigencies of popular taste, which was, mor^ than an)rthing else, the real raison d'etre for the form. ___^ During the first thirty years of the seventeenth century the number and evident popularity of tragicomedies of the type cultivated by Hardy and his disciples furnish sufficient evidence that the form — on the French stage at least — had attained the dignity of an independent genre. Yet not until 1628, the year Hardy's last volume appeared, did the new species receive the critical justification that defenders of the free drama had already given it in Italy and Spain. In this year appeared the famous Preface of Frangois Ogier to the second edition of the "Tyr et Sidon," a tragicomedy by Jean de Schelandre. As Spanish influence at this time was beginning to be rife across the Pyrenees, it is quite probable that this first French mani- festo of the irregular drama owed something to the earlier activity of the defenders of the Spanish comedia; and doubt- less some echo of the Guarini discussion had reached the author as well. At all events, the arguments advanced by Ogier in support of the irregular theater and its independence of classi- 58 cal tradition were already familiar abroad, and his comments on tragicomedy only reiterate the opinions that Ricardo del Turia and Francisco de la Barreda had earlier advanced in Spain. The fact that the ancients themselves invented the satyric drama as relief from pure tragedy, he maintains is suffi- cient excuse for the practise of tragicomedy, " which has been introduced by the Italians " ; and those who object to it on the ground that it departs from classical custom, are contending only against the name, for the thing itself is as old as the " Cyclops " of Euripides. Moreover, the mingling of tones and the variety of events furnished by the mixed species best represent real life: " For to say that it is unseemly to present in one piece the same persons, treating now of serious, important and tragic affairs, and straightway of ordinary, vain and comic matters, is to ignore the condition of men's lives, of whom the days and hours are ofttimes mingled with laughter and tears, with contentment and affliction, according as they are moved by good or by evil fortune. . . . Nature herself has shown us that joy and sadness hardly differ one from the other, since the painters observe that the same muscles and nerves that make us laugh likewise make us weep and put us in that sad state when we feel a great grief." A few years later another partisan of the irregular theater, the author of the anonymous " Traite de la disposition du poeme dramatique " (1631-2), similarly arrayed himself on the side of tragicomedy. But these treatises were the work of scholars rather than of playwrights. Wherein they treat of tragicomedy, it is only to defend the mingling of tragic and comic as a natural and legitimate practise, sanctioned by the example of nature, most agreeable to popular taste, and, if you like, supported by ancient precedent as well. No theory of tragicomedy or modern definition of it is attempted. What, in fact, appears to be the earliest French explanation of the species, it is interesting to note, is an obvious adaptation from Guarini. The preface of Mairet's "Silvanire" (1631) — a tragicomedie pastorale, by the way — in describing the play, states : " In regard to the story, ... it is not of two- fold con- stituency, but mixed, and in subject it is not simple, but com- posite. The mixture is made of tragic and comic parts, in 59 such a way that the two, blending agreeably together, have finally a joyous and comic catastrophe."'^ But by this time the critical war was already on in France between the classicists and the independents, which was to result a quarter of a century later in the triumph of classicism and the virtual abandonment of tragicomedy. With this ques- tion we are not concerned. It is enough to note here the out- growth of French tragicomedy from the traditions of the medieval stage, its development in the hands of Hardy into a definite and independent dramatic kind, its ascendency in pop- ular favor during the early seventeenth century, and its vari- ous analogies and points of contact with the practise abroad. '" Cp. Guarini, above, p. 37. An even closer imitation appears later in connexion with the Cid: " Ce beau et divertissant poeme, sans pancher trop vers la severite de la tragedie, ny vers le stile railleur de la comedie, prend les beautez les plus delicates de I'une et de I'autre : et sans estre ny I'une ny I'autre on peut dire qu'il est toutes les deux ensemble et quelque chose de plus.'' Georges de Scuderi, Observations sur le Cid, 1637. CHAPTER III The Beginnings of English Tragicomedy (1564-1600) In the preceding pages the various influences in the his- torical growth of the modern drama that contributed to the ultimate realization of a dramatic form known as tragicomedy, have been noted and set forth, and the early history of the new product briefly reviewed in Italy, Spain and France. Thus fortified, it is possible to approach the development of the subject in the national drama of England, which was the last of all to receive the innovations borne by the tidal wave of the Renaissance. It is the purpose of the present chapter to deal with the formative period of English tragicomedy, extending from 1564, the approximate date of the first ver- nacular play so named, to 1600, a convenient, if somewhat arbitrary, terminus ad quem} Within these limits, which set off a period when the English drama concerned itself little with dramatic distinctions and proprieties, tragicomedy cannot be said to have left a blazed trail. As in the corresponding stage of development abroad, English tragicomedies so-called of this period are few, sporadic, and dissimilar; so that an at- tempt to trace the evolution of the later developed product from evidence afforded only by the extant data dealing directly with tragicomedy falls short. For a more adequate under- standing of the beginnings of English tragicomedy, it will be necessary to supplement this evidence by noticing generally the mingling of tragic and comic as it appears in the early drama, and the relation of its various aspects to the develop- ment of the subject. As previously seen, the mingling of tragic and comic in one dramatic piece came into the Renaissance vernacular drama ' 1600, while denoting no landmark in the development of the subject, may be taken as the approximate date of certain changes in the drama that materially effect the growth of tragicomedy. 60 61 as the direct outgrowth of medieval tradition, while the appli- cation of the classical name of tragicomedy to denote the mixture was due to neo-Latin initiative. It is to the fusion of these two influences that the first tragicomedies in the national drama of England owe their being. If we disregard the nu- merous moralities and other belated irregular forms that carry on the tragicomic traditions of the medieval stage, and con- cern ourselves only with the plays actually denominated tragi- ', comedies in the surviving portion of the first real drama, our , foremost consideration comprises three plays, " Darnoa^aad Pythias," " Appius and Virginia " and the " Glass of Govern- , ment." It will be remembered that the earliest of these is con- , siderably antedated by an English neo-Latin Comcedia Tragica, the "Christus Redivivus'' (1543) of Nicholas Grimald; and also that an undated redaction of a continental drama comi- cotragicum, the " Sapientia Solomonis " finds a place in this early period.^ But both are academic productions, and, while of considerable historical importance, may be omitted here so far as the national drama is concerned. It is with the three plays first' mentioned that vernacular tragicomedy in England begins. An examination of them will show how the innovation gained its initial foothold on the popular stage. ___ The "Damon and Pythias" of Richard Edwards, acted at court by the Chapel Children in 1563-64, serves as a connect- ing link between the classical and the popular plays.' While undivided into acts, devoid of chorus, and admitting popular and romantic elements, it treats a classical theme, is com- paratively independent of the toils of the morality, and in style and diction shows traces of Roman drama. The prolog" gives an interesting exposition of the author's dramatic creed. After insisting on the observance of decorum, from which he himself "doth not swarve," he introduces his play and ex- plains its title thus : Lo here in Siracusae th' auncient towne which once the Romaines ^ See above, pp. 23-25. ' S. R. July 22, 1567, " ye tragecall coraodye of Damonde and Pethyas." Printed 1571. . 62 , Here Dionisius pallace, within whose courte this thing most strange was donne. Which matter mixt with myrth and care, a just name to applie, .As seemes most fit, wee have it termed, a tragical! commedie. The play is a " tragicall commedie," then, because the story is a "matter mixt with myrth and care," yet the author has previously taken pains to express his allegiance to decorum and the school of Horace. As Edwards was a scholar, he must have been acquainted with neo-Latin tragicomedies, which probably served him as a precedent for his vernacular inno- vation, and also for his explanation of the mixed title. Crude as the play is, its treatment of the familiar story of Damon and Pythias is a good example of the averted tragedy; the serious interest consisting in the peril hanging over the life of Pythias, which is fortunately warded off at the end by the timely arrival of Damon. Intermixed with the serious theme is a run of loosely connected farce and comic business; and it is usually taken for granted that the classification of " tragical] commedie " is due to this comic intrusion in serious matter, the mixture of "myrth and care." Mirth, however, was a word used so loosely in the early drama that it need not necessarily refer here to the comic by-plot ;* more likely it relates to the happy solution of the tragic situation, which would render the author's conception of tragicomedy more in keeping with that of his probable models, the neo-Latinists. In the " Tragicall Comedie of Apius and Virginia,"^ by R. B. — conjectured to be Richard Bower, a Master of the Chapel Children — we have another court play of classical theme, probably produced about the same time as "Damon and Pythias." This piece is much nearer a morality than the play of Edwards, admitting a Vice and several personified abstrac- tions among the dramatis personce, and, like that play, undi- vided into acts and scenes and showing little of the externals of classical structure. Furthermore, the author offers no ex- * For example, the morality Pride of Life similarly advertises in the prolog a " spelle of mirth and eke of kare," yet contains no comic by- play. "Entered S. R. July 22, 1567-8 as a Tragedy; printed 1573. 63 planation of the mixed title. Farcical scenes are freely inter- spersed, but have no connexion with the main action, which is wholly tragic, consisting in the voluntary death of Virginia to avoid dishonor at the hands of the wicked judge Appius. She is beheaded, and the head exhibited; but at the close of the play, the glory of her martyred name is inscribed in a tome by " Memorie, Justice, Rewarde and Fame," while an ignominious death overtakes the evil-doers. Thus, in spite of the tragic ending, the play is still a comedy in the broad medieval interpretation of the word; tragical indeed, but a comedy nevertheless, for the morality idea of a triumphal spiri- tual denouement is preserved, the wicked are punished and the innocent sufferer attains the reward of the righteous. Such must be the explanation of the title "Tragicall Comedie." Both the above plays were popular performances, acted at the court by children, and of the same general character in content and form." The third English "tragical comedy" is wholly different. The unique " Glasse of Gouernement. A tragicall Comedie so entituled, bycause therein are handled aswell the rewardes for Vertues, as also the punishment for Vices " (1575), the work of the versatile Elizabethan courtier and man of letters, George Gascoigne, is a belated follower of the Prodigal Son type of school play. Apparently it was only intended for a closet drama, as it is more a Calvinistic trea- tise on education than an acting play, and written in prose entirely. In form it is as regular as it is didactic in purpose. Some characters and situations are strongly reminiscent of Roman comedy, while the thesis is an exposition of the con- trasted lives of good and evil doers, with the moral end con- tinually kept in view. The plot is the story of two pairs of brothers who are placed under the instruction of a wise and pious pedagog. The younger two follow the moral teaching they receive, and pursue the path of virtue, while the elder " With them should be mentioned one other play, the lost Palamon and Arcyte of Richard Edwards, acted before the Queen at Christ Church in 1566. Judged from the dramatized subject, Chaucer's Knight's Tale, and the account of the performance that survives, it is to be classed with the author's extant " tragical comedy." 64 pair become incorrigible and soon fall victims to vice. The latter are despatched to a neighboring university in the hope of separating them from their evil influences, but there they only continue their perverse ways; and finally it is reported that they have reaped the wages of their sins. The virtuous sons, meanwhile, have become, one a secretary to the Land- grave and the other a famous preacher. In this way the author works out his moral thesis of the " rewardes for Ver- tues" and the "punishment for Vices" — a double outcome whose mingled emotional efifect is voiced in the concluding speech of the play: " I thanke you, Sir. My Masters, the common saying is, clap your handes ; but the circumstance of this wofull tragicall comedie considered, I may say iustly vnto you wring your handes : neuerthelesse a leaue it to your discretion." It is to be noticed that Gascoigne's apology for the title term does not follow that of Edwards. The " Glass of Govern- ment " is a " tragicall Comedie " because it rewards virtue and punishes vice, the two-fold outcome so characteristic of a morality, and later the underlying principle of satirical comedy, and which, in fact, is reminiscent of the Aristotelian " oppo- site catastrophe for the good and for the bad" — the ending prescribed by the philosopher for the second kind of tragedy.'' . It is significant that our first three English tragicomedies are all the work of scholars, men who had every opportunity to be familiar with Renaissance dramatic activity, both at home and abroad, in humanistic circles and among vernacular imi- tators. Bower and Edwards had been in turn Masters of the Children of the Queen's Chapel, while Gascoigne had studied at Cambridge and fought in Holland. All undoubtedly bor- rowed the name and the idea of " tragical comedy " from humanistic precedent, which conceived of the form only as a species of comedy that for one reason or another deserved the qualifying adjective "tragical." Various evidence serves to bear out the view that the vernacular tragicomedies were likewise regarded only as a form of comedy. For example, the title page of the earliest edition of " Damon and Pythias " ' Above, p. 3. 65 describes the play as an "excellent Comedie"; again, the author prefaces the play in the prolog with a discussion of comedy writing; and finally, we know from the contemporary opinion of Puttenham — later echoed by Meres — that Edwards's reputation was as a writer of " comedy and interlude." Simi- larly, it is plain that the idea of comedy was uppermost in the mind of Gascoigne in regard to the " Glass of Government," for both in the prolog and in the prefaced argument he so terms the play. Lastly, it has been seen above that the alteration of the tragic theme of Appius and Virginia for morality pur- poses had the effect of conforming that play to the broad medieval conception of comedy. Like instances of a distortion of the term in its modern acceptation are not infrequent in the later English moralities. The " Conflict of Conscience " (1581) of Nathaniel Woodes, which ends in the suicide of the hero, is called an " excellent new Commedie," probably by reason of the repentance of the protagonist before his death. "Tyde taryeth no Man" (1576), by George Wapull, calls itself a "Moste Pleasant and merry Commody," altho admitting a disastrous end for the unworthy; the same is true of the later "most pleasant and merie new Comedie, In- tituled, A Knack to knowe a Knaue" (1594); while "Old Fortunatus," tho ending in a moral tragedy, was printed in 1600 as a " Pleasant Comedie." It must be remembered that tragedy and comedy, not to speak of tragicomedy, were slippery terms at best in this period of the popular stage. The national drama that sprang from the conflict of the medieval forms of miracle and moral- ity with the revived classic models of tragedy and comedy, would ill fit into the definite moulds defined for the latter by classical critics. The natural result was a loose and careless use of the terms of classical nomenclature, and a confused and hazy idea of their real meanings. Many early plays show that often little or no differentiation was made between trag- edy and comedy. Of the three extant miracle plays of Bishop Bale, printed in 1538, two are designated comedies and one a tragedy, but with no apparent warrant for the distinction. Thomas Preston's "Cambyses" (S. R. 1569-70) is called "A 6 66 Lamentable Tragedie " in one place and a " Commedy " in another; while the title of the morality " All for Money " (1578), by Thomas Lupton, which advertises the play as a " Moral and Pitiful Comedie," is contradicted by the closing lines of the prolog, where the piece is styled " a pleasant tragodie." In the face of so little discrimination in the notions of tragedy and comedy, it will not do to assume a very sophisticated understanding of the term " tragical comedy " on the part of the few who used it during this period. Before leaving the early group of English tragicomedies, mention should be made of one other play of the period which clearly belongs to the same class, altho without the title dis- tinction. The "Promos and Cassandra" (1578) of George Whetstone, which could lay claim to the name of "tragical comedy " with the same propriety as " Damon and Pythias," is described in the title as "The Right Excellent and famous Historye, of Promos and Cassandra; Deuided into two Com- mical Discourses. . . . Wherein is showne, The Ruyne and ouerthrowe, of dishonest practises : with the aduauncement of vpright dealing." This play, which takes its story from Italian romance* — ^the same theme that Shakspere later developed in " Measure for Measure," was evidently intended for papular performance, altho there is no record of its presentation. It is even freer from morality elements than "Damon and Pythias," and displays considerably more feeling for classical form and regularity, being carefully constructed, divided into acts, and the whole separated into two plays, as Whetstone says in the preface, for the sake of decorum. But with all the author's boasted observance of decorum, the serious theme is accompanied with the usual medley of farce and songs characteristic of every popular play; and, while the author evidently regards his production as a comedy, tragedy is im- pending thruout. However, the tragic complications are finally resolved, no deaths occur, and the play ends happily in the reappearance of the supposedly murdered Andrugio, " The Hecatommithi of Giraldi, who dramatized the same story in his Epitia (c. 1562), a tragedia di lieto fin. Above, p. 30. 67 the pardon of Promos, judged to death by the King, and a general reconciliation. The most interesting thing in connexion with this play is the dedication, in which the author sets forth his theory of dra- matic art — founded no doubt in part on Edwards's prolog to "Damon and Pythias," and suggestive of some of Sidney's later criticism — and criticizes the state of the contemporary drama generally, that of his own country included. The fol- lowing passage from this document, in which the scholarly Whetstone assails the inconsistencies and irregularities of the English stage, is worth quoting here, as a contemporary critical estimate of the condition of the popular drama: " The Englishman in this quallitie (comedy making) is most vaine, in- discreete, and out of order : he fyrst groundes his worke on impossibilities ; then in three howers ronnes he throwe the worlde, marryes, gets Children, makes Children men, men to conquer kingdomes, murder Monsters, and bringeth Gods from Heauen, and fetcheth Diuels from Hel. And (that which is worst) their ground is not so vnperfect as their workinge in- discreete : not waying, so the people laugh, though they laugh them (for theyr foUyes) to scorne. Manye tymes (to make mirthe) they make a Clowne companion with a Kinge ; in theyr graue Counsels they allow the aduise of fooles ; yea, they vse one order of speach for all persons : a grose Indecorum, for a Crowe wyll yll counterfet the Nightingale's sweete voice ; euen so affected speeche doth misbecome a Clowne. For, to worke a Commedie kindly, graue olde men should instruct, yonge men should showe the imperfections of youth, Strumpets should be lasciuious, Boyes vnhappy, and Clownes should speake disorderlye : entermingling all these actions in such sorte as the graue matter may instruct and the pleasant delight ; for without this chaunge the attention would be small, and the likinge lesse." ' Whetstone's position, as voiced here, is well illustrative of the distorted ideas of classical notions of dramatic theory then current among many English scholarly playwrights, which disapproved of making a " Clowne companion with a Kinge," and yet did not forbid the union of tragedy, comedy, farce, and other incongruities in the same piece. Both Whetstone and Edwards, for all their scholarly acquaintance with classic drama and vaunted observance of decorum, leaned as much toward the dramatic traditions of the medieval stage. Such ' G. G. Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays (1904), I, 59-60. men were instrumental in founding the English national drama ; learned playwrights who sought by intermingling the tragic and comic to create a new type of play which would offer a tempered mean between the academic productions, which failed to appeal to popular taste, and the more prevalent forms of medieval extraction, which seldom showed consistent and articulate dramatic structure. To their precept and practise, tragicomedy in England is indebted for its initial exemplifica- tion. While the number of our early so-called tragicomedies is extremely limited, it must be remembered that only a relatively small proportion of the acted drama of this period survives. I Moreover, the mingling of kinds was not limited to "tragical I comedies"; almost no play of the popular stage is without I some mixture of tragic and comic. The medieval custom of inserting disjointed comic material in tragic themes to enliven the action and ofifset the serious interest, persisted thruout Eliza- bethan tragedy, and apparently was even associated with criti- cal conceptions of tragicomedy. Such plays as "Horestes" (1567) of John Pickering and " Cambyses " of Thomas Preston are examples of what may be called " tragi- farce," crude attempts at tragedy interspersed with independent scenes of pure farce. The title of the latter play, which reads, "A Lamentable Tragedie, mixed full of plesant mirth," well de- scribes the ensuing action : two of the eleven scenes into which the piece naturally falls are pure farce, and connected with the serious theme only by the character of the Vice. Such inser- tions of levity in the body of a play pervade practically all early dramas of a serious cast, whether tragedies, moralities or interludes. Often it is advertised in the title, as in " Cam- byses," or in the " Three Lords and Three Ladies of London " (1590), which is a "Pleasant and Stately Morall . . . Com- mically interlaced with much honest Mirth"; and not infre- quently the propriety of mingling mirth with gravity is de- fended at some length in the prologs. An early instance of the latter occurs in .the interlude of the " Nature of the Four Elements" (c. 15 10). The Messenger in the opening speech remarks : 69 But because some folk be little disposed To sadness, but more to mirth and sport. This philosophical work is mixed With merry conceits, to give men comfort. The same reason for the mixture of opposites is put forward in the prolog to Upian Ftilwell's interlude of "Like Will to Like" (1568): And because divers men of divers minds be. Some do matters of mirth and pastime require : Other some are delighted with matters of gravity. To please all men is ova author's chief desire. Wherefore mirth with measure to sadness is annexed. Again, " honest mirth " and " godly mirth " are advertised re- spectively by the prologs of " The Longer thou livest " (c. 1560) and "]\Iarie Magdalene" (1566) ; while the anonymous interlude of "Jack Juggler" (1553-58) apologizes for its levity by quoting the following advice from " Cato the wise " in regard to mingling mirth and seriousness : Among thy careful business use sometime mirth and joy. That no bodily work thy wits break or 'noy. For the mind (saith he), in serious matters occupied. If it have not some quiet mirth and recreation Interchangeably admixed, must needs be soon wearied, Therefore intermix honest mirth in such wise That your strength may be refreshed, and to labours suffice. Similarly comic scenes are admitted in the sombre " Conflict of ODnscience," for reasons that the prolog takes care to state : And though the Historic of it selfe be too too dolorus. And would constraine a man with teares of blood his cheekes to wett. Yet to refresh the myndes of them that be the Auditors, Our Author intermixed hath, in places fitt and meete. Some honest mirth, yet alwaies ware Decorvm to exceede. This whole subject of " decorum," which was made much of by classicists and pseudo-classicists of the day, deserves some attention, as it is involved in various ways with the critical side of tragicomedy. Decorum in the strict classical sense meant the observance of the various canons of ancient dra- matic art as set forth by the critics of the later Renaissance, 70 [such as the unities, the rigid severance of dramtic genres, the different elements proper to each, and more particularly, it came to denote a certain consistency to type and character — kings should speak and act as befitted their rank, soldiers as befitted theirs, and, the same with clowns, bawds, youths, and |the like. The main charge brought by scholarly critics against the English national drama, in the relatively few places where they noticed it at all, was its lack of decorum in one or more ways, but particularly in admitting one manner of speech to all classes of characters, and in mingling tragic and comic. Others, however, who also professed allegiance to decorum, apparently gave it a freer interpretation. It is seen above that Woodes conceives of a decorous admixture of mirth in a "dolorus history." Edwards, it will be remembered, in the prolog to his "tragical comedy," professes to adhere to the school of Horace, yet claims the right to mix "myrth and care." Whetstone, for decorum's sake, divides his " Discourse of Promos and Cassandra" into "two Commedies," and goes on to show that the Englishman in his play-making is all " out of order " and guilty of various indecorums ; yet his own play, in its mixture of tragic and comic, is as flagrant a violation of classical notions of decorum as those of which he accuses his contemporaries. And Gascoigne, while the author of a " tragi- cal comedy," declares in his " Certain Notes of Instruction " (1575) that "to entermingle merie iests in a serious matter is an Indecorum."^" It is plain that, whatever may have been the notions of tragi- comedy held by the first English writers' of it, the type of play cultivated by Edwards, Gascoigne and Whetstone was not regarded by them as a mingling of kinds liable to the charge of indecorum. It is rather " tragi- farce " and the indiscriminate mixture of mirth in serious matter, so commonly vaunted in the titles and prologs of the more medieval productions, against '" G. G. Smith, Elisahethan Critical Essay, I, 48. Gascoigne repeats the same idea in the text of the Glass of Government itself : " let me nowe see who can shewe himselfe the pleasantest Poet in handeling therof, and yet you must also therein obserue decorum, for tryfling allegories or pleasant fygures in serious causes are not most comely." Act III, sc. 3. 71 which critical utterances Hke those of Whetstone and Gas - coigne are directed. And it is this manner of mingling, but unfortunately under the name of tragicomedy, that, among the other shortcomings of the English stage, meets the scath- ing denunciation of Sir Philip Sidney in his momentous "Apology for Poetry" (1581) : " But besides these grosse absurdities, how all theyr Playes be neither right Tragedies, nor right Comedies ; mingling Kings and Clownes, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in Clownes by head and shoulders, to play a part in maiesticall matters, with neither decencie nor discretion : So as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulnes, is by their mu ngrell Tragy-c omedie obtained. I know Apuleius did some-what so, but that is a thing recounted with space of time, not represented in one moment : and I knowe the Auncients baue one or two examples of Tragy-coraedies, as Plautus hath Amphitrio. But, if we marke them well, we shall find, that they neuer, or very daintily, match Horn-pypes and Funeralls. So falleth it out that, hauing indeed no right Comedy, in that comicall part of our Tragedy we haue nothing but scurrility, vnwoorthy of any chast eares, or some extreame shew of doltishnes, indeed fit to lift vp a loude laughter, and nothing els : where the whole tract of a Comedy shoulde be full of delight, as the Tragedy shoulde be still maintained in a well raised admiration."" This passage, the most elaborate and important sixteenth century criticism of tragicomedy in England, on examination, seems to be directed not against the " tragical comedies " of the type already considered, but rather against such hybrid pro- ductions as " Horestes " and " Cambyses,'' which were much more open to the charge of the hap-hazard intrusion of clowns and the matching of horn-pipes and funerals.^^ But whatever manner of mingling kinds the critic had in mind, it was " mun- grell Tragy-comedie " that was forced to bear the brunt of his scornful denunciation; and it is perhaps for this reason as much as for any other that tragicomedy by name, from this ^ G. G. Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, I, 199. " That Sidney has no quarrel with proper tragicomedy, but even ap- } [ proves it, seems further borne out by a previous passage from the Apology. Before examining the various forms of poetry, he notes " that some Poesies haue coupled together two or three kindes, as Tragicall and Comicall, wher-vpon is risen the Tragi-comicall." And then goes on to add : " But that commeth all to one in this question, for, if seuered they be good, the coniunction cannot be hurtfull." Ibid,, I, 175. 72 time to the end of the century, practically disappears from the public stage in England. Such a far-reaching effect might not be altogether out of proportion to the wide itjfluence that the " Apology " is known to have exerted in scholarly circles for the quarter of a century after it was written. Thruout this period, Sidney is mentioned, quoted and praised in almost every critical work of importance ^' ; and while the " Apology " was not printed until 1595, it had circulated in manuscript among the learned of the court for a dozen years before, as evidenced by the critical work both of Puttenham and Haring- ton. It would not be surprising, then, if courtly playwrights, by whom the only preceding tragicomedies had been written, should have discontinued the use of a term that had met the critical obloquy of the chief man of letters of the day. Sidney's " Apology " is the only one of the numerous Eliza- bethan critical essays to make any mention of tragicomedy at all. Practically all the dramatic criticism of the period was content to confine its attention to the recognized genres of classical tradition; and England, unlike Italy, Spain and France, produced no defender of the national drama. Whether or not Sidney's rebuke to tragicomedy put a tem- porary end to its active existence under that name, it certainly had little effect in discouraging the practise itself; for, at the time when the " Apology " was penned, the kind of tragi- comedy that took its point of departure from " Damon and Pythias " was entering a new period of steady development toward an ultimate type form. Our knowledge of the English drama of the decade ante- dating our first great dramatist, John Lyly, is meager; but it is evident that during this period the preeminence on the "As to his influence in combatting the barbarous state of the English drama, a passage may be quoted from the address to Sidney's sister, the Countess of Pembroke, prefixed by Samuel Daniel to his tragedy of Cleopatra (iS94) '• Now when so many Pennes (like Speares) are charg'd, To chase away this tyrant of the North; Grosse Barbarisme, whose powre grown far inlarg'd Was lately by thy valiant brothers worth First found, encountred, and prouoked forth. 73 public stage of plays of everj-day life and didactic purpose was waning before the growing popularity of material of a more imaginative and entertaining sort, viz. : that furnished by romance. The romantic element — a convenient term for denot- ing the unreal and imaginative in literary expression in con- tradistinction to the familiar and merely commonplace — was to sound the dominant note in the English drama during the last , quarter of the sixteenth century. Its rise was largely due to the great influx into England during this time of the romantic j tales of the Italian novellieri. Beginning with Painter's " Pal- ace of Pleasure" (1566-67), the first English collection of novelle, the popularity of the new literar>' form is attested by the appearance of some eight similar works in less than a quarter of a century following. These collections of popular Italian stories, reenforced by the interminable tales of medieval romance, furnished an inexhaustible storehouse of material to Elizabethan playwrights, which they were not slow to turn to account. Thus may be explained the predominance of the romantic note during this period of the popular drama. Its importance in the development of our subject is evident at once. The ru ling_s^rit of romance is the very essence of tragicomedy. Foreign scenes, strange adventure, heroic exploit, impend- ing danger, love beset with difiSculty, idealized women; all are stock romantic elements that offer every opportunity for a blending of tragic and comic. While often purely tragic, the prevalent type of a romantic plot follows rather the mould of tragedy averted: heroes overcome the dangers that confront them, fortune smiles on youth and valor, and the checkered course of romantic love is naturally a tragicomedy.^* As an influence, then, in the development of intermediate drama, " Cp. the figurative sense in which the word is applied by Nash to Sidney's Astrophel and Stella in his Preface (1591) to the same: " Gentlemen ... let not your surfeted sight, new come from such puppet play, think scome to turn aside into this Theater of pleasure, for here you shal find a paper stage streud with pearle, an artificial heau'n to ouershadow the fair frame, & christal wals to encounter your ctuious eyes, while the tragicommody of loue is performed by starlight." G. G. Smith, Elisabethan Critical Essays, II, 223. Cp. also tragical Comedie as used by Greene, below, p. 82. 74 the contribution of romance is quite as important as that com- ^lg__from the tradition of the medieval stage. Curiously enough, the romantic note finds its first expression in English drama in the form of an adaptation of the first con- tinental vernacular tragicomedy, the "Celestina" (1502).^° This popular Spanish production is the source of " Calisto and Melibcea, A new comodye in englysh in maner Of an enter- lude," which was issued anonymously from the press of John Rastell about 1525, some half century before the romantic note entered England in force. Noticeable at once is the fact that the English adaptor does not take over the genre title of the original, probably because he has stripped his source of the features on which its classification of tragicomedy was based. For the English play is only a condensed version of a part of the original, which is further altered for moral purposes by a complete reconstruction of the denouement. A sudden repen- tance on the part of the heroine forestalls the tragic part of the action, so that the overwhelming catastrophe of the Spanish piece is completely avoided, and the play becomes a moral in- terlude, closing with a long " exhortacyon to vertew." On the other ' hand, the " tragical Comedie of Calistus," which years later called forth the following denunciation from the author of the Puritan tract, " A second and third blast of of retrait from plaies and Theaters" (1580),^" is probably some later version of the same model : " The nature of these Comedies are, for the most part, after one manner of nature, like the tragical Comedie of Calistus ; where the bawdresse Scelestina inflamed the maiden Melibeia with her sorceries." And it seems to be a literal translation of the original that is licensed to print in an entry on the Stationers' Register, Octo- ber 6, 1598, as the subtitle closely follows that of the 1501 edi- tion of the Spanish play:^'' "Above, p. 45. "Reprinted in the Roxburghe Library, English Drama and Stage (1869). The pamphlet has been assigned to Anthony Munday. " Comedia de Calisto y Melibea — la qual contiene demas de su agradable y dulce estiio muchas sentencias filosofales e avisos miii necessarios para mancebos, mostrandoles las enganos que estan encerrados en siruientes y akahuetas. Seville ed., 1501 and later. 75 " Entred ... a booke intituled The tragicke Comedye of Celestina. wherein are discoursed in most pleasant stile manye Philosophicall sen- tences and advertisementes verye necessarye for younge gentlemen Dis- coveringe the sleightes of treacherous servantes and the subtile cariages of filthye bawdes.'™ From " Calisto and Meliboea " there is a long interval of some thirty to forty years before the romantic element reap- pears in the English vernacular drama ; and it is chiefly in the early tragicomedies that it finds its next expression. Edwards's " Damon and Pythias," his lost " Palamon and Arcyte," Bower's " Appius and Virginia," unmistakably hark back to classical or medieval romance; while the plots of Whetstone's " Promos and Cassandra " and Wilmot's tragedy of " Tancred and Gismunda," find a source in the romantic stories of Italian novel. The close connexion that plays of romantic theme bear to tragicomedy continues to be evident in the few extant specimens of the less known predecessors of the romantic drama. "Common Conditions" (1570-76) and "Sir Clyo- mon and Sir Clamydes " (1570-84) are two dramatized ro- mances of this sort, which display thruout the element of im- pending but finally averted tragedy in the dangers and diffi- culties, fighting and rescues that befall the fortunes of amorous knights and distressed ladies before they are conducted to a propitious close. And the sole surviving court entertainment of the period, the " Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune " (c. 1582), likewise presents a romantic love theme involving the- usual element of distress and difficulty. It is an obvious reference to plays of this sort that occurs in Gosson's " Playes Confuted in fiue Actions " (1582) : " Sometime you shall see nothing but the aduentures of an amorous knight, passing from countrie to countrie for the loue of his lady, en- coutring many a terible monster made of broune paper, & at his retorne, is so wonderfully changed, that he can not be knowne but by some posie in his tablet, or by a, broken ring, or a handkircher, or a piece of a cockle shell, what learne you by that?"" "* A previous entry in the Stationers' Register, Feb. 24, 1591, of "A booke entituled Lacelestina Comedia in Spanishe," further attests the wide popu- larity of this well known production in England as elsewhere. For the influence of the Celestina in England, see A. S. W. Rosenbach, Shakspere Jahrbuch (1903), XXXIX, 43 ff. " Roxburghe Library, English Drama and Stage (1869), p. 181. 76 Some further idea of the vogue of the drama of romance during these years, and the material upon which it was founded, is furnished by the titles of non-extant plays. Out of a list of over sixty productions mentioned in the " Minutes of the Revels at Court " as acted between 1571 and 1584, some fifteen or twenty, judged by their titles, were surely dramatized romances. Certainly such names as " Paris and Vienna," " Cloridon and Radiamanta," " Predor & Lucia," " Herpetulus, the blew knighte," " the Solitarie Knight," " the Knight in the Burnyng Rock," "Philemon & philecia," "Percius & Antho- miris," " three Systers of Mantua," " Duke of Millayn and the Marques of Mantua," " Portio and Demorantes," " Phillyda .& Choryn," "Felix & Philiomena," are redolent of romance, both medieval and Italian. Many of these, it is safe to as- sume, must have been tragicomedies — whether by name or not — of the type of the averted tragedy. This, at least, may be said with assurance of " Paris and Vienna," if it followed — as it certainly did — the medieval romance of that name pub- lished by Caxton in 1485. At all events, it is plain that the romantic element, whicTi came to predominate in the English drama by 1580, is so closely associated with the basic principle of tragicomedy that the future preparation for the form is to be sought in the course (traced by this type of material. The indiscriminate mingling iof tragic and comic, characteristic of other forms of the pop- ,\ j ular drama, becomes now a matter of secondary importance in I the development of the subject beside the more unified blending ' of the two elements furnished by the drama of romance. From 1580 to the close of the century the mixed drama of the latter kind is chiefly exemplified in the work of Lyly, Greene, and lastly Shakspere. From the little that may be ascertained of the dramatic creed of John Lyly, it seems that he occupies a medial place — not unlike his best predecessors, Edwards and Whetstone — between the classical and the popular schools. Neither in precept nor practise does he endorse the rigid severance of tragedy and comedy that Sidney and other classicists of the time were enjoining, nor does he follow the careless jumbling 77 of species of most of his forebears. If he is not wholly in sym- pathy with the excessive freedom of the English popular stage, he turns it to good account in his own practise by mingling all possible elements of the contemporary drama — ^history, myth, farce, comedy, tragedy, pastoral — and yet with such skill that the mixture is not incongruous. Doubtless no one dramatic form could please the cosmopolitan taste of his Eliz- abethan audience, and hence he blended all. " At our exer- cises,'' he declares in the prolog to " Midas " (1589), " Soul- diers call for Tragedies, their obiect is bloud: Courtiers for Commedies, their subiect is loue ; Countriemen for Pastoralles, Shepheards are their Saintes. ... If wee present a mingle- mangle, our fault is to be excused, because the whole worlde is become an Hodge-podge." The prolog to "Endimion^'~ (1585) likewise waives all claim to dramatic regularity: " Wee present neither Comedie, nor Tragedie, nor storie, nor anie thing, but that whosoeuer heareth may say this, Why heere is a tale of the Man in the Moone." And in the " Prolog at the_ Black Friers" of "Alexander and Campaspe" (1580) occurs an echo of the morality custom of defending the insertion of mirth in serious matter : " We haue mixed mirth with counsell, and discipline with delight, thinking it not amisse in the same garden to sowe pot-hearbes, that we set flowers." So much for Lyly's confessed irregularity as a playwright. With all the versatility that characterizes his art, it is notice- able that he studiously refrains from touching on a tragic theme. Yet, amid all the allegory, myth, pastoral and romance with which he deals, some intrusion of tragic matter is unavoid- able. In "Endimion," "Midas," " Gallathea " and "Love's Metamorphoses," the lightness of pure comedy is considerably tempered with serious incident and situation, so that the action at times approaches the gravity of real tragedy.^" But of these plays, none sufficiently approaches the cast of tragicomedy to " For example, Endimion condemned to " sleep out his youth and flowering time," and the changing of Bogoa into a tree ; Hjebe condemned to be sacrificed in Gallathea; Midas' danger of starvation by the golden gift ; and the slaughter of Fidelia and the wasting of Erisichthon by famine in Love's Metamorphoses. Cp. Bond, John Lyly (1902), II, 261. 78 deserve more than passing notice as contributing to the devel- ^ogment of the form. A more historical interest, at any rate, is furnished by " Alexander and Campaspe," which, while first printed as a " Comedie " in 1584, in the second quarto of 1591 is given the distinctive title of " tragicall Comedie "^^ the first known instance of a reappearance of the term in the drama since the " Glass of Government " sixteen years before. This play, while admitting no situations tragic in themselves, is per- vaded thruout with a general atmosphere of seriousness, which must have given rise to the mixed title ; the tragic interest con- sisting in the uncertain fate hanging over the fortunes of the two lovers, Appeles and Campaspe, which at the end is unex- pectedly given a propitious outcome by Alexander's renuncia- tion of his love in favor of his humble rival. There is no evidence to show that Lyly himself ever conceived of this play — or of any of his others — as a tragicomedy; and, moreover, about the time the second quarto of " Alexander and Cam- paspe " appeared, Lyly's active dramatic career was ending. It forms, however, the one link connecting his work to pro- fessed tragicomedy. His contribution otherwise to the devel- opment of the form, while not considerable, is important his- torically in the impetus that his example gave to the vogue of the romantic drama. Savoring less of the court, and more broadly expressive of the distinct national qualities of the popular stage, are the plays of Robert Greene, which form the next step in the advancement of our subject. Greene's plays, in one way or another, are all illustrative of the mingling of tragic and comic so characteristic of heroic and sentimental romance. / Broadly generalized, they may be said to represent a tempered mean between Marlowesque tragedy on the one hand, and Lylian comedy on the other. None reaches the height of actual tragedy, yet none is devoid of a distinct tragic impulse. And in theory as well as practise, as will %e shown later, the author appears to consider the mingling of tones the working prin- ^The play was similarly entitled in Blount's 1632 edition of Sixe Court Comedies, and so classified generally thruout the seventeenth and eigh- teenth centuries. 79 ciple of all art. For these reasons, Greene's contribution to tragicomedy is the most important that the form receives before the seventeenth century, as a cursory examination of his plays will show. Even the romantic comedies, " The Honourable Historic of frier Bacon, and frier Bongay'' (c. 1589) and "A Pleasant conceyted Comedie of George a Greene, the Pinner of Wake- field" (1588-92), are not without a certain definite tragic admixture. Both plays admit violent deaths ; but in both cases the tragic overtakes subordinate characters, and is of no par- ticular notice, neither playing any part in the main action nor serving any purpose in sustaining the plot.^^ On the other hand, the extravagant romances of " The Comicall Historic of Alphonsus, King of Aragon" (c. 1589) and "The Historic of Orlando Furioso " (c. 1591) are suffused with tragic action, and yet end happily for their heroic protagonists. The char- acter of Alphonsus is a crude imitation of the Marlowesque type of conquering hero, whose course is left besmeared with blood; while Orlando is a knight of chivalric romance, who kills his rivals, goes mad, tears a shepherd to pieces, and per- forms other deeds of violence. Both present the machinery and spectacular horrors of a popular tragedy of blood ; yet the conquering successes of the heroes are unbroken by catas- trophe, their fortunes are brought to a propitious close, and the final wind-up of their stormy careers is a marriage and reconciliation.^' With the " Looking Glasse for London and England" (1594), the peculiar production that Greene wrote in conjunction with Lodge, we return to a medley of the later morality type, whose chief claim to our attention is due to the *' In Friar Bacon, the double tragedy overtaking the two young scholars, who kill each other after beholding in Bacon's magic glass the death of their fathers ; and in George a Greene, the killing of Sir Gilbert Arm- strong by the hero. ^ While both plays were printed as Histories, there is record in Dresden, July 9, 1626, of the performance of an English play called a Tragi- comcedia von einem Konigk in Arragona, which is probably to be identified with Greene's Comicall History on the same subject. See Creizenach, Die Shauspiele der englischen Komodianten {Deutsche National-Litteratur, 1889, XXIII), p. XXXV. 80 fact that the manuscript title page of a contemporary quarto edition styles the play " Tr. Com.," an evident abbreviation for " Tragical Comedy."^* The play is an exposition of the prev- alent vices of London and their tragic consequences, repre- sented thru the mirror of the story of Nineveh and the life of its wicked king Rasni. Moral exhortations to repentance, de- livered thruout by the prophet Oseas, are unavailing; until finally, Jonah appears — cast out of a whale upon the stage — who issues a warning to the inhabitants that prevails, and then is the conversion and repentance of Nineveh brought about. As the play thus roughly fits into the mould of the medieval play of serious theme and moral triumph, its chance classi- fication as a tragicomedy must be accounted for in that way. So considered, it belongs with " Appius and Virginia " and the "^lass of Government." But by far Greene's most notable connexion with tragi- comedy is furnished by ' jThe Scottish His torie oLIataes. the fourth" (1598), a play which lacks only the genre name to be tKe" mosTunportant landmark in the whole formative period oi English tragicomedy. In other respects, it occupies a posi- tion quite analogous to that of the " Bradamante " in France. Far from being a history at all, the play offers a sentimental tale of romantic love, borrowed from Giraldi's "Hecatom- iHiithi," and adapted to a pseudo-historical setting. As an interesting sidelight on comparative tragicomedy, it is worth while to notice that Giraldi himself dramatized the same romance in his "Arrenopia" (1553), one of his confessed tragedies di lieto fin.^^ While differing considerably in treat- ment, the two plays present the same tragicomic plot, which in the English version, briefly outlined, is this: King James of Looking Glasse for London and England Tr. Com. Geo. . , . By . . . Smythers Thos Lodge and Robert Green 159S See J. C. Collins's Greene, I, 142. ^ Above, p. 30. The relation of the two plays is pointed out by Crei- zenach, Anglia (1885), VIII, 419- 81 Scotland, cherishing an unrighteous passion for Ida, the daughter of the Countess of Arran, thinks to obtain her by ridding himself of his own wife, the Queen Dorothea. An attempt is made to murder Dorothea by the king's hired as- sassin Jacques, who — it is supposed — accomplishes his pur- pose. To avenge her dishonor, the King of England and the revolting Scottish peers declare war on James; but the battle is averted by the timely appearance of the supposedly murdered queen, who, by her intervention, brings about a reconciliation, forgives her repentant husband — ^who meanwhile has been thwarted in his designs on Ida by her marriage with another — and is happily restored to her throne. Here the tragic interest, instead of being confined to an isolated scene of secondary concern, as in " Friar Bacon " and " George a Greene," or taking the form or a series of slaughters, as in " Alphonsus " and " Orlando Furioso," is interwoven with the main plot, and, moreover, is happily averted in the end. The result is a per-H fected form of tragicomedy not again equalled until the time of Beaumont and Fletcher.^"* As a playwright, Greene, unlike his chief predecessors,; wrote without any well defined precepts of his art, as his free-^ dom and originality of treatment well attest. Yet from his practise may be deduced at least two general principles that appear to form his working basis: first, the happy ending, whatever the theme; and second, a tragic interest in every play. And in these two respects he is consistent in his prose romances as well, where, moreover, he again and again ex- presses the general idea, both in prefatory matter and text, that tragedy and comedy should go hand in hand.^° Yet trT "'^ As tragicomedies Shakspere's early plays all fall short of James IV. See below, p. 87. ^ Some examples are : " So (right Honorable) I haue mixed melan- cholie with Musicke, and tempered the brawles of the Planets with pleasaunt though tragical histories." Epistle to Planetomachia (1583), Grosart's Greene, V, 7-8 ; " Remaining thus quiet, though not satisfied, fortune willing after so sharpe a Catastrophe, to induce a comicall con- clusion, tempered hir storme with this pleasant calme." Perymedes (1588), Ibid., VII, 51; " Fortune who had wrought this tragedie, intending to shewe that her frunt is as full of fauours as of frownes ; and that shee 82 spite of these noticeable traits both of practise and theory, it is doubtful if Greene had any conception of tragicomedy as a dramatic species. Even the terms tragedy and comedy he steadily avoids using to denote his unaided plays; all are " histories." And in his prose romances, his use of the two terms is frequently indicative that he attached pretty loose ideas to them. For example, in one place, the happy discovery that two combatants are father and son he calls a " straunge Tragedie " ,-^^ on the other hand, the disclosure that Pandosto was lusting after his own daughter is described as a " comicall euent,"^* and much the same chaotic notion of the word is implied by the title of " Comicall History," which adorns the " Alphonsus." A similar looseness of meaning characterizes the sole instance in all Greene's work in which the term " trag- ical comedy " appears, as we find it used figuratively in the following passage from the " Carde of Fancie" (1587): " Melitta seeing y' Cupid began to fauour the cause of his clients, in giuing them such fit opportunitie to discouer their cares, went her waie, leauing Gwydonius the first man to plaie his part in this tragical Comedie, who seeing his goddesse thus surprised with sicknesse, was so galled with griefe, etc." ™ The expression as employed here evidently has reference to the plot of the romance, which is only a harmless love diffi- culty;^" yet the passage is interesting as showing that Greene was certainly acquainted with the "tragical comedies" of his predecessors, if he did not adopt the innovation in his own dramatic nomenclature.^^ holdes a dimple in her cheeke, as she hath a wrinckle in her brow, began thus in a Comicall vaine to bee pleasant." Greenes Neuer too Late (1590), Ibid., VIII, 60; "Pandosto . . . moued with these desperate thoughts, he fell into a melancholic fit, and to close vp the Comedie with a Tragicall stratageme, he slewe himselfe." Pandosto (1588), Ibid., IV, 317- '"Ibid., IV, 192. "Ibid., IV, 317. "Ibid., IV, 98. " Compare the figurative use of the word by Nash, above, p. 73, n. 14. " The same can be said of the dramatist Thomas Kyd, if indeed the authorship of the tragedy of Soliman and Perseda (1588) is correctly as- signed to him. In Act V, sc. 2, of that play occurs the following figurative use of the genre name : 83 As previously noticed, Greene's unaided plays all bear the popular title of "history," a term usually only implying that the subject matter was some sort of narrative. This con- venient and indefinite term seems to have had a great vogue at this period of the drama as the proper designation for all sorts of popular plays. Of the fifty-three non-extant plays entered in the " Minutes of the Court Revels " between 1576 and 1584, twenty-nine are "histories." Further evidence of the prevalence of this title, beside giving an interesting hint of the irregular character of such plays, is furnished by a dialog from the contemporary "First Fruits" (1578) of John Florio : " G. After dinner we will go see a play. H. The plays that they play in England are not right comedies. T. Yet they do nothing else but play every day. H. Yea, but they are neither right comedies nor right tragedies. G. How would you name them then ? H. Representations of histories without any decorum." '- Even the classical critic, William Webbe, in his " Discourse of English Poetry" (1586), appears to recognize plays of this name as deserving a place with comedy and tragedy: " Though there be many sortes of poeticall wrytings, and Poetry is not debarred from any matter . . . yet ... I may comprehende the same in three sortes, which are Comicall, Tragical!, Historiall." ^ It is obvious that the broad use of " history " to denote plays of no relation to the chronicles arose from the need of classify- ing the great mass of irregular productions that were neither right tragedies on the one hand, nor right comedies on the other, just as similar circumstances in Spain about the same time were giving rise to the adoption of the term comedia as a common classification for all plays of the national drama.^* Sol. Heere ends my deere Erastus tragedie, And now begins my pleasant Comedie ; But if Perseda vnderstand these newes. Our seane will prooue but tragicomicalL ^ Collier, II, 426, n. ^ G. G. Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, I, 249. " It may be recalled here that some of the early neo-Latin plays were classified as tragicomedies because they were " histories." Above, pp. 84 If Greene's plays may be taken as representative of the non- extant mass of " histories " of the time, it is evident that the term was frequently only a more popular name for romantic tragicomedy. It has been seen that Greene's treatment of romance ma- terial, whether as drama or novel, all betrays a more or less conscious mingling of tragic and comic, and that in one play, "James IV," the two motives are combined in a way antici- patory of the later developed form of tragicomedy. Before considering the final contribution of romance to the prepara- tion of the subject in the romantic comedies of Shakspere at the close of the century, we may first glance at a few anoma- lous plays of the same period that deserve some attention as intermediate drama of like character, all of which are of un- certain date and most of uncertain authorship. ■ Chief among plays of this group is the long popular and much discussed " Mucedorus," a professed comedy, but pre- senting all sorts of romantic adventures of tragicomic cast and even admitting death. A distressed princess is first beset by a bear and next by a wildman ; the hero, a disguised prince, slays both and also a would-be assassin; and after such trials the two are happily joined. Far more somber in tone and incident, yet short of Marlowesque tragedy, is the crude and uncertain production printed by Bullen as " The Distracted Emperor," which turns to medieval romance — Charlemagne and his peers — for its theme.^^ Dekker's " Old Fortunatus " is yet dififerent. It offers a tragic theme from romantic folk- lore, intermingled with a profusion of comedy and masque elements, and echoes the old morality idea of tragicomedy in crowning the calamitous end of its heroes with a moral triumph. Of all such plays, however, perhaps in the " Weakest goeth to the Wall " romance most nearly approximates a tragicomic resultant. Here a romantic plot is adapted to a pseudo-historical setting, and given the treatment of a chron- 21, 25. For general subject of the use of the term "history" as a word of dramatic nomenclature, cp. Creizenach, Geschichte, IV (pt. i.), 268 ff. '^ Old Plays, Vol. 3. Bullen entitles the play a Tragi-Comedy ; there is no documentary support for this. 85 icle history. The story centers on the career of a foundling son of an exiled Duke, who, after undergoing various romantic adventures in love and war, is about to be executed for a sup- posed violation of the law of the land, when a timely discovery of his true lineage brings all to rights, and a combination of events renders the denouement happy for all. As a rule, tho, these anomalous forms play little part in the growth of tragi- comedy. It is in Shakspere's early plays that the blending of tragic and comic in romance receives its consummating touch. With them the romantic element ceases to be the predominat- ing note in the English drama; and, accordingly, with them ends that development of tragicomedy that is identified with the course of romance. The early Shaksperian plays that deserve some mention in a treatment of the beginnings of EngHsh tragicomedy may properly be restricted to the " Two Gentlemen of Verona," " Merchant of Venice " and " Much Ado," altho the romantic comedies of "As You Like It" and "Twelfth Night" are not without the somber touches that must accompany the brightest of such plays.^° Indeed, the border line between tragicomedy and romantic comedy in Shaksperian drama is at best an arbitrary one. Both forms employ the same materials and turn on the same situations; their differences are in de- gree and not in kind. When the element of impending disas- ter, the invariable accompaniment of stories of romantic love, is turned to the darker purposes of tragedy, then romantic comedy may be said to stiffen into the cast of its stauncher sister.^^ Thus the sustaining serious element in the " Two Gentlemen "' In this connexion it seems significant to note that even in the Comedy of Errors Shakspere evidently felt it necessary to envelop the plot with a serious interest, altho that play is distinctly without our scope. " The distinction between romantic comedy and tragicomedy may be admirably brought out by a comparison of Shakspere's Much Ado with a later anonymous play on the same plot, entitled The Partial Lam (c. 1615-30). The latter is simply an elaboration of the traduced lady theme, stripped of the comic sub-plot, and heightened and intensified to fit the mould of conventional tragicomic drama. For this recently recovered play, see Appendix. 86 of Verona," in the events that lead up to the threatened whole- sale catastrophe in the last scene, pitches the tone of the play considerably above that of pure romantic comedy; while the means employed to relieve the final situation — an absurd con- version of character and a revelation of identity — are stock devices of later tragicomedy. Similar statements may be made for the "Merchant of Venice" and "Much Ado," both of which follow much the same general outline. Both are stories of youthful romance and humorous characters; both admit a dark and sinister sub-plot skillfully interwoven with the main theme; and in both the happy ending completely submerges the serious part of the action. The consummate skill with which Shakspere has combined the two contrary elements is particularly noticeable in the " Merchant of Venice." Here we have two actions, that of the caskets and that of the pound of flesh, the gay and the serious, working one into the other easily and naturally, and both reaching their culmination in the fourth act; and then, after the strained suspense of the trial scene, the triumph of generosity and romantic love com- pletely obliterates the memory of the threatened danger. In " Much Ado," the comic main plot, the story of Benedict and Beatrice, is sustained and braced by the sinister tale of the plottings of Don Juan against the fair name of the lady Hero. Again the mirthful and the serious are ingeniously united. The essentially comic scene of Dogberry and his associates is made the direct means, thru the device of overheard conver- sation, of averting in the end the impending disaster; and later the two plots are skillfully tied where the tragic accusa- tion scene is made the means of uniting Beatrice and Benedict. In both plays the pervading spirit of comedy is such as to forecast the character of the denouement. Even the momen- tary suspense aroused by the trial scene in the " Merchant of Venice " is hardly sufficient to raise any doubt in the mind of the spectator as to how the balance will incline ; and, moreover, it is doubtful if the Shylock of the Elizabethan stage was the tragic figure of modern interpretation. Certainly in "Much Ado " the happy outcome is never in question ; for immediately after the villainy of Don Juan is perpetrated, it is discovered 87 by the watch, and from that time its ultimate overthrow is felt to be assured. Thus, while the tone of pure comedy is too dominant in these plays to entitle them to the same importance in the prep- aration for tragicomedy as " James IV," they serve to show the artistic height to which the interweaving of tragic and comic material had developed by the close of the century ; and in this respect they prepare the way for the perfected form of tragicomedy that was to emerge later with the revival of romantic drama in the work of Beaumont and Fletcher. But to return for a moment to the non-romantic drama during the period just reviewed, we find that, apart from romance, in other forms of the national drama as well, the popular mixture of kinds is equally evident, altho contributing little to the formation of later tragicomedy. The English chronicle plays especially perpetuated the mingling of kinds inherited from medieval practise. In the old play of " King Leir," we have the same events of Shakspere's great tragedy deprived of their inevitable outcome, and treated in accord with poetic justice. Leir is restored to his throne, a like pro- pitious fate accorded Cordelia and her husband, while defeat and exile are the rewards of the wicked daughters.'* On the other hand, the juxtaposition of tragic and comic is character- istic of almost all historical plays of the period. The biograph- ical dramas of " Jack Straw " and " Sir Thomas More " are hodge-podges of tragedy and low comedy. The same is true of "A Larum for London," a chronicle treatment of the late sack of Antwerp by the Spaniards ; and in the realm of myth- ological history, Robert Armin's " Valiant Welshman " not only jumbles tragedy and farce, but, like Greene's "Alphon- sus,'' ends happily for its Marlowesque protagonist. Again, the serious portions of " The Troublesome Raigne," " The Famous Victories," Peele's " Edward I " and the " Tragedy of Woodstock," are all interlarded with comic relief, much of which is destitute of humor and full of grossness ; while some- ''In this connexion may be mentioned the old play of Timon (c. 1600), which offers a similar departure from the tragic treatment later accorded it by Shakspere. 88 thing similar is supplied by the Jack Cade scenes in " Henry VI." But in Shakspere's trilogy of " Henry IV " and " Henry V " the comic admixture reaches a height that clearly justi- fies its existence. In these plays the immortal Falstaff comedy, which is interspersed at intervals thruout the serious narra- tive, becomes almost as conspicuous as the history itself, and was probably intended to prove quite as attractive, if we judge from the titles of the early quartos. " With the humor- ous conceits of Sir John Falstaffe " reads the title page of the earliest edition of " Henry IV," and " Together with ancient Pistol " is the sub-heading of the first " Henry V " quarto. From this it appears that comedy held much the same expected and recognized place in chronicle history as that ac- corded "mirth " in the moralities and interludes. But of more historical interest to the subject are the two plays of the contemporary non-romantic drama known to bear the title of tragicomedy. The first of these is the well-known Latin college play, the Oxford " Bellum Grammaticale," which we find praised by Sir John Harington in 1591 and chronicled as acted before the Queen at Christ Church on September 24 of the following year.^" It is supposedly the work of the Oxford theologian, Leonard Hutten, about 1590; but far from being an original composition, it is only one of many versions of Andrea Guarnas's " Bellum Grammaticale," a popular school drama which appeared at Cremona in 1511, and in two cen- turies gave rise to upward of a hundred editions and revisions thruout western Europe.*" The unique character of the piece definitely sets it apart from the other neo-Latin tragicomedies ; and, moreover, the title distinction seems to be the innovation of the Oxford redactor. The prolog speaker announces: " We will give you a Tragico-comcedia, . . . not one which may draw forth tears, but rather excite laughter. For I am permitted to be the messenger of a sad and mournful war, in which Poeta and Amo, seditious "TSSot printed until 1635. See below, p. 145, n. 31. " For a full account of the history of this interesting play, see Johannes Bolte, Andrea Guarnas Bellum Grammaticale und Seine Nachahmungen, Berlin, 1908. 89 chiefs, grievously disturb the most flowering province of Grammar, not without the lamentable overthrow of the bravest Verbs and Nouns." " The ensuing conflict is grievous indeed for the contending forces. Nouns are deprived of cases, numbers, and the like, and Verbs suffer similar losses, by all of which the author ingeniously accounts for the present irregularities of Latin Grammar. It is easy to see how the allegorical and mock nature of the conflict might have suggested the mixed title to the Oxford redactor, whose familiarity with the name may be traced to earlier humanistic example. At all events, tragi- comedy appears to have been a comfortable denomination for the curious piece that later English versions chose to retain.*^ Our second tragicomedy is likewise an academic play and almost equally anomalous — the odd production printed in 1598 as " The Tragicomoedi of the vertuous Octauia. Done by Sam- )' uel Brandon." As the author was a classicist of the later school j of Samuel Daniel, Fulke Greville, Sir William Alexander and | the Countess of Pembroke — all of whom came under the in- j fluence of Gamier, the famous contemporary tragic writer in I France, and attempted to revive Senecan tragedy in England! as he had done abroad — it is strange that he should have at-J tempted a professed tragicomedy, a form in almost universal ill-repute among men of his class. The piece in the main con- forms to the rules of classic dramatic art: the scene is con- fined to Rome, a Senecan chorus is introduced, and the in- terest centers about the character of Antony's virtuous wife Octavia, deserted by her husband for Cleopatra. As the absent Antony nowhere appears on the scene, his defeat and death, which are reported, can hardly constitute a catastrophe for the play. The virtuous Octavia, on the other hand, with whom " Tragico-comoediam Vobis dabimus, nobis si aures et oculos dare est otium, Non quae lacrimas exprimat, sed risum moveat. Nam belli funesti et luctuosi sim licet nuntius. Quo florentissimam Grammaticse provinciam misere Vexarunt Poeta et Amo, seditiosi principes, Non sine lamentabili strage fortissimorum Verborum et Nominum. Ibid., p. 106. "See below, p. 178, note 50. 90 the main interest has to do, survives her misfortunes and is left alive at the end. Thus the play has something of the two- fold ending of the morality type, which is the only possible excuse for its classification as a tragicomedy. As there is no evidence that the play was ever performed, its influence in popularizing the genre name on the public stage is of course negligible. ' Reference has been made to the popular custom of enliven- iing tragic themes with comic by-play, a custom which per- Isisted thruout the formative period of English tragedy in defiance of decorum, and which seems to have been the "mun- I grell Tragy-comedie " so bitterly assailed by Sidney. Even in ^addition to the comic scenes printed in the text of such plays, improvised clownage and jigs between the acts of tragedies formed a common and expected part of the performance;''" but toward the end of the sixteenth century there is evidence of a growing appreciation of the unseemliness of such practise. The printer of the 1592 edition of Marlowe's " Tamburlaine " takes pains to say that he has purposely omitted from the text certain " fond and friuolous Jestures," which to him seem a "disgrace to so honorable and stately a historic";" while the point of view of Sidney and Whetstone in regard to the buffoon in tragedy is repeated in the following satiric thrust of Bishop Hall: Now, lest such frightful shows of Fortune's fall, And bloody tyrant's rage, should chance apall The dead-struck audience, 'midst the silent rout, Conies leaping in a self-misformed lout. And laughs, and grins, and frames his mimic face. And justles straight into the prince's place; Then doth the theatre echo all aloud, " Cp. Hamlet's advice to the players, where he urges that clowncs be allowed to " speak no more than is set down for them." The same custom seems to have prevailed on the popular French stage as well, as the following passage from J. Bodin's Six Bookes of a Commonweale (1576- 78) indicates : " Now adayes they put at the end of euerie Tragedie (as poyson into meat) a comedie or jigge." Translation of Richard Knolles (1606), Lib. I, cap. 1. "To the Gentlemen Readers: And Others that take Pleasure in Reading Histories. R, I. Printer. 91 With gladsome noise of that applauding crowd, A goodly hotch-potch ! when vile russetings Are match'd with monarchs, and with mighty kings. A goodly grace to sober tragic Muse, When each base clown his clumbsy fist doth bruise. And show his teeth in double rotten row For laughter at his self-resembled show." While instances of this sort may be cited to show the criti- cal feeling on the part of some toward the mingling of tragic and comic, nowhere in all the dramatic comment of the cen- tury, with the exception of Sidney's "Apology," is there any mention of the practise as tragicomedy, or any indication at all of a critical recognition of any such dramatic species. Even in all the dramatic criticism of Ben Jonson that finds its way into his early plays, there appears to be no passage that would seem to indicate that he had so-called tragicomedy in mind.*° These facts of criticism, coupled with the practical absence of the title term from popular plays of the last quarter of the century, are fairly convincing of the almost negligible vogue of tragicomedy as a recognized dramatic species in sixteenth "Satires (1597), I, 3- With this may be mentioned a similar reference that finds expression in the academic Cambridge production. The Pilgrimage to Parnassus (c. 1598-99) : " Enter Dromo, drawing a clowne in with a rope. " Clowne. What now ? thrust a man into the commonwealth whether hee will or noe? what the devill should I doe here? " Dromo. Why, what an ass art thou ! dost thou not knowe a playe cannot be without a clowne? Qownes have bene thrust into playes by head and shoulders ever since Kempe could make a scurvey face ; and therefore reason thou shouldst be drawne in with a cart-rope." Act V, 1. 671 ff. (Ed. W. D. Macray, 1886.) " One passage, however, in the dramatic comment of Cordatus and Mitis, which accompanies the action of Every Man Out of His Humour (1599), may be cited as illustrating Jonson's attitude toward the introduction of tragic situations in a comedy. The passage in question is called forth by the scene (Act III, sc 2) where Sordido is barely saved from his attempt at suicide. Mitis objects to this approach to tragedy as out of keeping with the nature of comedy, but withdraws his objection when Cordatus cites a precedent from the Cistellania of Plautus. Cp. also the close of the preceding scene, which seems to allude to the absurdities of current romantic comedy. For Jonson's later connexion with the name tragi- comedy, see below, p. 109. 92 century England. Moreover, from the scanty extant data deal- ing directly with tragicomedy, it is equally evident that the title name connoted no very definite, and certainly no uniform ideas even on the part of the few who used it. So far as these aspects of the subject are concerned, the situation may be more clearly grasped from a summarizing tabulation of all the known instances of any use of the term tragicomedy in England before 1600: Drama I. Academic plays : (i) Neo-Latin, Comcedia Tragica, " Christus Redivivus" (1543), Nicholas Grimald.*'' Drama Comic otragicum, " Sapientia Solomonis " (un- dated MS. Acted 1566?), Anon, redaction.** Tragic o-comoedia, " Bellum Grammatical " (c. 1590), Leonard Hutten (?), From prolog of MS.*' (2) Vernacular, tragicall Comedie, "Glass of Government" (1575), George Gascoigne.°" Tragi-comoedi, "Virtuous Octavia" (1598), Samuel Brandon.^^ II. Popular plays: tragicall commedie, "Damon and Pythias" (1571), Rich- ard Edwards.^2 Tragicall Comedie, "Appius and Virginia" (1575), R(ichard) B(ower).=3 tragicall Comedie, "Alexander and Campaspe" (1591, second quarto), John Lyly.°* Tr. Com. (Tragical Comedy), "A Looking Glass for Lon- don and England" (1598 quarto, ms. title page), Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene.'' "Above, p. 23. "Ibid., p. 24. ''Ibid., p. 88. '"Ibid., p. 63. '■^Ibid., p. 89. "^Ibid., p. 61. "'Ibid., p. 62. »Ibid., p. 74- ^Ibid., p. 79- 93 Non-Dramatic I. Dramatic reference: tragical Comedie of Calistus, "A second and third blast of retrait" (1580), Anon.=* Tragy-comedie and Tragi-comicall, "Apology for Poetry (1595), Sir Philip Sidney." tragicke Comedye of Celestina, " Stationers' Register " (1598).^' II. Figurative use: tragicommody, Preface (1591) to Sidney's "Astrophel and Stella," Thomas Nash."" tragical Comedie, "Carde of Fancie" (1587), Robert Greene.^" tragicomicall, "Soliman and Perseda" (1588), Thomas Kyd(?).»^ From the above data, the limited extent to which tragi- comedy was known and cultivated as such in the period under consideration, as well as the little uniformity in the ideas associated with the name, are readily apparent. During a period of over half a century, covering the formative era of the English national drama, only nine plays have survived as tragicomedies by direct contemporary evidence. These may be broadly grouped as academic or popular productions; but be- yond some such general division, classification is well nigh impossible, as they range all the way from neo-Latin miracle, school drama and classical imitation to popular romantic play and belated morality. Moreover, in three only — " Christus Redivivus," " Damon and Pythias " and the " Glass of Govern- ment " — is there any explanation offered by the authors for the adoption of the title term ; in two others at least — " Alex- ander and Campaspe" and the "Looking Glass" — the later addition of the genre name points to the printer rather than to the author; and of course the redacted " Sapientia Solomonis " and the lost " Celestina " adaptations or translations take over their classification from the continental originals. While dif- "Ibid., p. 74. "Ibid., p. 71. "Ibid., p. 75. ™7&iU, p. 73 n. °°Ibid., p. 82. ""Ibid., p. 82, note 31. 94 faring widely in almost every respect, all in common mingle the motives of tragedy and comedy, and in this regard — with the possible exception of " Bellum Grammaticale " — may be broadly classified as preferring one of two forms : They either follow the tradition of the medieval stage with its triumphant spiritual denouement and its double catastrophe for the good and the evil, as illustrated in " Christus Redivivus " and the " Glass of Government ; " or they conform to the conventional type of popular romance, wherein the course of idealized friendship or romantic love is conducted thru danger and dis- tress to safety and happiness, as shown in " Damon and Pythias " and " Alexander and Campaspe." Altho all our extant tragicomedies listed above may be made to fit roughly into one or the other of these moulds, it is obvious that the early conception of the form in England, as elsewhere, cannot be strictly confined even within these limits. According to Sidney, the " Tragi-comicall " arose from a coup- ling of the " Tragicall and Comicall"°^ — apparently the only requirement necessary for the product ; the manner of mixture being an individual matter in each case. At all events, only this broad basic conception of the form will fit alike the expla- nations of tragicomedy offered by Grimald, Edwards and Gas- coigne, the "mungrell Tragy-comedie " described in the " Apology," and the figurative sense in which the expression is used by Nash, Greene, and the author of " Soliman and Per- seda." Italian influence with its critical controversy over the theory of tragicomedy had not yet made itself felt in England by the close of the sixteenth century; and, with the exception of the Spanish " Celestina," it is safe to assume that con- tinental vernacular precedent was negligible in introducing the new term of. dramatic nomenclature across the channel. It is rather to the neo-Latin drama that we must look for the chief source of the first English " tragical comedies." But the beginnings of tragicomedy in England are not con- fined within the limits furnished by the collective evidence of the existence and recognition of the type by name. Conclu- sions based upon such data would be totally inadequate for an ""Above, p. 71, note 12. 95 understanding of the formative influences contributing to the later finished product. The mingUng of tragic and comic, the i basic principle of tragicomedy, is evident in almost every form t of popular play thruout the period reviewed — in morality, pop- ular tragedy, romantic drama and chronicle history, as well as j in the comparatively few so-called "tragical comedies." And/ it has been found that this universal characteristic of the national drama is explicable in two ways : first, the persis- tence of medieval dramatic methods and traditions thruout Elizabethan practise; and second, the character of material furnished playwrights by medieval and Italian romance. To the first influence is due the disconnected jumbling of tragic and comic characteristic of the later moralities, popular trag- edies and chronicle histories — a form of mingling universally condemned by classicists as a flagrant violation of decorum, and of little intrinsic importance in the development of tragi- comedy, altho apparently never entirely detached from criti- cal notions of the form. Also, to this medieval influence belongs the play of realistic theme and double catastrophe, rewarding virtue and punishing vice — the type illustrated by the early tragicomedies of morality cast, and the precursor of satirical comedy. On the other hand, the main preparation for later tragicomedy has been found to identify itself thruout with the second great influence underlying the mixing of kinds — that contributed by romance. The essential attributes of romantic material — its tragic complications, impending dangers, heroic exploits, suspended action, averted tragedy, happy end- ing — supplied the very qualities necessary for an artistic blend- ing of tragedy and comedy of the highest theatrical effective- ness, which in time developed naturally into a fixed form of tragicomedy. In the period reviewed, this course of develop- ment properly begins with the plays of Edwards and Whet- stone, is continued in the work of Lyly and the non-extant romantic plays of the seventies and eighties, reaches its highest expression in the "James IV" of Greene, and ends with the temporary cessation of the romantic note in the Shaksperian plays of the close of the century. CHAPTER IV Some Transitional Developments (1600-1610) The consummate expression of the drama of pure romance in the work of Shakspere at the close of the century, marks not only the end of a long period of dominance of that type of drama, but also the beginning of an era of conscious anti- romantic reaction, extending roughly from Jonson's innovation of a comedy of humors in 1598 to the advent of Beaumont and Fletcher on the stage nine or ten years later. During this interval we find the drama undergoing several notable develop- ments in response to altered conditions in social and national life and new standards of dramatic taste. The old imaginative idealism and patriotic fervor that had inspired the age of the t Armada had practically subsided by the time of James I ; and the chief playwrights of the day were no longer seeking in- spiration in the glories of England's past and stories of ro- mantic love, but were finding dramatic material in low London life and domestic crimes, or using romantic plots for satirical presentation of contemporary manners. Moreover, due chiefly to the example and precept of Ben Jonson, the drama was losing something of its old extravagance and grotesqueness and becoming more critical and regular. Jonson's ridicule of the absurdities and formlessness of the contemporary stage, his revival of classical canons of art, and his insistence on law and order in things dramatic, were not without influence among his contemporaries. A growing consciousness of art, a more critical attitude of mind, and often an expressed contempt for the absurdities demanded by popular taste, are evidenced in the work of the chief dramatists of the day.'^ The prov- 'For example, Webster sarcastically observes in his White Demi (1606) : My tragedy must have some idle mirth in 't, Else it will never pass. (Act. Ill, end.) And in his well-known address to the reader prefaced to the play in 1612, 97 inces of tragedy and comedy become more clearly defined and more generally respected, and for the first time the distinction between a narrative and a dramatic fable gains positive recog- nition. - - — During this transitional period when the drama was thus changing in tone and progressing in technic, the tragicomic tradition of the past, denied expression in romance, to some extent found a continued development in the new prevailing types. Domestic comedy frequently dealt with tragic events, problematic reconciliation plays became popular, while the satirical comedy of manners adapted from romantic plots gave equal opportunity for tragedy and for comedy. Moreover, tragicomedy by name was gaining headway as a result of direct foreign infiuence. All these several developments of the first seven or eight years of the century deserve some notice as leading up to the real outburst of EngHsh tragicomedy in the work of Beaumont and Fletcher. Turning first to the purely dome stic drama of the time, we encounter at least one well-defined group of plays belonging to the sphere of intermediaite drama. ♦ A neutral tone is the universal characteristic of plays turning on the theme of the faithful wife and prodigal husband, or some variation of the same popular motive, which, beginning with " Patient Grissel " (1599), runs thru quite a series of later productions.^ All are recondliaticm_dra|nas, but range in tone from simple pathos untouched by tragic impulse, as in " Patient Grissel " or the "Wise Woman of Hogsdon" (c. 1604), to the dignity of actual tragedy as in " A Woman Killed with Kindness " ( 1607) . As standing between these two extremes, may be considered three plays, all of uncertain authorship and all repetitions of the same stock theme : " How a Man may Choose a Good he makes it plain that the exigencies of popular taste render the execu- tion of a true dramatic poem impossible, and that he is forced to sacrifice the principles of his art on account of the " uncapable multitude." Other evidence of the sort indicates that the same theory of dramatic art that Lope de Vega was proclaiming as necessary in Spain about this time was finding an echo in England. ' For an account of these plays, see ed. of The Faire maide of Bristow by A. H. Quinn (Dissertation, Pennsylvania, 1902). 98 Wife from a Bad" (1602), the "Fair Maid of Bristow " (1605) and the "London Prodigal" (1605). The motive in each turns on the story of a prodigal husband who ill-treats or even attempts to murder his faithful wife, and after suf- fering for his sins, repents and is forgiven. The thing to note in all is the adaptation of a familiar device from Italian ro- mance: the timely reappearance of the supposedly murdered wife, who intercedes for her husband on trial for his crime, saves his life and brings about the reconciliation. This, it will be remembered, is a tragicomic device used so effectively by Giraldi, and the main-spring of the action in Greene's " James IV." By its adoption in these three domestic plays, actual tragedy is skillfully avoided and the reconciliation made com- plete. In the " Miseries of Enforced Marriage " (1607), how- ever, a play of similar theme by George Wilkins, the path to final repentance and forgiveness is clouded by the suicide of a deserted betrothed ; and in Heywood's " A Woman Killed with Kindness," a reversal of the faithful wife motive, the denouement shows the wronged husband forgiving his repent- ant wife on her deathbed. But the stamp of actual tragicomedy perhaps finds its closest approximation during these years among so-called satirical or realistic co medies, due to the tragic admixture that necessarily finds its way into such plays. Even in Ben Jonson's work, where the demarcation between tragedy and comedy is most definitely positive, there is one play, " Volpone " (1605), in which the tone of the action and the catastrophe are such as to arouse the query whether the play is not as much tragedy as comedy, and even to call from the author an apology for the juggling of decorum that the sequence of events imposed upon him.^ The fact that romantic plots were frequently com- ' " And though my catastrophe may, in the strict rigour of comick law, meet with censure, as turning back to my promise ; I desire the learned, and charitable critick to haue so much faith in me, to thinke it was done off Industrie : For, with what ease I could have varied it, neerer his scale (but that I feare to boast my owne faculty) I could here insert. But my speciall ayme being to put the snafHe in their mouths, that crie out, we neuer punish vice in our enterludes, &c. I tooke the more liberty; though not without some lines of example, drawne euen in the bined with satiric purpose gave added opportunity for a result- ing tragicomic effect. The best specimen of plays of this type is undoubtedly M.arstQrils.JlMakeiltent" (acted 1601), which has added interest in being entered on the Stationers' Register in 1604 as a " Tragicomedia." The scene is laid in Italy, and the plot has to do with the means by which Altofronto, the deposed Duke of Geneva, regains his dukedom by settling at his own court in the disguise of a malcontent, and unmasking to his usurper the villainous intrigues of Mendoza, an upstart courtier, who is aiming at his overthrow. Together they thwart the machinations of the villain ; and when the Malcon- tent finally has the situation well in hand, he discloses his identity, forgives his penitent usurper, and even refuses to stoop to take vengeance on the arch-miscreant Mendoza, whose evil designs have almost caused a succession of bloody trage- dies. The play is a theme of villainous plotting thruout, which, together with the interwoven shameful intrigues of the wanton duchess Aurelia, the stabbing of the young gallant, and the cynical and ironical tone with which the author has suffused the whole, combine to give the effect of a tragedy of blood, perverted by the happy ending but not stripped of a horrible- realism. Considered individually, the " Malcontent " is cer- tainly a tragicomedy of remarkable construction and power, but not of the kind destined soon to absorb the attention of Jacobean playwrights. Far less somber than this play and yet akin to it in some ways is Chapman's J' Gentlemaiti._Uslier_'' (c. 1602), a production which takes its title from its main comic figure, Bassiolo, a " humorous " character of some generic resemblance to the Malcontent. This play combines a comedy of humors with a story of romantic love, which supplies the serious interest. Again, an intriguing villain is the root of all the evil. He is the unworthy counsellor of the Duke Alphonsus, who unfortunately cherishes a passion for Margaret, the same fair lady to whom his son, the Prince ancients themselues, the goings out of whose comoedies are not alwaies ioyfull, but oft-times, the bawdes, the seruants, the riuals, yea, and the masters are mulcted : and fitly, it being the office of a comick-Poet, to imitate iustice, and instruct to life, as well as puritie of langu^e, or stirre up gentle affections." Dedication, 100 Vincentio, is betrothed. At the dimax when the young lovers are discovered, the Prince is mortally wounded by the villain, and Margaret straightway disfigures her beauty by a poisonous ointment in order to avoid a worse fate. But at this point the disastrous state of affairs shifts completely, with something of the suddenness and surprise later employed so effectively in tragicomedy by Beaumont and Fletcher. By a resort to the supernatural, a deus ex machina appears in the shape of a wonder-working physician, who heals the Prince's wound and restores the beauty of Margaret. The Duke is now recon- ciled, and the play ends happily in the marriage of the lovers. Two other plays of the same authors may also be glanced at here as types of satirical comedy admitting tragic devices, but showing less of any real tragicomic character. In Marston's " Dutch Courtesan " (1605) a man is bidden to kill his closest friend, and he in turn narrowly escapes a similar fate ; but the tone of the play, in marked contrast to the " Malcontent," is so completely that of light comedy that the somber parts com- pletely lose their tragic force. Likewise, Chapman's " Widow's Tears" (1605) is essentially a satirical comedy in romantic dress, but presents in the under-plot the ghastly situation of a wife walling herself up to die in the tomb of her supposedly murdered husband, a device that belongs rather to the ma- chinery of tragic horrors. A play of darker cast and more serious complications is Shakspere's "Measure for Measure " (c. 1604), a more ingenious handling of the same repellent theme of villany and lust earlier dramatized by Giraldi and Whetstone. Again we have a disguised Duke who thwarts the evil designs of a villain, and in the end saves the innocent from tragic fate and pardons the guilty. The tone is serious thruout and tragic situations are plenty ; but the plot is stripped of the real theatrical effectiveness of tragicomedy by the interposed soliloquies of the Duke, which act as a kind of chorus and forecast for the audience the happy solution of the difficul- ties. The same machinery is employed in Middleton's "Phoenix" (1607), a social satire on current corruptions located in Ferrara. The Prince, who has ostensibly set out to travel, remains in disguise at home, where he discovers much 101 villainy undermining the dukedom, and is even hired to murder his father. Thus he is enabled at the climax to unmask and frustrate the plots of the evil-doers. They are apprehended, and the arch-intriguer merely banished, as in the " Malcon- tent " and the " Gentleman Usher," as beneath other punish- ment. Real suspended action is more nearly approximated in a play of the same type, if less romantic, by Edward Sharp- ham, called the "Fleire" (1605-06). This piece centers the scene in London, and concerns the fortunes of a deposed Italian duke in disguise and the love aflfairs of his two daugh- ters. The play has all the appearance of a comedy of man- ners until the fourth act; but here the action takes a tragic turn which is not relaxed until the very conclusion, when the supposed dead are discovered to live, the condemned released, and everything settled happily. Other examples of mingled drama during this period might be multiplied at some length; but the above mention of the more obvious mixtures of tragic and comic are sufficient to show that the pervading romantic influence of the past century had the effect of continuing the tragicomic tradition in plays of a more pronounced domestic, realistic or satirical tone. In almost every case in the plays we have been considering, the tragic interest is directly traceable to romantic precedent; and frequently it involves only a repetition of the same situations and devices. Moreover, it is noticeable that the sustaining tragic element is handled with a varying degree of dramatic skill ; only occasionally is there evidence of the author's appre- ciation of its value as a device for theatrical effectiveness^ The skillful interweaving of tragic and comic to produce the most telling effects of suspense, reverse, surprise — the essentials of tragicomedy — still awaited a more masterful hand. _____ Reference has been made to the increased critical spirit in the drama of this period and the greater feeling for conceptions of dramatic genres; yet in the main, it appears that the more national playwrights still concerned themselves little about fine dramatic distinctions. Tragedy and comedy, while roughly differentiated, could still denote a multitude of varying types, and were used rather with the ending of the plot in mind than 102 the character of the action. Beyond such broad divisions, it seems that Shakspere, for example, found endeavors to define and segregate dramatic kinds ridiculous. Thus the pedantic Polonius commends the players for their versatile knowledge of "tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, his- torical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical- pastoral, etc."* All of Shakspere's plays are grouped by the editors of the first folio in 1623 under the three heads — ^trage- dies, comedies, histories, with the exception of " Troilus and Cressida," which for some reason is omitted from the list, possibly because its jumble of classical tragedy and satirical comedy rendered classification impossible. It is evident that tragedy, comedy and history in the main still continued to be the recognized dramatic types; tho occasional critical com- ment from playwrights frequently indicates a feeling of the inadequacy of any one of these terms for classifying the play in hand. Of the plays we have been considering as approach- ing the form of tragicomedy, the " Malcontent " alone offers any contemporary evidence of a connexion with the genre name, being registered on the books of the Stationers' company in 1604 as a " Tragicomedia." Yet in the edition of the same year, the author speaks of the play as a " comedy." And of the other plays, most were either printed as comedies or so described by their authors, or left entirely without classifica- tion. In other aspects of the drama, however, these years are not without direct evidence of a growing knowledge in England of tragicomedy as a dramatic form. In Italy at this time the Guarini controversy was still in progress ; in France the tragi- comedy of Hardy held the center of the public stage; and the * This series of ironical distinctions is echoed a few years later by John Day in the Isle of Gulls (1606), Act. Ill, sc. i: "You shall haue some Poet (Apolloes Vicar especially) write you a comicall Pastorall Tragicall Musicall historic in prose will make the auditors eyes runne a water like so many waterspouts." Cp. also Middleton's Mayor of Queen- borough (pr. 1661), Act V, sc. i: "Second Player. We are, sir; co- medians, tragedians, tragi-comedians, comi-tragedians, pastorists, himiour- ists, clownists, satirists: we have them, sir, from the hug to the smile, from the smile to the laugh, from the laugh to the handkerchief." 103 prevalence of the form in Spain was already beginning to call forth critical opponents and defenders. It is natural, then, that these continental influences should be arousing some echp_ across the channel. Among the unprinted plays of William Percy, the sonneteer, is one entitled "Arabia Sitiens, or a Dreame of a Drye Yeare, a tragi-comoedye,"° dated by Fleay, 1601. As a play it is probably unimportant; and as it is inac- cessible in manuscript, nothing can be said of its character. With it may be mentioned another unprinted and inaccessible tragicomedy of the same period, known only by name, " Diana's Grove: or, the Faithfull Genius,"^ an anonymous production and supposedly never acted. And in a print of 1607 we have the Plautine term applied to a curious prose collection of exempla, classical and Biblical, written by Lodowick Lloyd and dedicated by him to James I, called " The Tragicocomedie of Serpents."^ But the leading force in introducing the name of tragicomedy into England at this period is not connected with these rela- tively unimportant productions, but with a new and positive element in the drama directly traceable to definite foreign precedent — the element of the pastoral. To the influence of Tasso and more particularly Guarini, is due the inspiration for the first definite expression of English pastoralism, Daniel's "Queen's Arcadia" (1605) and Fletcher's "Faithful Shep- herdess " (1608?), both pastoral tragicomedies and both histor- ically very important to our subject. "" """ Some indication has already been made of the great popu- larity of Guarini's famous " Pastor Fido " and its immediate and wide dissemination thruout western Europe. In 1591, ' Percy MS. No. 2, in -the collection of the Duke of Northumberland (not Devonshire, as usually stated). Listed in the Third Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (1872), p. 119. This play is probably to be identified with a manuscript production in the Cam- bridge Library, Mahomet and his heaven, or Epimethea, graund Empresse of the deserts of Arabia, or u dreame of a drye summer, or the weather- woman; a tragcecomcedye. Ibid. "Before 1603. MS. in private hands. See J. O. Halliwell, Dictionary; Fleay, II, 337. ' See Hazlitt, Coll. and Notes, p. 260. Also listed in catalogs of British Museum, Bodleian, and Library of B. H. Bright. 104 almost on the heels of the first edition in Italy, appeared a print of the original in England. A translation followed in 1602, supposed to be the work of John Dymock, and which contained a commendatory sonnet by Samuel Daniel. About the same time there was acted at Cambridge a Latin version of the original, which, from the manuscript that survives,' proves to be a faithful rendering with some omissions, and in place of Guarini's prolog is inserted an original dialog of some critical interest between the characters Prologus and Argumentum.' It has been suggested that this academic pro- duction may have given Fletcher, who is supposed to have been attending Cambridge at this time, his initial impulse to rival the popular Italian tragicomedy. No doubt the play was widely known, especially in scholarly circles, by the time it had aroused direct imitation. At any rate, its popularity was sufficient to bring forth the sarcastic comment of Ben Jonson, writing in "Volpone" in 1605: Here's Pastor Fido — All our English writers, I meane such, as are happy in th' Italian, Will deigne to steale out of this author, mainely; Almost as much, as from Montagnie : He has so moderne, and facile a veine. Fitting the time, and catching the court-eare." This thrust at plagiarism was probably aimed directly at Samuel Daniel . Jonson's rival as court poet, whose " Qveenes Arcadia, A Pasto ral! Trage-Comedie," was acted before the Queen at Christ Church, Oxford, in August, i6q$^ Some years earlier Daniel had been in Italy where he had met Guarini personally, as he tells us in the commendatory sonnet * // pastor fido, di signer Guarini . . . recitata in Collegio Regali Canta- brigics. See Shakspere Jahrbuch, XXXIV, 318-19. " An interesting echo of the discussion over the legitimacy of Guarini's innovation then raging in Italy is contained in one of the speeches of Argumentum : " This pastoral tragicomedy is certainly going to be acted : but whence comes this new and outlandish kind ? And tragedy among shepherds? The thing itself is totally unsuited to the characters." But Prologus replies that altho it is new and strange, everything old has at one time been new. Ibid. >»Act III, sc. 4. 105 prefixed to the 1602 English translation of the " Pastor Fido " ; and the " Queen's Arcadia " is an obvious attempt to imitate Guarini's dramatic innovation on the English academic stage, further inspired perhaps by the fact that the rival university had already several times presented the original in Latin.^^ But, Daniel, while borrowing his general motivation from the " Pastor Fido," together with some items from Tasso, has in troduced a device of his own that completely destroys the fgrce of his play as a tragicomedy of the Guarini type- The compli- cations of the conventional love-chain are rendered serious by the evil plottings of a number of invading scoundrels, in whom the author has embodied the corruptions and follies of con- temporary England, but all their designs are overheard by two concealed shepherds, who act as a kind of interpreting chorus, and who — we are to understand — will thwart the mischief at the proper time. This they do: the wicked are banished~and the state purified. Such an arrangement completely nullifies the element of suspended action as well as the surprise brought about by the happy denouement; while the " danger of death," insisted upon by Guarini, is completely minimized by having the one tragic situation — where the desperate swain Amyntas attempts his own life by poison — narrated and not presented in the action. .Danie l's second attempt at the same kind of drama, " Hvmen's JTriumph," may be properly dealt with here, altho an interval of almost a decade separates it from the " Queen's Arcadia." From the title we learn that this " Pastorall Tragi- comsedie " was presented at a court entertainment given by the Queen on the occasion of Lord Roxborough's nuptials, Febru- ary, 1614. While an occasional piece, it shows considerable improvement over its predecessor. Here we have a pure Arcadian pastoral, devoid of satire, simpler in plot, and con- structed with far more feeling for dramatic interest. The story is the usual tangled web of difficulties besetting the for- " An anonymous writer of the time in chronicling the performance of the Queen's Arcadia says, " It was penned by Mr. Daniel, and drawn out of Fidus Pastor, which was sometimes acted by King's College men in Cam- bridge." Harl. ms. 7044. Cp. Greg, Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama, p. 252 n. 106 tunes of two Arcadian lovers, Thirsis and Silvia, before they are united in happiness. Silvia, who has been separated from her lover and carried off by pirates, returns to Arcadia in dis- guise as a shepherd boy, and there ensue various love entangle- ments by reason of her disguise. The climax comes when her identity is discovered by her lover just after she has been stabbed by a jealous shepherd swain. Thirsis, believing her dead, falls into a swoon; and the last act is a mere narrative of how the lovers were restored by the magic " oyntments, oyles and herbes " of Arcadia, and happily united. Thus the plot, while slight and conventional, is on the whole original and arises to a real tragic climax, capable of arousing the pity and terror of the Guarini formula before the happy change. Both the above plays were court productions, written by a man who had more skill as a poet than a playwright. Ap- parently Daniel had little interest in the Guarini theory of tragicomedy, at least so far as the handling of the two motives was concerned.^^ While he more nearly approximates a tragi- comic result in his later play, his treatment of the sustaining serious interest is inadequate, and in the " Queen's Arcadia " he fails utterly, as suspense is done away with by the device of the two concealed shepherds, and the sole tragic situation kept behind the scenes. But the historical importance of his work is considerable. The " Queen's Arcadia " is the first definite connecting link between Italian and English tragi- comedy; and the author's initiative in introducing the new Italian form is to be reckoned with as one of the influences in commending the practise of tragicomedy to others, and especially in preparing the way for Fletcher's " Faithful Shepherdess-" Whereas pastoral tragicomedy first entered England in academic dress in Daniel's " Queen's Arcadia " ; in the " Faith- ful Shepher dess," Fletcher essayed the far more difficult task "Yet that tragicomedy was more than a title name to him is evident from a passage in Hymen's Triumph (IV, 3), where Thyrsis asks his companion to entertain him with a story: No merry tale my boy, nor yet too sad, But mixed, like the tragicke Comedies. 107 of adapting the same dramatic form to the requirements of the popular stage, accustomed to rapid action, quick change, violent contrast, and other qualities totally foreign to the Arcadian type. The play was acted probably in 1608 ," and that it signally failed for lack of the popular note is evident from the preface and prefixed verses of the undated quarto that followed a year or so later. ^* In Jhe_addrgss '^To_ the Reader:" prefaced to this edition, Fletcher, piqued by the failure of the piece, enters a critical justification of the dra- matic type to which his play belongs; a document of prime historical importance here, for in it the author takes occasion to correct the popular misapprehension of a pastoral tragi- comedy as " a play of country hired shepherds in gray cloaks, with curtailed dogs in strings, sometimes laughing together and sometimes killing one another," and to offer a correct and critical definition of the form: " A tragi-comedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no comedy, which must be a, representation of familiar people, with such kind of trouble as no life be questioned ; so that a god is as lawful in this as in a tragedy, ' and mean people as in a comedy." It is obvious at once that this definition, the first of the sort to appear in England, is neither in any way based on the pre- cedent of the English stage, nor original with the author, but taken over bodily from the Guarini conception of the species — a play not part tragedy and part comedy, but a tempered mean between the two, introducing the danger of death but never death itself, and admitting characters of mingle d sta- tion.^° Evidently to the English popular mind tragicomedy" still connoted only the mixture of " mirth and killing " of long-standing stage tradition, and to the lack of which in the "In Jonson's Conversations with Drummond, 1618, occurs the passage: " Flesher and Beaumont, ten years since, hath written the Faithfull Ship- heardesse, a Tragicomedie, well done." It is now generally conceded that Beaumont had no part in the play. "Published before May, 1610, as one of the persons to whom the play is dedicated died at that time. "Above, p. 41. 108 " Faithful Shepherdess " Fletcher assigns its failure to please. The important thing to bear in mind is not only Fletcher's contact with the Italian theory of tragicomedy, but his adop- tion of it in perhaps his first play. The " Faithful Shepherdess " itself, while evidently inspired by the " Pastor Fido," as shown by the name and the author's concern for critical theory, is neither in plot, situations nor characters an imitation of foreign models. It follows of course the general pastoral tradition of its forebears; but the whole has been recast anew and made in accordance with the author's knowledge of English stagecraft, so that the result is almost an innovation, and, in spite of the initial stage failure, an improvement in every way over Daniel's mere reproduc- tion of ItaUan methods. The story requires no long introduc- tion, narration gives way to action, the movement is rapid, suspense constant, and the serious situations multiplied. On the other hand, the plot is deficient: its complications, while almost as intricate and involved as those of the " Pastor Fido," do not ccHne to the climax and dissolve in the grand denoue- ment that characterize the Gtxarini play. All the incidents that involve the various pairs of lovers are the happenings of a single night, and at the end, while misunderstandings are righted, wounds cured, and the culprits banished, the situation in general is practically what it was in the begirming Thruout there has been neither mirth nor killing. No deaths occur; and, on the other hand, the author has tabooed jocular comedy. But while the play " wants deaths," it " brings some near it " by means of the usual pastoral tragic devices. Twice does the despairing lover attempt to slay himself, twice is the gentle maiden stabbed, and once a meddling gallant; but. the hand of suicide is stayed in time, and all wounds are healed in the marvelous Arcadian fashion. Tho Fletcher had failed to popularize the pastoral, his efifort gained the prompt appreciation of readers and even a tardy recognition from the play-going public. One of the five quar- tos before the folio of 1679 records that in 1633 it was acted " divers times " and " with great applause," and years later in 1663 Pepys writes that it was " much thronged after and often 109 shown." That the play added much to the critical theory of tragicomedy in England and gave increased impetus to popular- izing the name, is certain. Even Ben Jonson in his contempo- rary " Epicoene " (acted 1609) deigns to use the new term in describing the prank played by Truewit on the two gulls. Sir Amorous La Foole and Sir John Daw, bj- which each is frightened into believing that the other is seeking his Ufe, and each submits to all sorts of indignities to appease his supposed enemy.^' And in a colonial pamphlet of 1610, the author com- pares to a " tragicaU-comaedie " the fortunes of a sea- faring party wrecked by a tempest on an island of the Bermudas, but happily delivered from threatened destruction.^' Two years later, in 1612, an entry in the Stationers' Register mentions "a Tragecomedye called. The Xoble man written by Cj-rill Tourneur," one of the plays destroyed by Warburtons servant, and now not known to exist.^' The leading influence in fostering the genre name in Eng- land at this time was no doubt Fletcher's play, reinforced by Daniel's pastoral tragicomedies. Of more significance, how- " " Truevjit. Agreed. Perhaps 'twill bee the better estate. Doe you obserue this gallerie? or rather lobby, indeed? Here are a couple of studies, at each end one: here will I act such a tragi-conuedy betweene the Guelphes, and the Ghibellines, Daw and La-Foole — which of "hem comes out first, will I seize on: (you two shall be the chorus behind the arras, and whip out betweene the acts and speake.)" Act IV, sc 5. By a strange coincidence perhaps, Rabelais, in his Pantagruel (1533), IV, 12, describes as a tragicque comedie a strikingly similar situation. See above, p. 52, n. 63. It may be noted here that on the frontispiece of the 1616 folio of Ben Jonson's plays appears a figure of " Tragicomoedia " — by the side of " Tragoedia " and " Comoedia " — ^arrayed with crown and scepter, a buskin on one foot and a sock on the other. That pastoral tr^icomedy is meant by this unique design is evident enough, as Creizenach points otit, because on both sides of the figure appear a shepherd and a. satyr. See Creizenach, Geschichte, IV (pt. L), 269-70. " " What is there in all this tragicaU-comsdie, that should discourage us with impossibilitie of the enterprise? when of all the fleete, one onely ship by a secret leake was indangered, and yet in the golfe of despaire was so graciously preserved." A true Declaration of the estate of the Colonic in Virginia, 1610. See Ftimess's New Variorum Shakespeare, Tempest (1892), p. 311. "Acted by the King's Players at Court Revels, 1612. 110 ever, is the fact that this play, a tragicomedy constructed ac- cording to critical theory, marks the initial stage of the dra- matic careers of Fletcher and his first collaborator Beaumont, and discloses the source of the inspiration underlying the definitely formulated type of tragicomedy that is their peculiar contribution to the English drama. These two authors, during the short period of their collaboration, seem to have been the most popular playwrights of the time, while the potency of their influence on their contemporaries and followers is at- tested by the ruling character of the drama up to 1642. With them we enter the heyday of English tragicomedy, extending approximately from 1610 to the closing of the theaters, a period characterized by the cultivation of tragicomedy by practically all playwrights of the day, and its ascendency in popularity over every dramatic form. CHAPTER V The Heyday of English Tragicomedy (i6io to 1642) Of Fletcher's actual collaboration with Beaumont, which extended to the latter's retirement in 1612, and which resulted in the group of dramas whose great success signalized the return to romantic and heroic themes, two plays, " Philaster " and " A King and No King," stand forth as the forerunners of the new type of English tragicomedy. The characteristics of " heroic romance," as the plays of this collaboration have been called, are too well known to be dwelt on here.^ The scene is always located far enough away in foreign realms to allow the imagination to wander at will, unhampered by the restric- tions of reality; and melodramatic actions, warring passions and marvelous events are right in keeping with the romantic atmosphere and heroic protagonists to which we are intro- duced. Characterization, probability, actuality, ethical value — all are sacrificed to theatrical effect or anything sensational or startling that an ingeniously constructed plot may be made to offer. Instead of an action plodding to an inevitable con- clusion or interspersed with impeding explanations pointing to the outcome, inevitableness is thrown to the winds, and a constant use of surprise, reverse, and surprise again, hold the fates of the heroes and heroines in the balance until the very end, when the final turn of fortune grants them heroic death or snatches them from impending disaster. It is chiefly by the character of the denouement that " Phil- aster " and " A King and No King " are to be distinguished from the tragic romances with which they are so closely identi- fied in all else. Both follow the essentials of the Beaumont- Fletcher innovation : distant setting, royal persons, complicated plot, balance and contrast in character and emotion; and both " A. H. Thorndike, The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shake- speare (1901), on which the first pages of this chapter are entirely based. Ill 112 end happily. Yet the two plays are anything but repetitions. In " Philaster " an idyllic, and in " A King and No King " a martial tone prevails- Philaster is a lily-livered hero enthralled in sentimental love; Arbaces a violent monarch overwhelmed by a sudden and unnatural passion. In the earlier play we have a striking example of tragicomedy in process of transi- tion from pure pastoral to romance. We note at once the pervading pastoral influence in the forest scenes and Arcadian devices; while the shepherds and ideal commonwealth de- manded by the Guarini formula as necessary for the inter- mediate nature of tragicomedy are supplanted by the equally Utopian characters and surroundings of a romantic no man's land. The play doubtless followed close in the wake of the ^Faithful Shepherdess." The course of sentimental love is crossed by evil slander; and the distracted hero, convinced that his lady and faithful page have played him false, comes upon them in turn in the forest and stabs them both, quite in the manner of the jealous shepherd swain of pastoral tragi- comedy. The fifth act shows all healed of their wounds, mis- understandings righted, and the lovers reconciled; but the tragic complications have only begun. The king in a fit of royal anger that his daughter should defy his authority and claim the lowly Philaster as her husband when he had intended her for a prince, sentences both lovers to death. Here an insurrection of citizens compels the monarch to recall his sentence, and after the erratic hero has offered twice to kill himself, the final surprising discovery that the page Bellario is a love-lorn damsel in disguise discloses the miscreants and restores the hero to his rightful place as heir to the crown of Sicily. In " A King and No King " the action is less fluctuating but no less threatening, and the happy ending equally well concealed to the last. Arbaces seems irresistibly impelled along to crime by the force of an ungovernable passion for his supposed sister. He struggles against it in vain, and finally succumbs. But in the last act at the very culmination of his resolve to commit murder, incest, and follow all with suicide, the tragic suspense is broken by a complete surprise: a timely explanation reveals that Panthea is not his sister, and the suc- cession of tragedies is stayed. 113 The popularity of these two tragicomedies was not only immediate but remarkably long continued, as innumerable edi- tions and stage revivals even as late as the nineteenth century abundantly attest; while the imitation they aroused from others and the continuation of the same type by Fletcher alone and with later collaborators is additional evidence of their favorable reception by the courtly audience for which they were written, an audience always responsive to appeals to the imagination and sympathies and lately sated with dark tragedy and domestic drama. The initial success of " Philaster " even seems to have impelled Shakspere to undertake the same sort of drama at the close of his career, if indeed " Cymbeline " followed the Beaumont-Fletcher innovation as the probabili- ties all indicate.^ With all the striking parallels in character, plot and treatment between the two plays, the Shaksperian drama, by reason of its subservience to the trammels of the past, is less a tragicomedy of the new type. The older epic method of construction is followed, apparitions appear among the dramatis personce, war comes to the foreground and a bat- tle is represented on the stage, and the final defeat of villainy and triumph of romantic love has left death behind it. The " Winter's Tale " is likewise sufficiently distinguished by effective situations, tragicomic denouement and the essentials of the new romance type to justify the opinion that it was inspired by the current trend of popular drama rather than by a new view of life on the part of the author. Structurally, however, it is related to the old school of rambling romance even more than " Cymbeline " is. The play is really in two parts: the first tragic, involving the deaths of Antigonus and the young prince as in the old romance of Greene; but the second part is untouched with death, as Shakspere, unlike his predecessor, apparently did not feel the necessity of crowning the union of the young lovers with any "Tragicall strata- geme,"^ and accordingly shows the unjust king repentant at the end, and his repentance rewarded with the restoration of ° See A. H. Thorndike, Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shake- speare, p. IS2 ff. 'Above, p. 82, note 26. 9 114 his queen whom he has thought dead. Shakspere's third and )last romance, on the other hand, the "Tempest," departs com- ipletely from the loose structure of its predecessors, admits no ■actual tragedy, and is even further removed from the world of fact and reality. Again there is a story of sentimental love, framed in a background of intrigue and murderous design; but the action never reaches a really threatening crisis, tho the tone of the play is distinctly exalted above the pitch of romantic comedy. Whether Shakspere was led to adopt the tragicomic method in his last plays by the example of Beaumont and Fletcher, who probably at this time surpassed him in popular favor, or by his own initiative, is a question of no especial importance here. The fact remains that " Cymbeline," " Winter's Tale " i and the " Tempest," whatever the inspiration, are closely iden- / 1 tified with the new drama of tragicomic romance, which at ' least testifies to the success that the new form was winning by the time Shakspere and Beaumont were quitting the stage abou t 1612. The historical position of " Philaster " and " A King and No King" as the first two tragicomedies of the young collabora- tors, and the only ones in which Beaumont had a hand, some- what separates them from the whole series of similar plays that came from the pen of Fletcher either writing alone or in collaboration with others during the next dozen years in which he continued to produce for the theater. But it is in this later body of plays that the form thus inaugurated receives the elaborate and varied development that renders the Fletch- erian contribution to tragicomedy the most considerable and influential of the period. In approaching these plays the question immediately arises. Which are the tragicomedies? Most of the so-called Beau- mont and Fletcher plays were not printed until years after they were written, and not until the folio of 1679 were any recog- nized as tragi-comedies, so that contemporary evidence of their classification is unavailable. On the other hand, to establish definite criteria of our own that will at once be comprehensive and satisfactory for the separation of the form from tragedy 115 and comedy is certainly impossible; and, as Fletcher after the preface to the " Faithful Shepherdess " evidently ceased to trouble himself with expounding critical distinctions in dra- matic genres, further authoritative testimony of that sort is lacking. True, the general principles he there laid down differ- entiating tragicomedy from other forms might be employed with some satisfaction in classifying his unaided plays;* but the definition is clearly inadequate when applied to the col- laborated productions, /it seems possible, however, to con- struct a graduated scale of Fletcherian tragicomedy, and be- tween the extremes where the type stiffens into tragedy on the one hand, and seems to ally itself with comedy on the other, to establish a tragicomic norm that will serve to define the species in its purity. In accordance with this plan, some eight plays have been selected that seem to represent in inci- dent, tone and treatment the desired mean of the type as it is found in the work of Fletcher and his later collaborators. At least as many again waver slightly one way or the other, but preserve many of the essentials of the form, and possibly are quite as important as tragicomedies when we consider the multiform gradations that the type assumes during the later Elizabethan period. They will call for some notice later. The eight plays chosen to illu strate jthe trag icomic mean are the following: " Loyal Subject," " Mad Lover," " Island Princess," " A Wife for a Month," " Humorous Lieutenant," " Queen of Corinth," "Knight of Malta" and "Laws of Candy." Of these the first five are ascribed to Fletcher alone; in the last three Massinger is usually rated the chief collaborator. With the exception of the "Knight of Malta" which remained un- classified, all were recognized as tragicomedies in the second folio of 1679, the first to include the species among its divisions. In these plays we find only an amplification of the main traits of character and technic noticeacfile in " Philaster " and " A King and No King" and th^arlier romance tragedies. The heroic and lofty tone is no whit abated in the serious portions, tho in occasional comic scenes Fletcher's exhuberant humor ' Cp. O. L. Hatcher, John Fletcher (Chicago, 1905), p. 29. 116 is more pronounced." The idyllic atmosphere of " Philaster " is never repeated, and purely sentimental heroes and heroines in general give way to stauncher types. We are still conducted to regions just beyond the more familiar seventeenth century world, ranging from the remote Molucca Islands to distant corners of Greece and far Muscovy; and the action seldom takes us far from court or palace. The highest ideals of love and honor and the extremes of loyalty, friendship, constancy and other noble emotions are kept in constant contrast with the basest passions and the deepest villainy. The chief char- acters, good and evil, all belong to the highest social rank, and from constant repetition assume more or less conventional outlines. The lustful monarch bent on seduction, the mag- nanimous hero inspired with the loftiest ideals, the plotting villain who when caught in his own snares repents and is for- given, the noble heroine, virtuous and eloquent, and sometimes sentimental as well, whose chastity is unassailable and who will live or die with her lover, the straightforward friend — all are types that recur again and again among royal families, nobles, courtiers, valiant generals, and heroes and heroines in ordinary that make up the leading dramatis persons of Fletcherian tragicomedy. No impossibility or extravagance in motive or situation is left unattempted to produce sensational or startling theatrical effects, usually with a resulting overthrow of probability and logic and a complete disregard of ethical value. In one play we have a mad lover bent on cutting out his own heart as a present to a disdainful mistress; in another, a valiant general whose loyalty to a sovereign who has covered him with indig- nities is such that he will kill his own son for rebelling against the despot; and again, a ravished maiden suing for the Ufe and hand of her princely seducer. All are pervaded to a greater or less extent with the passions, motives and accompaniments of actual tragedy — lust, jealousy, revenge, intrigue, murderous "Whereas the only comedy is furnished by the character of the Captain in Philaster and by Bessus in King and No King, a number of these plays are freely interspersed with comic scenes supplied by characters drawn from the lower walks of life. 117 design, torture, rape, duels, poisons, and the like. With few exceptions villainy in one form or another is the root of the disastrous complications that beset the path of love or virtue, or perhaps threaten a whole court with ruin. A favorite motive is the lust of a king or prince for the betrothed of another, as in the " Humorous Lieutenant," " Queen of Corinth " and " Wife for a Month," or the vengeance of a rejected suitor, as in the "Knight of ^lalta" and the "Island Princess"; while an intriguing court favorite, jealous of a rival general, is the evil genius in the "Loyal Subject"; and in the " Laws of Candy " the malice of a father toward a son is responsible for the serious entanglement. Notable in most of these plays is the prominence given to the tragicomic vil- , lain, a personage whose deviltry absurdly contradicts his sud- den conversion, and whose forgiveness at the end or dismissal with perfunctory punishment far from satisfies any sense of moral justice. In " A Wife for a Month " and the " Knight of 'Malta" the evil-doers are reinforced by diaboUcal confederates as black as the villains of Webster, but they also share in the pardon meted out to their masters; and the repellant climax of the " Queen of Corinth," described as an " unexpected comedy,'' exemplifies the limit of the i)erverted ethics produced by diverting a tragic action away from its logical conclusion. In distribution of the serious interest these plays range somewhat from a type where the climax is the culmination of one continuous succession of averted dangers, reverses, sur- prises, and scenes of violence, as in the "Knight of ^lalta" and the " Island Princess," to such plays as " A King and No King" and the "Laws of Candy," where the action moves ominously but without disastrous interruption to one final tragic situation. In all, however, the general tone and style are maintained at an elevation of dignity^ scarcely distinguish- able from that of tragedy, or at least seldom far below it. And in each the suspense is sustained until the very last, when the threatening catastrophe by one means or another is resolved into happiness and reconciliation. Naturally every possible tragicomic device is brought into play repeatedly — death sen- tences are reversed, executions stayed, villainy is disclosed, the 118 dead come to life, the evil repent, rescues arrive, duels are in terrupted, and poisons turn out to be opiates or miscarry- entirely. The effective climax, on which Fletcher and his collabo- rators lavished the wealth of their ingenuity, is always a care- fully planned affair, and usually led up to by a series of cleverly arranged situations which place the characters in such interrelation that at the crucial moment the denouement un- ravels of its own accord. A good example of this is shown m the " Laws of Candy." By the law of the land those con- victed of ingratitude may be punished with death, if the offended one choose to claim the penalty. In the last act Cassilane, the jealous father, appears before the Senate and demands the execution of the law against his son Antinous, who has displaced him in popular favor. Straightway, the haughty princess Erota, in love with the young hero, enters a similar charge against the father, whose poverty she has been the means of relieving. Next, the noble Antinous arises in behalf of his unjust father and charges the Princess in turn with ingratitude toward him. And on top of it all, Annophil, Cassilane's daughter, accuses the Senate of base ingratitude toward both father and son for thus rewarding their noble service to the state. When the chain of accusations has reached these appalling proportions, Cassilane, impressed with the dire results of his malice, repents his action and with- draws his charge; the others of course follow in turn, and thus the clever, if absurdly impossible, situation is happily relieved. The knot, as in this case, is often cut by a timely repentance or some similar change of heart so common in tragicomedy. The Mad Lover, at sight of his supposedly dead brother, suddenly loses his madness; and the King in the "Humorous Lieutenant" is so impressed with the virtuous eloquence of Celia that he straightway repents his evil purpose and opens the way for the happy ending. Occasionally, as noticed earlier in " Philaster," the tragic suspense is carried on even beyond the actual climax. In the " Loyal Subject," for example, the action properly culminates at the end of Act IV in the fall of the villain and the restoration of Archas to 119 the Duke's favor. But in the final act we have the quixotic general attempting to slay his own son for treason, and he is only turned from his dire intention by the threat of a counter tragedy. Noticeable in all the plays thus far considered as illustra- tive of the norm of Fletcherian tragicomedy is the fact that amid all the perils and trials that befall the characters death never occurs in any form, neither overtaking the most trivial person nor the darkest villain. And in this respect all conform to Fletcher's earlier critical stipulation that a tragicomedy should "want deaths." Yet the rigid a pplication of this test in differentiating the type from tragedy would prove unsatis- factory, excluding many plays that were either rated as tragi- comedies in their own day or satisfy our other criteria for the form. While Fletcher's unaided tragicomedies never thus impeach on the realm of tragedy, his collaborated productions occasionally do. Such a play is the " Two Noble Kinsmen,"* evidently in part by Shakspere.' In its romantic extravagance, idyllic atmosphere, glorification of noble ideals, heroic action and characters, the play preserves the familiar traits of the genre form; and the fact that the Chaucerian story imposes the death of one hero in the end produces no spirit of tragic gloom. On the contrary, this very incident is made the most of to effect a telling and surprising tragicomic denouement; for Palamon's head is just saved from the block by the acci- dent that befalls his kinsman, and this tragedy is forgotten in the triumph of romantic love. Another example where tragedy and tragicomedy clasp hands is furnished by the "Lovers' Progress," a play obviously more Massinger's than Fletcher's. Here the main plot, founded on one of the " Tragi-comicall Histories " of the time,' turns on the moral conflict confront- ° Entered S. R. April 8, 1634-35, as a " Tragicomedy." ' See A. H. Thomdike, Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shake- speare, p. 44 ff. 'A Tragi-comicall History of our Times, under the Borrowed Names of Lisander and Calista, translated from the French of Vital d'Audignier by a certain W. D. in 1627. Among contemporary prose romances similarly named may be cited, a booke called ffour true tragicomicall Histories of Late tymes by the names of the Lady Cornelia, The force of blood The 120 ing Calista and Lisander, who are beset by a mutual passion on the one hand, and fidehty to a husband and friend on the other. The tragic death of Cleander solves the dilemma, and the lovers, who have struggled successfully against their pas- sion, are allowed to marry in a year ; but the culprits are haled off to punishment, and the ending is not the complete recon- ciliation usually accorded tragicomedy. The "Prophetess," again, while described as a " Tragical History," is really a tragedy of happy ending; for the epical structure of the piece renders the slaying of Aper by the hero Dioclesian in the sec- ond act more or less incidental to the whole. Otherwise the play, while operatic and spectacular to a marked degree, is a tragicomedy of the austere and heroic type, at the close of which the ambitious and jealous Maximilian, thwarted in his attempt on the life of his benefactor by the magic of the Prophetess, repents, is forgiven, and all ends happily. On the other hand, we have a similar group of collaborated productions, represented by the "Honest Man's Fortune," " Custom of the Country " and " Fair Maid of the Inn," which verge as far on the other side of the tragicomic norm.' In point of harrowing situations, quick change of fortune, and danger of death, they are tragicomedies of pronounced cast, and yet in other respects represent the union of the Fletcherian form with comedy. Marked differences in general tone and character clearly separate these productions from the plays that define the type in its purity. The scene is brought nearer home ; heroic actions and extreme emotions are tempered ; the atmosphere becomes more natural; kings, queens and generals give way to dukes, counts and gentlemen and ladies in more ordinary walks of life; and above all, purely comic portions are given almost equal prominence with the serious themes. In short, these plays seem to approach most nearly the spirit two Damsells. and The Spanish Lady Don Diego Puedeser {f by Sir William Berkeley). — S. R. Nov. 27, 1638; also Alexander Hart's Tragi- Comicall History of Alexto and Angelica, Containing the progresse of a zealous Candide, and Masculine Love, With a various mutability of a feminine affection. Together with loves Justice thereupon. London, 1640. " Of these the first and last were denominated tragicomedies in the 1679 folio, while the Custom of the Country was left unclassified. 121 and form of the contemporary Spanish Cloak and Sword drama. Whether or not Fletcher was directly influenced by Lope and his school, he, like many of his contemporaries, was using Spanish plots; and certainly many of the traits of the Peninsular drama are preserved in his work.^" Questions of honor of various sorts are especially promi- nent in these three plays. A woman's character is at stake in the " Honest Man's Fortune " ; in the " Custom of the Country" we have the episode of the mother who will not violate the laws of hospitality even to betray the man whom she thinks has killed her son ; and a trivial quarrel in the " Fair Maid of the Inn " embroils two noble families in feud. Duels between gentlemen are the order of the day, and thrilling surprises and reverses keep the interest keyed to a high pitch in spite of the plentifully interspersed comedy and burlesque. In the "Honest Man's Fortune" bloodshed is repeatedly averted by the timely intervention of the wronged Duchess, "^ whose insulted honor is the cause of quarrel ; and the climactic scene in Act IV, which brings the repentance of the husband, is crowded with a lightning succession of averted tragedies and thrilling surprises. But in many ways this production of com- posite authorship is only a comedy of manners located in Paris, and in the incident of the Honest Man disguised as a waiting maid even seems to be burlesquing the love-lorn damsel in jpage attire. A romance of Cervantes underlies the " Custom of the Country," a play suffused with tragicomic movement in Jspite of its coarsely comic sub-plot. The direst misfortunes and dangers beset the course of romantic love, tossed hither and thither on the wave of an ever fluctuating fortune. The distracted hero's lament in "bne place, My life's so full Of various changes, that I now despair Of any certain port; one trouble ending, A new, and worse, succeeds it, bespeaks the nature of the main interest. In Zenocia, the equally tried heroine, we have a repetition of the chaste and scathingly eloquent type, whose reverses are finally rewarded " For literature on this subject, see Schelling, II, 530. 122 by union with her noble lover when repentance has turned the hearts of their enemies. But in this play and in the " Fair Maid of the Inn" the comic portions are elaborated to an extent that tempers the tone of the whole ; and in the " Spanish Curate," a play perhaps to be included in this group, the prominence of the sub-plot relegates the serious theme to a place of subordinate concern. Equally identified with the above as Fletcherian tragicome- dies of lighter cast are the more romantic plays of the " Sea Voyage " and " Women Pleased,"^^ in both of which cpmedy, extravaganza and sentimental love are interwoven with a main serious interest that results from the possibilities of a romantic plot rather than from villainy or evil passions. The " Sea Voyage " particularly is a peculiar combination of thrilling adventure, distress, and even horrors, with the viva- city and humor of comedy, and crowns its action with a most effective tragicomic denouement, where a wholesale human sacrifice ordered by the Amazon Queen is stayed by the oppor- tune appearance of her supposedly dead husband, whose manes are about to be appeased in this way. "Women Pleased" is equally composite in tone and action. In its main plot it is strongly reminiscent of the medieval motive of the Wife of Bath's Tale, whose efifective conclusion is made the most of in the happy ending. To these plays which obviously indicate the point where Fletcherian tragicomedy and comedy shade into one another, others might be added in some number which admit serious- ness and accordingly raise some doubt as to their rigid exclu- sion from the type form. Certainly no definite barrier between the two species can be erected; but general tone as well as incident must be considered in determining the claims of a play to the classification of tragicomedy. To admit within the pale all plays in which characters are brought " near death," and thereby to comply with one part of Fletcher's own defi- nition for the form, is obviously impracticable. For in many of the broadest comedies tragicomic devices abound — wounds inflicted and lives momentarily imperilled — for gain in the- " Women Pleas' d, A Tragy-Comedy, 1679 folio. 123 atrical eifectiveness ; and it is certainly a far cry from plays like " Nice Valor " and " Love's Pilgrimage " to " Philaster " and the " Knight of Malta." It seems reasonable, then, con- sidering the exalted and heightened tone that is characteristic of the tragicomic mean, to allow the test of style to enter into our criteria in distinguishing the form from comedy on the one hand, just as its severance from tragedy at the opposite end of the scale is to be determined by the character of the denouement. With the bounds of Fletcherian tragicomedy thus arbi- trarily indicated and the characteristics of the type reviewed in some detail in its various gradations, it remains in con- clusion to emphasize the peculiar attribute of the form that represents the distinctive contribution of its authors to Eng- lish tragicomedy, and accounts for its great stage succ ess. Only a cursory glance is necessary to reveal that, amid all the advances that the new type represents over preceding tragi- comedy, it is the handling of the denouement more than any- thing else that separates it furthest from its forebears, and underlies the secret of its theatrical effectiveness and im- mediate and long continued popularity. "Other authors in pre- ceding realistic and domestic drama had involved the fortunes of their characters in tragic entanglements and managed to extricate them safely, but usually by the clumsy aid of the conventional disguised personage whose identity and purpose were no secret to the audience, or by some other device equally calculated to forecast the outcome. In Fletcherian tragi- comedy these weaknesses of technic have entirely disappeared. Suspense is maintained until the very end, and the action, whether advanced from the start by constant reversals and surprisals of fortune or led up to one serious climax, may end either in a triumph or catastrophe so far as the spectators have any means of divining. This trait of technic — the absolute concealment of the character of the denouement — from now on becomes a most important and determining factor in tragi- comedy, and is rarely neglected by future cultivators o f the form. To realize the immense gain in effect secured by its observance, one need only compare a tragicomedy of the 124 Fletcherian type with such a play as the "Heir" (1620) of Thomas May, wherein the old order of technic is preserved by the use of the expository soliloquy, and the possibilities of a most effective tragicomedy thereby precluded. It may not be determined whether Fletcher and his collaborators derived the idea of thus enhancing the effectiveness of tragicomedy from Italian or Spanish precedent — to one of which at least they were definitely indebted — or invented it themselves.^^" At any rate, they were quick to perceive the value that a play_which could keep the interest of the spectators constantly wrought up to a high pitch of excitement, and at tiie same time satisfy the ever-popular preference for the happy ending, offered _over_aIl other dramatic forms, and they cultivated it to the full. Tragi- comedy in all its shades becomes now the most frequently cultivated form in the work of those who carried on and developed the Beaumont and Fletcher traditions — ^lassinger, Shirley, Davenant, and the host of minor dramatists of the reign of Charles I — ^and it even exerted considerable influence on contemporary writers of realistic and domestic drama. To this last group of pla}'\vrights some attention is due at this point before considering the logical development of the subject in the continuators of the romantic drama. For in the work of He)rwood, ^Middleton, Dekker, and one or two others, tragicomedy during this period is not unrepresented, and even offers some departures from the prevalent form that caU for special notice. A number of these plays seem to have been directly influenced by the popular Fletcherian type; the most noticeable comparison being offered by Heywoo.d's " Royal King and Loyal Subject,"^^ which must have foUowed Fletcher's tragicomedy of the same theme and probably owed its inspiration to it. Both plays are versions of the same story in Painter's "Palace of Pleasure," with differences in treat- ment characteristic of the two authors. Instead of ^luscovy, "" True, this concealment of denouement and final surprise are features of Ben Jonson's Epicoene (acted 1609), which possibly may have inspired the practise in Fletcher and his fellows. The reverse seems more prob- able, however. " See edition by K. W. Tibbals, Pennsylvania Thesis (1906), with critical introduction on sources and relations with Fletcher's Loyal Subject, 125 the scene in Heywood is brought to England, where the Loyal Subject is a " Martiall," his traducers two envious lords, and his sovereign a King of England, who, whether swayed by slanderous tongues or from mere capriciousness, is bent on testing to the full the loyaltj- of his patient subject. \Mth a humility worthy of Patient Grissel, the noble ^larshal submits to every indignit}"^ and demand, until at the end of Act IV his fidelity and generosity have so prevailed with the monarch that he is given the princess to wife and restored to full favor. Here is the logical conclusion of the plaj', but Heywood, like Fletcher, adopts the device of carrying the suspense over into the next act, only does it less skillfully. The slanderers are again allowed the King's ear; the ^larshal's fortunes undergo another reverse; he is condemned for high treason on a trumped up charge and sentenced to die. But at the point of execution, the capricious monarch relents — ^whether by a sud- den change of heart or in accord with a prearranged plan of his own, is not clear — reverses the sentence and banishes the base accusers. As usual in Heywood, the main theme is parodied by a comic sub-plot barely connected with the main design, in which a captain, a clown and other realistic char- acters are the moving figures. The " Royal King and Loyal Subject" is the tragicomedy of He}"«-ood that nearest challenges comparison with the type cultivated by his courtly contemporaries, altho late in his career he turned again to the same kind of drama and produced in the " Challenge for Beauty " a tragicomedy of romantic plot — welded of course to England — which similarly points to the inspiration of Fletcher and Massinger. On the other hand, the early " Fortune by Land and Sea," in which Rowley collab- orated, like the " Fair Maid of the West," illustrates the older and less skillful method of uniting tragic and comic material, and have Uttle in common with the Fletcherian type. Both combine stories of English domestic life with stirring adven- tures, which take the characters off to sea or distant lands. Duels, violent deaths, battles at sea, and strange happenings, the whole plentifully interspersed with English clownage, make up a jumbled action which concludes satisfactorily for those 126 with whom our sympathies are allied. Usually no care is taken to maintain suspense or hold the outcome in the balance. The surprises are all prepared for by a constant shifting of the scene from one plot to the other, a device which serves to keep the spectators continually informed of the trend of events ; and the perils and marvelous adventures that befall Spencer and his faithful Bess in the second Part of the " Fair Maid " are met with and disposed of in turn in the old chronicle way until the lovers are at last united and sent home in happiness. As a playwright Heywood shared little in the more critical attitude of his chief contemporaries toward the drama. He belonged rather among those whose theory of dramatic art was based on popular taste, and he constructed his plays accord- ingly, mingling the tragic and comic haphazardly as the last two plays illustrate. His conception of tragicomedy, if ascer- tained from the one play which he himself so describes, was probably only that of long-standing stage tradition. Certainly the " English Traveller " has little in common with the pre- vailing type, yet, according to the author's preface of 1633, it is a " tragi-comedy," and more than that, " one reserved amongst two hundred and twenty" which Heywood claims to have written wholly or in part. If this astounding statement be taken literally, Heywood's own original output of tragi- comedies must have been enormous. But neither in subject matter nor construction is this play related to the Fletcherian form. It is purely a domestic drama of sentiment, involving a moral problem and outcome similar to those of the author's earlier " Woman Killed with Kindness " — the wife who has been taken in adultery dying repentant after being reproached with her sin. While thus related to tragedy, the play departs radically from the current conceptions of that form of drama. It lacks the courts, kings, foreign setting, bloodshed and other accompaniments of established convention; and belongs rather among serious middle-class plays which waver between domestic tragedy and sentimental comedy. And the ending, if far from happy, at any rate satisfies our sense of moral justice, so that the author's title of tragicomedy is not a complete misnomer. A far more anomalous use of the title term is furnished by 127 the equally unromantic " Witch of Edmonton," printed in 1658, years after it was written,^^ as "A known true Story. Com- posed into A Tragi-Comedy," and ascribed to the joint author- ship of Rowley, Dekker, Ford and others. Far from being a tragicomedy at all, the play is a pure domestic tragedy, reaching heights of remarkable pathos and power. The whole harrowing nature of the two-fold plot is summed up in the introductory distich: Forc'd marriage, murder ; murder blood requires ; Reproach, revenge ; revenge hell's help desires. The first motive deals with the domestic entanglements of Frank, Susan and Winnifred, involving a forced marriage and culminating in murder; the supernatural concerns the weird figure of old Mother Sawyer, driven by the persecution of her neighbors to ally herself with witchcraft. It is the Witch's familiar, in .the shape of a black dog, that, rubbing against the leg of Frank, impels him to murder his innocent wife. He attempts to hide his crime by casting suspicion on others; but his guilt is discovered in a scene of remarkable tragic intensity, in which appear the ghost of the murdered Susan and the evil spirit of the black dog. The last act shows the Witch, apprehended for the mischief and crimes her magic have caused, on the way to execution ; and next, the deeply repentant Frank, also convicted and led off to expiate his crime. But the action does not end in a spirit of tragic depres- sion. The concluding lines are : Join, friends, in sorrow ; make of all the best : Harms past may be lamented, not redrest. The play is pervaded thruout by a moral earnestness, and enforces a lesson of deep impressiveness in that day of witch- craft; and thus it may be considered a belated example of the old morality idea of tragicomedy. Middleton's contribution to the species encompasses three plays. They were written in the latter part of his career when " The play is founded on an account of one " Elizabeth Sawyer of Islington," who was "executed in 1621 for witchcraft" (Schelling, I, 362) ; and is thereby linked to contemporary murder plays, of which there had been quite a vogue about the beginning of the century. 128 Fletcher and Massinger were in the ascendencj'. and while more or less tinlike, all show the influence in one way or another of the popular romantic form. Tte celebrated " Fair Quarrel," in which Rowley collaborated, belongs dearly with the domestic and problematic tragicomedies; yet the main interest, which involves a point of honor culminating in a duel, relates it to the romantic . type of his contemporaries, where similar motives but of less hnman interest are frequent. Furthermore, the plot is conducted to its happy ending with an ingaiuity and telling force that challenge favorable comparison with Fletcher's tragicomic art, but without his usual con- versions of character and melodramatic excess. In the '■ Sprjnish r^jts.;," on the other hand, Middleton and Rowley turned to the novels of Cervantes for material, and produced a play that takes a definite place beside the tragicomedies of Fletcher that hark back to Spanish sources. The criminal injur\- inflicted on the iimocent heroine at the start recalls the dark beginning of the " Queen of Corinth," but the reconcilia- tion is effected with far less shock to the moral sense, and the serious portions are accompanied thruout with a profusion of comedy. Of yet different cast is the " Tragi-Coomodie, called The Witch," the old manuscript play that represents iliddle- ton's unaided contribution to the species. Here we have a tragedy of the later revenge type turned in the mould of Fletcherian tragicomedy, and \'A"ing with ^klarstons " Malcon- tent" in dark intrigue and tragic accessories: a romantic plot furnishes three revenge motives ; a duchess is compelled by her husband to drink from the skull of her slain father; a jealous husband stabs those whom he takes to be his adulterous wife and her paramour : poisons are taken : and the witch scenes con- tribute their quota of repellent features. Both in the tangle of tragic complications that involve everj'one and in the conven- tional de\-ices of the tragicomic denouement with its happy dis- coveries and sudden conversions of character, the influence of Fletcher's technic is strongly evident. One character, indeed, is disposed of behind the scenes to clear the way for the happy ending, but the rest are joyfully united. The WTong persons have been stabbed, and they only wounded, poisons are of the 129 tragicomic kind, and the Duke, discovered dead, arises in time to save his Duchess from execution. The prevailing fashion of tragicomedy seems also to have induced Webster to produce the "Devil's Law Case," and Dekker, " Match Me in London." The former production, published in 1623 as " A new Tragecomoedy," has the distinc- tion of being the only English popular play known to have been printed as a tragicomedy between the pastorals of Daniel and Fletcher and 1630. It oflfers a plot of Italian intrigue, involving villainy, revenge and murderous design, with few characters that enlist our sympathies. The complicated plot unrolls as it progresses, and culminates in a trial scene wherein the various intrigues end and the characters are dismissed with light punishments.^* The tragicomic device employed in hav- ing the murderous assault of the villain Romelio upon the wounded Contarino perform a surgical operation that saves the latter's life, deserves to go on record with a similar ab- surdity in "A Wife for a Month," where a poison, instead of killing its victim, proves an effective cure for melancholy. Dekker's " Match Me in London " offers no new departures from the conventional features of Fletcherian tragicomedy: the lust of a monarch for a merchant's virtuous wife, and his final repentance, rewarded with the happy discovery that his supposedly murdered queen still lives. And the " Wonder of a Kingdom " of the same author, while equally a romantic play of foreign intrigue, is too closely welded to comedy to come within our scope. With the chronicling of an insignificant tragicomedy of Robert Daborne, " The Poor-Man's Comfort,"^" assigned be- fore 1613, and the anonymous " Dick of Devonshire,"^* whose "For this play, see E. E. StoU, John Webster (1905), p. 175. "Reprinted in Anglia (1898), XXI. "Reprinted by Bullen from Egerton MS. 1994, in Old Plays (1883), Vol. II. Assigned by Fleay to Davenport, Ibid., p. 4 n. With it should also be mentioned a yet unprinted play from the same manuscript: The two noble ladies and the converted conjurer. . . . A trage-comicall historic oftentymes acted with approbation at the Red Bull in St. Johns Streele by the company of ye Reuells. 1619-1622. Described in Bullen, Old Plays, II, 430 ; also Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum {1S54-1S75), 1877, II, 941. 130 stirring adventure, sea-fights and English hero recall Heywood, we may conclude that by-way of our subject that has to do with the playwrights who belong more to the old order of the drama, and whose cultivation of tragicomedy is in response to current vogue and rather incidental to their main dramatic activity. Most of the tragicomedies that fall within this class show the influence of the type innovated and popularized by Fletcher and his collaborators ; an influence most apparent per- haps in Hey wood's "Royal King and Loyal Subject" and Middleton's " Witch." On the other hand, the old manner of tragicomic drama is preserved in the " Fair Maid of the West " ; while such plays as the " English Traveller " and the " Witch of Edmonton " deserve special notice as illustrating the continued wide range of contemporary ideas of the genre. But such plays are the exceptions, and the main development of tragicomedy by the Caroline dramatists is directly along the lines established for it by Beaumont and Fletcher. Massinger's collaborating hand has already been met with in a number of the tragicomedies of Fletcher, with whom he was closely associated during the first part of his career, and is marked by a seriousness of purpose and earnestness of tone, seen best perhaps in the "Lovers' Progress," differing far from the irresponsible manner of his master. We are now concerned with his unaided tragicomedies, written subsequent to Fletcher's death in 1625, in which he carried on the tradi- tions of the type he had helped to popularize. As a disciple of the new school, in all forms of drama he continued to make use of the romantic material of popular vogue, with its court settings, its royalties and nobilities, and its themes of love and war. The bounds between the different species are accordingly not always clearly defined. Yet Massinger, writing alone, seems to have developed certain peculiarities of his art that unconsciously led to a finer distinction between the provinces of tragedy and tragicomedy than hitherto attained. His feeling that a tragic theme should be allowed its inevitable conclusion, his discrimination in moral values, his unwilling- ness to sacrifice character to stage effect, and his regard for poetic justice, led to a more or less definite boundary between 131 the themes and motives chosen for the two forms. The tragi- comedies of Massinger are marked by a notable absence of villainy, murderous intent, and the darker passions of revenge and lust, all of which are confined to their proper sphere of tragedy. As a rule they are relatively tempered in motive and incident. We are treated to fewer thrilling escapes from the jaws of death, less violent contrasts and startling surprises, and a comparative dearth of repentant sinners, in marked con- trast to the reckless profusion of Fletcher. Suspicion, jeal- ousy, trials of chastity, and intrigue supply the tragic possi- bilities, which together with a background often of war and battle, and a style always exalted and grave, make up the de- termining characteristics of the author's unaided contribution to the species. Of Massinger's extant plays, some eight serve to define the scope of his tragicomedy : " Renegade," " Picture," " Emperor of the East," " A Very Woman," " Bashful Lover," " Bond- man," "Great Duke of Florence," and "Maid of Honor."" All readily fall within the limits established for the form in the Fletcherian plays, ranging in intensity from the tragicomic norm to a type only distinguishable from comedy by gravity of tone. None, however, encroach on tragedy by admitting fatalities. True, Massinger's tragedies do not always end in the overwhelming catastrophe and unrelieved horror of popu- lar prescription. The " Virgin Martyr " ends in death but celebrates a moral triumph. And " Believe as You List," whose action is devoid of bloodshed, would have been made by Fletcher into a tragicomedy, and the hero Antiochus not only vindicated in the end but saved. But such plays, if half tragedies perhaps, are definitely removed above tragicomedy, even of the type of the " Prophetess " and the " Two Noble Kinsmen." On the other hand, the demarcation of the type " Of these the first five appeared in quarto as tragicomedies between 1630 and 1655; the Bondman and Maid of Honor were left unclassified by the publisher, and the Great Duke of Florence was printed as a " Comicall Historic." Three of the lost plays of Massinger, The Noble Choice ; or, the Orator, Philenso and Hippolita, and The Prisoner ; or, The Fair Anchoress of Pausilippo, all entered on the Stationers' Register in 1653, sre also rated as tragicomedies. 132 from romantic comedy is not so convincing. The " Guardian," called a " Comical History," introduces one scene of tragic horror, but the play as a whole has little of the sustained seriousness of tragicomedy, and gives rather the effect of Fletcherian extravaganza. And the " Parliament of Love " likewise falls without the pale as too closely affiliated with comedy. Of the tragicomedies, the "Bashful Lover," "A Very Woman " and the " Bondman " most nearly approach the man- ner of Fletcher in fullness of incident, profusion of tragic pos- sibihties, and thrills and surprises. In all the dominant interest is a romantic love story, in which lovers, crossed by supposed inequality of rank are finally happily united by the discovery that the lowly hero is of noble birth. The bashful Hortensio turns out to be the Duke of ]Milan, the supposed slave Pedro is the disguised Prince of Tarent, and the Bondman Marullo is discovered to be Pisander, a noble of Thebes. Plotting and evil are conspicuously absent. Seriousness is suppUed more by battles, duels, rescues and the like, and such dangers as result from the romantic course of events. The hero is always a person of high sentiment and conduct, whose patient devo- tion or reverential love for the lady of his heart renders his nobility more real and appealing than that usually encountered in contemporary romance. In the modest, chivalrous and self-sacrificing Hortensio, Massinger achieved his masterpiece of noble characterization. And the heroines, while less ideal- ized, are of the type that rise to the occasion and eloquently declaim their determination to suffer the fate of their lovers. The "Renegado" and the "Emperor of the East" also offer tragic situations, but are without the heroic, martial at- mosphere of the " Bashful Lover " and the " Bondman " and the quick and violent action of "A Very Woman." They depend more on romantic intrigue and rise to a lower level of dignity in tone and event. In the "Emperor of the East," which the author himself denominated a tragicomedy, we have a play of relatively slight construction. The serious in- terest, arising from a trivial incident — ^the episode of the apple, concerns the Emperor's Jealous suspicions of his wife and his 133 kinsman Paulinus, which cause him to sentence the latter to death before he discovers the groundlessness of his fears. The " Renegado " combines several stories into a single plot, in which the passion of the Turkish Princess Donusa for the Venetian Vitelli brings down the threatened disaster. The play thruout is strongly religious. Vitelli not only refuses to save his own life and that of the princess by renouncing his faith, but even converts her to Christianity, whereupon both are condemned to die. But the Jesuit, the good genius of the play, with the aid of the converted renegado, contrives their escape, and thus averts the tragedy. Somewhat apart from the above five plays stand the " Pic- ture," the " Great Duke of Florence " and the " Maid of Honor," also tragicomedies but of milder stamp. The essen- tial distinction lies in the fact that in these plays, unlike the others, the action never at any time works up to a real tragic situation where life is actually imperilled. Yet the gravity of motive, serious purpose and weighty tone clearly exalt them above the level of comedy. They exemplify, then, a variation from the tempered form of the species noticed in the Fletch- erian plays, where the coalescence of tragicomedy with comedy brought little abatement in tragic situations and possibilities but much in tone and spirit. Massinger had less of Fletcher's fondness for thrilling incident and extravaganza in tragicom- edy, with the result that some of his plays depend almost wholly on a sustained seriousness of tone and purpose for their genre classification. Ford's contribution to tragicomedy consists in one or two plays of the same kind: notably the " Lover's Melancholy,'' which is equally free from violent action and danger of death, yet interweaves a treatment of madness with the romance of love, and presents other moods and emotions of serious drama. And something similar might be said for the " Lady's Trial." In Massinger's three tragicomedies of this type, love con- tinues to be the main theme and intrigue of one form or another the moving force. Jealousy and anger are aroused, virtue is tempted, a lover is faithless, but the action never takes a really tragic turn, and imprisonment is about the most 134 serious situation that arises. The double trial of chastity to which a husband and wife are subjected in the "Picture" to appease the whim of an ambitious queen has no grave conse- quences ; and the anger of the Great Duke of Florence for the deceit practised upon him by his nephew and favorite is only momentarily threatening. The "Maid of Honor" deserves some special notice. While equally removed from tragic inci- dent, it is more heroic and martial in tone than the others ; the action transporting us from the court of Sicily to the seat of war, where Bertoldo, the preferred suitor of Camiola, the Maid of Honor, falls into captivity. His ransom, refused him by his brother the King, is furnished by the noble Camiola, whose loyal devotion he rewards by breaking faith with her and yielding to the importunities of the Duchess Aurelio, with whom he returns home to be wedded. But at the point of marriage the wronged heroine appears, discloses the faithless- ness of her fickle lover, and so eloquently pleads her case that the Duchess resigns at once in her favor. At this point, how- ever, instead of Camiola receiving the penitent Bertoldo back into grace, and the play closing in the conventional manner of tragicomedy, it is announced that she will have none of her lovers, as she has decided to marry into the church, and Ber- toldo, by her command, resumes his knighthood of Malta with its vow of celibacy. Such an outcome, bloodless but unsatis- factory, renders the play more or less unique among the tragi- comedies of the time. Yet it well illustrates Massinger's con- sistency of purpose in handling a serious motive that involves a moral question, and his refusal to sacrifice the principles of his art to the exigencies of the happy ending. Some attention has been called to the relatively tempered tone of Massinger's tragicomedies from the Fletcherian type; their clearer differentiation from the realm of tragedy in motive and event; their greater regard for the laws of cause and effect; and their less dependence on constant thrills and sensational theatrical devices. In combining various threads of story in a single action and in originality of treatment, Massinger was as ingenious a playwright as his predecessor. But he had not the latter's mastery of technic in maintenance 135 of suspense and artful handling of the denouement. Often the efifect of his tragicomic drama is considerably lessened by some device or other that foreshadows, if it does not betray, the character of the outcome. For example, we know from the start the noble blood of the Bondman and the identity of the disguised Prince of Tarent, so that in each case the execu- tion that threatens them in the end for having won the love of ladies of rank is felt to be already averted by our foreknowl- edge of the coming disclosures of their noble birth. Fletcher would have contrived in some way to conceal their identity until the end, and thus enhance the effect of the denouement. Similarly, the magnanimity of Lorenzo to the Princess Matilda in the " Bashful Lover " presages the happy outcome of all the difficulties; the rescue which saves the condemned in the "Renegado" is explained beforehand, so that the announce- ment of its success comes as no surprise; and the happy clue regarding the fates of the two culprits in the " Great Duke of Florence " is already in the possession of the spectators before the final scene when they are officially pardoned by the magnanimous Duke. Only occasionally in his tragicomedies does Massinger effect a telling surprise that recalls his master's skill. In the "Emperor of the East," when the jealous monarch has learned the falsity of his suspicions and is bit- terly repenting the execution of his kinsman, the man in ques- tion turns up alive to set the final seal of happiness on the reconciliation. And the sudden and unexpected outcome given the "Maid of Honor" must have startled even a Caroline audience. But if less a master of effective tragicomedy than his early contemporary, Massinger's more careful art as a dramatist seems to have led him to a clearer idea of the nature of the species as a type that should be medial between tragedy and comedy, strictly detached from the horrors and deaths of the former, and lifted above the humor and extravagance of the latter. In this respect, his consistency is in marked con- trast to the carelessness of most of his contemporaries. From Massinger to Shirleythe transition is easy and natural. The work of the last great figure among the later Elizabethans is a direct continuation of the traditions established by his 136 masterly predecessors. His dramatic career beginning ap- proximately with the death of Fletcher in 1625 and ending with the closing of the theaters, covers a period of the very heyday of English tragicomedy. It is not surprising, then, that Shirley's best and most characteristic work, like that of his masters and contemporaries, lies in this type of drama. His contribution to the form, representing about a third of his whole dramatic output, adds little that is new to that of Fletcher and Massinger. He was the close student of both, combining the delight in thrills and complicated plots of the former with something of the latter's moral tone and love of poetic justice. Moreover, tragicomedy by this time, tho always a variable quantity fluctuating over a wide area, was becoming more or less conventionalized in materials and treat- ment, like the drama in general. Love in one form or another is almost invariably the chief interest, interwoven with war, usurpation or villainous intrigue. The characters are the re- curring court types of the romantic dukedoms that border the Mediterranean. And the plot is an ingenious affair, usually perfectly artificial, but cleverly manipulated to bring about whatever happy ending the exigencies of the situation demand. Thus it is that little distinguishes Shirley's tragicomedy from what has, gone before. A court is always prominent, and the villainous intrigues, amorous entanglements and threatened usurpations that take place within it have a general sameness to others of the kind. In the "Duke's Mistress," "Royal Master," " Court Secret " and " Coronation," the action is almost wholly confined within the gates of a single palace. The " Imposture " encompasses both the court of Mantua and that of Ferrara. A sub-plot supplies the usual court interest in the " Gentlemen of Venice," while the main action centers on a repellent theme of Italian domestic life. And court in- trigue is combined with war and conquest in the " Young Admiral" and the "Doubtful Heir." Unlike Massinger, Shirley put no curb on the bounds of tragicomedy. The line of demarcation separating the form from his tragedies and comedies is even more purely arbitrary than in the Fletcherian plays. Theoretical distinctions of 137 genres played little part in his dramatic creed ; and while some of his plays were pubHshed as tragicomedies during his life- time,^* never in prefatory matter or elsewhere does he himself betray any critical interest in the form. Tragicomic elements, accordingly, continue to appear in his comedies, as the " Exam- ple " and the curious medley called " St. Patrick for Ireland " illustrate; and, on the other hand, his tragedies occasionally show the popular tendency to limit the catastrophe to the vicious and allow the good to live, conforming, in a way, to the second kind of tragedy chronicled by Aristotle as the most appealing to popular taste. To class the " Duke's Mistress " among tragicomedies and the " Politician " among tragedies, may seem to be drawing an artificial distinction. Yet in the last named, death claims an innocent victim as well as the guilty, and the happy union of the hero and heroine at the end seems subordinated to the tragic downfall of evil. The " Duke's Mistress," on the contrary, allots death only to the two evil spirits of the piece, and offers a conventional tragi- comic character cast and theme. The lustful monarch, illi used queen, villainous favorite, intriguing courtier, honest soldier, and faithful lovers are all there; while the plot paral- lels that of Dekker's " Match Me in London," and is reminis- cent of a multitude of other tragicomedies. The double endi ing of the rewards for the virtuous and punishment of the wicked is again strikingly exemplified in the " General," if, indeed, the manuscript production of that title, with its nonde- script setting and rimed verse, is correctly attributed to Shir- ley.^" An action of war and lust and usurpation, mingled with romance, seems to have culminated in a series of bloody trage- dies ; but surprises are in store, and when we have recovered from the final shocks, we discern that the play is really a tragi- comedy: that the wicked usurper and his intriguing son alone have not been recalled to life, while the rightful monarch has "The following appeared as tragicomedies: Doubtful Heir (1652), Im- posture (1632), Court Secret (1653), and the Gentleman of Venice (1655). " The Generall : A Tragi-Comedy. Reprinted from MS. by Halliwell, A Brief Description of the Ancient &■ Modern Manuscripts . , , Plymouth Library, 1853. See Fleay, II, 244, 340 ; Dyce ed. of Shirley, VI, 495 ; also Gosse, Mermaid ed. of Shirley, p. xxvii, note. 138 been restored, the heroine united to the suitor of her choice, and the valiant General — tho rejected as a lover — compen- sated with a high commission and sent off to new conquests. In quick changes of fortune and extravagant theatrical effects, Shirley's tragicomedies are quite comparable to those of his master Fletcher. No better example of the extreme use of reverse and surprise is afforded than by the " Doubtful Heir." The hero is first condemned to die and next exalted to the kingship with a frequency that takes our breath away. Three several times do his fortunes undergo this double change before his grasp on the throne is finally secure and the happy ending sealed with a double marriage. In the " Young Admiral " we witness a moral conflict that recalls Massinger. Vittorio, taken captive with his betrothed by the Sicilians, is confronted with the problem of choosing between treason and the death of his beloved. In great distress he resolves on treason, only to learn from the other side that the first assault against his native city means the death of his father. In this play and in others the dangers are removed and happy ending perfected with an astonishing ingenuity. A second love theme, in which the Princess of Sicily is the heroine, so works that the Young Admiral is freed from his dilemmas, and out of jealousy, suspicion and threatened war come reconciliation, the union of lovers and peace. Characteristic of Shirley's tragicomedies are the elaborate complications of the plot, usually carried to the limits of im- probability. Confusion of identity, disguise, and any device calculated to complicate matters, are cultivated to the full. Identity is intentionally misrepresented in the " Imposture," and an intriguer's mistress is palmed off as a princess. In the " Court Secret " the tangled love chain, in which three pairs of brothers and sisters love awry thru no fault of theirs, is worthy of the most complicated Arcadian pastoral. And so cleverly contrived is the plot that on the disclosure of the court secret, which establishes the true relations among the lovers and averts the dangers, the elaborate love tangle straightens out of its own accord. The interchange of child- ren in infancy, which underlies the complication of this play, 139 is also employed in the sub-plot of the " Gentleman of Venice." A disclosure of birth gains the Doubtful Heir his title to the throne ; and the involved plot of the " Coronation " turns on the discovery of the rightful identity of two princes, the supposed lost brothers of the Queen. Such are some of the stock situations employed repeatedly by Shirley to perfect tragicomic plots that will unravel easily when the proper state of threatening complications has been reached. They show his clever craftmanship as well as the conventionalized state of the drama, now no longer seeking novelty in theme and treat- ment but content to follow as fashion had pointed the way. With Shirley we reach the last important link in the direct development of romantic tragicomedy that starts with the innovation of Beaumont and Fletcher and temporarily ceases with the closing of the theaters in 1642. The numerous tragi- comedies written by minor playwrights during the latter years of this period only further emphasize the fairly well-defined outlines of the genre in the reign of Charles I and its pre- eminence on the popular stage. Davenant, Carlell, Cartwright and Thomas Killigrew, all of whom cultivated the form almost exclusively, stand forth as the chief contributors among the lesser lights, and individual pieces scattered among a host of others help to swell the total output of Caroline tragicomedy. Numerically, these plays present quite a formidable array; but the large majority follow the way pointed by precedent and move within the relatively restricted limits of settled conven- tion. Similarities in motive, character and situation abound, whether the scene is the usual Italian principality, a remote Eastern court, or transferred to ancient Britain or Scandi- navia, or the plot revamped from Spanish novel, French ro- mance or ancient history. Only along the line of theatrical effectiveness is there no sign of stagnation. The dramaturgy of tragicomedy had now become an art on which each writer lavished his best endeavor to the neglect of all else. The most absurd and insignificant play is not without technical dexterity ; and many outdo Fletcher's tragicomedies in artfully concealed denouement, startling discoveries, and succession of final sur- prises. 140 Noticeable in all is the influence of the social and literary forces dominant at the court of Charles I. Fashionable Eng- lish society was aping the cults and affectations of French pre- ciosity ; and the vogue of the interminable French romance had set in across the channel, with its heroic ideals, artificial senti- ment, and impossible heroes and heroines. Tragicomedy read- ily lent itself to current fashions, particularly in the hands of writers closely identified with the court. In the " Platonic Lovers," a tragicomedy of little action and much disputation, Davenant gave dramatic treatment to the fashionable cult of court circles; while love casuistry and absurd disquisitions over honor and friendship reappear constantly in the plays of others. The popular fondness for romance long drawn out -seems to have induced Carlell to extend two of his tragicome- dies, " Arviragus and Philicia " and the " Passionate Lovers," bver two parts — a custom later employed by the equally ver- bose Killigrew. Cough's " Strange Discovery " dramatizes the rambling story of " Theagenes and Clariclea " of Helio- dorus, which Hardy in France had earlier extended over eight tragicomedies of five acts each. And the popularity of the heroic fiction of the day is easily the inspiration for the large majority of these less known plays. Love and honor and friendship are always uppermost; heroes and heroines display the most extravagant and unnatural nobility of sentiment; rival suitors contend in magnanimity and generosity; love is sacrificed for friendship ; constancy is put to strange tests ; and no limit is set to marvelous adventure and astounding de- nouement. Some few, indeed, do not follow the formula of heroic romance but lean rather to realism. Davenant's " Just Italian," Davenport's " City Night-Cap," and the " Twins " of William Rider, belong with Shirley's " Gentleman of Venice " as tragicomedies of Italian domestic life, and vie with one another in the repellency of their themes. And the " Dis- tresses " of Davenant is of yet different cast, recalling Span- ish drama in its rapid action, frequent duels, adventures and complications. A few others are anomalies that will call for mention later ; but the prevailing type is as directly the descen- 141 dent of Beaumont and Fletcher romance as it is the forebear of the heroic play of the Restoration. Both Davenant and Killigrew wrote tragicomedies after the closing of the theaters as well as before, their work thus form- ing an interesting link between the old and the new. The precursory heroic ideal of Restoration drama is shown to best advantage perhaps in the former's three tragicomedies of the " Siege," " Fair Favorite " and " Love and Honor." In the first named, a hero who has committed treason for love is goaded by the scorn of his noble mistress to fight with such blind fury in expiation of his crime that besieged Pisa falls, and he is restored to honor and rewarded with his lady's hand. In the " Fair Favorite " the heroic ideal works a novel varia- tion on the well-worn tragicomic theme of the lustful tyrant and virtuous maiden. The king's base passion is exalted to a high and ideal love; and the neglected queen, instead of the imperious and bitterly resentful woman, is a meek and humble Grissel, bent on resigning in favor of her fair rival. But extreme nobility and lofty sentiment, together with remark- able tragicomic technic, are best exemplified in Davenant's early masterpiece, which well merited the praise of Richard Flecknoe : In 's Love and Honor you might see The height of tragecomedy."' As often, the action follows in the wake of war. The Duke of Savoy has humbled the Duke of Milan, and among the captives is the latter's daughter Evandra, who is decreed to die in retaliation for the supposed slaying of the Duke of Savoy's brother by the enemy. Her three lovers combine to conceal her from the angry vengeance of the Duke, and vie with one another in chivalric devotion and determination to die in her stead. But she is not to be outdone in magnanimity. By a ruse she contrives t,o escape their vigilance and gives her- self up to execution, only to find that her faithful companion Melora is claiming her identity. The result is that both ladies are condemned to die. At the climax, which is remarkable "Sir William D'Avenant's Voyage to the other World, with his Ad- ventures in the Poet's Elisium (1668). 142 even for tragicomedy, amid the succession of magnanimous offers and surprising discoveries, tragic fate slips from one victim to another until by the final disclosure that the Duke's brother still lives it is dissipated entirely, and everyone ap- peased in the reconciliation. Rivalry in generosity again comes to the fore in William Habington's " Queen of Aragon," a tragicomedy of like heroic tone, with a background of war and a foreground of love and honor. Extreme devotion which remains unaltered under the most severe tests is shown in the anonymous " Queen, or Ex- cellency of Her Sex "^^ and Glapthorne's " Lady's Privilege." In the latter, the hero is commanded by his mistress not only to renounce his own suit but to secure her the love of his friend, all of which he faithfully performs. A duel of honor occurs; love is sacrificed for friendship by the devoted com- rade ; the usual execution is stayed ; and the denouement brings a series of surprises, among them the disclosure by the now humbled heroine that her heartless conduct has all been a ruse to test her lover's devotion."^ In Carlell's four tragicomedies the constancy of love and the ideality of friendship are carried to the limits of heroic romance, strange adventure abounds, and tragicomic devices are multiplied in the elaborately planned denouements. In the " Fool Would be a Favorite," which like Davenport's " City Night-Cap " takes its name from the comic sub-plot, a novel effect is secured by the supposedly slain hero personating his own ghost — a device resorted to by the heroine in Berkeley's "Lost Lady." The "Deserving Favorite,"^' Carlell's best tragicomedy, offers a series of paragons of virtue — heroes afHicted with the most sensitive honor and heroines no less idealized — and in contrast an " honest Jacomo," more confessedly a villain than Richard III and blacker than lago. Forest scenes and a sentimental heroine in page attire recall " Philaster " ; but in general the play offers nothing ^ Reprinted by Bang, Materialien zur Kunde des alteren EngUschen Dramas ( J 906), vol. 13. The play has been assigned to Ford, cp, S. P. Sherman in Mod, Lang. Notes (1908), XXIII, 245. " Glapthorne is also the author of a non-extant Noble Tryal (S. R. 1660), which is recorded as a tragicomedy. ^ Edited with introduction by C. H. Gray (Dissertation, Chicago), 1905. 143 distinctive over other villain tragicomedies. The action cul- minates in the usual scene of impending execution, and the disclosures which convert the " Scoene of blood into a Scoene of joy " are of long-standing familiarity. The ax is stayed by the emergence from disguise of the character whose supposed death is about to be expiated. Other disclosures and lengthy explanations reveal that the lovers are brother and sister, which of course solves a love difficulty; a hermit turns out to be their banished father in disguise ; and a wicked tmcle is dis- covered in the vUlaia. To these should be added the two ex- tant plays of Arthur Wilson, the " Swisser "^* and the " In- constant Lady,"^° both tragicomedies of the approved patterns, offering a full quota of disguises, sleeping-potion poisons, thwarted intrigue, penitent villains, discoveries of identity, and like measures devised to effect telling tragicomic conclu- sions. Play^vrights had learned the theatrical value of saving every surprise for the denouement; and in this respect, the tragicomedies of minor writers often far surpass those of their masters. The contribution of Cart\vright and Killigrew to tragicom- edy also follows the conventionalized mould of heroic romance. Both men were staunch royalists, the former a scholar and the latter a court wit, and both were writers of distinction in their own day. Cartwright was numbered among the sons of Ben; he was connected all his life with Oxford, where his most celebrated tragicomedy, the " Royal Slave," was presented with much pomp before the King and Queen in August, 1636. He evidently wrote but four plays, three of which are tragi- comedies,^" and to judge from the mass of fulsome panegyric poems that accompany the posthumous edition of 1651, they were immensely popular with his literary contemporaries. In addition to the " Royal Slave," the tragicomedies are the " Lady Errant " and the " Siege ; or Love's Convert," all of " Edited from MS. by Albert Feuillerat, Paris, 1904. = Printed from MS. by P. Bliss, Oxford, 1814. ^ Cartwright's dramatic preference is noticed in a commendatory poem by a certain " I. B." : No bloody drops did from thy Pencill fall. Thy blackest Scean's but Tragi-comicall. 144 which have a general sameness in character and little beside the author's fantastic style to distinguish them from other tragicomic treatments of romantic themes. Similarly, three of the four plays of Killigrew that fall within this period are tragicomedies, " The Prisoners," " Claricilla " and the " Prin- cess," all in prose, and the last two written during a tour of the author abroad. Their distinctive trait is melodramatic excess. In violent action, strained sentiment and impossible adventure, they easily outdo anything attempted by others, con- cealing poverty in all else by wild extravagance. Bloodshed and fighting suffuse the action ; the villains usually meet death ; heroes repeatedly suffer wounds that heal readily; and the stage may be strewn with the corpses of soldiers and bravos. In comparison, the tragicomedies of the scholarly Cartwright are relatively subdued, relying more on rhetorical disquisition and spectacular effects, and less on tumultuous action and strange adventure. But the differences are in degree and not in kind, for the inspiration of both writers is the same — the heroic fiction of the Caroline era. To conclude the account of later Elizabethan tragicomedy, it remains to mention briefly certain minor and anomalous forms of the species that fall rather without our main dis- cussion. In academic circles tragicomedy in both vernacular and Latin was cultivated from time to time. On the occasion of the royal visit to Oxford in 1636, when Cartwright's " Royal Slave " was first presented, the students of Christ Church also performed for the King's entertainment the " Floating Island," by William Strode, Public Orator at Oxford, another university tragicomedy but utterly different from its companion piece.^'^ The " Floating Island " is an allegorical masque, the characters of which are all abstractions, and the action ominously sym- bolic of the strained political state of affairs of Charles' king- dom. That the piece appeared under the genre name is doubt- less due to the fact that the climax and f/eMOM^mewi of the slow- moving allegory are obviously adapted from current tragi- comedy. The "Amorous War" is likewise the work of an Oxford scribe, Jasper Mayne, and recalls the artificial struc- " Recently reprinted by B. Dobell, Poetical Works of Strode, 1907. 145 ture and disquisitional style of Cartwright's "Lady Errant." Two of the Latin plays of William Drury, a Jesuit Professor of Rhetoric at Douay, also bear the title name. " Alvredus sive Alfredus " is a " Tragico-Comoedia " dealing with King Alfred's deliverance of England from the Danes, and, accord- ing to the title, was acted three times by the youth of the English college at Douay in 1619; and the first part of a "Reparatus sive Depositum, Tragico-Comoedia" followed in 1628.^* At least two other academic plays of this period in- accessible in manuscript are chronicled as tragicomedies : the Latin " Pseudomagia "^° by William Mewe of Cambridge, and the " Warde,"^° an Oxford production in vernacular by Thomas Neale, dated September 16, 1637.^^ Certain of the Caroline pastorals were also denominated tragicomedies in their own day, following the precedent es- tablished in England by Daniel and Fletcher. The " Careless Shepherdess " of Thomas Goffe, the Oxford preacher, and Joseph Rutter's " Shepherds' Holiday " — ^both of which were represented at Whitehall — are elaborate Arcadian tragicom- edies, which rehabilitate conventional materials and carry on the traditions of English pastoralism that descend from Guarini. And a short pastoral skit by Joseph Tatham, called " Love Crowns the End," acted " by the scholles of Bingham " in Notingham, 1632, appeared in the second edition of 1657 as a " Tragi-Comedy." Among unacted plays of the period is the " Adrasta," a " Tragi-comedie " by John Jones of purely conventional design ; and the " Governour " of Sir Cornelius Formido, entered in the Court Revels as presented at St. James, February 16, 1636, was evidently never printed. An interesting indication of the popularity of tragicomedy is afforded by the stage history of Suckling's " Aglaura," which first appeared as a conventional tragedy at Christmas time 1636, ^See H. R. Duthilloeul, Bibl. Douaisienne (1843), p. 63. '^Shakspere Jahrbuch, XXXIV, 317. '°MS. Rawl. Poet, 79, Bodleian Library. "^ It will be remembered that the old Oxford Bellum Grammaticale ap- peared in print for the first time in 1635, and as a Tragico-Comoedia. Above, p. 88. 11 146 and the following Easter was accommodated with a new fifth act, in which the wholesale deaths are all averted and the play transformed into a tragicomedy — a concession, the courtly author explains, to the ladies, " whom to see a lover die, it grieves." Of no integral relation to the species is Sir Aston Cokayne's "Trappolin Creduto Principe," which, tho styled an " Italian Trage-Comedy," founded, as the author admits, on a piece he had seen in Venice, is really a pure farce and hardly more than a translation of the Italian play of the same name.^^ To conclude the list of extant irregular productions associated with Caroline tragicomedy by documentary evi- dence, the " Langartha "^^ of Henry Bumell, acted at Dublin in 1639, may be mentioned; a play chiefly interesting here for the critical comment it called from the author, in reply to detractors, that " a Tragie-Comedy sho'd neither end Comically or Tragically, but betwixt both," one of the very few ex- pressions of the sort that the period affords. ' The almost total absence of critical notice of tragicomedy during a period when it was the prevailing dramatic type is not so surprising when we consider that the drama of these years was practically without a guiding criticism. After Ben Jonson, dramatic theory had no English expositor until the Restoration; and so far as tragicomedy is concerned, Sidney was the last to issue a critical pronunciamento. Fletcher, in- deed, early in his career formulated a definition for the form from Guarini; but none of his imitators ever manifested a similar interest in critical theory. Thruout the period there appears to have been no echo in England of the discussion that followed in the wake of the Spanish national drama, or of that in France growing out of the appearance of Corneille's " Cid " as a tragicomedy, altho the play itself was straightway translated and acted across the channel.^* In England the ^ See T. Wilkes, A General View of the Stage (1759), p. 61. °^ Reprinted in Baldwyn, Old English Drama (1824). For stage history, see History of Dublin (1854), I, 41. °* The Cid, A Tragi comedy, out of French made English, Joseph Rutter, first part, 1637; second part, 1640. It seems also that tragicomedies figured among contemporary French plays presented in England about this time by French players. See W. J. Lawrence, Early French Players in England, Anglia (1909), XXXII, 69. 147 form developed without the aid or hindrance of critical dicta, and throve in response to an ever increasing demand for the thrills, melodramatic extravagance and happy endings that it only could supply, until by the closing of the theaters romantic tragicomedy had well nigh elbowed other forms off the stage. Due to this lack of critical interest and to the little attention paid distinctions of dramatic kinds, only rarely do playwrights indicate in preface or prolog that the play in hand is a tragi- comedy. Our ideas, therefore, of the extent to which the genre name was in current use must be based on data furnished by title pages and other kindred sources. Of the approximate hundred surviving plays that make up the sum of English tragicomedy from 1610 to 1642, almost two thirds offer docu- mentary evidence of some sort of their contemporary recogni- tion as tragicomedies. And with few exceptions, the others, if they appeared in quarto,^° were left without any classifica- tion, as indicative of a neutral type. These facts demonstrate pretty clearly the general consistency in the current conception of tragicomedy, and its accord with the artificial bounds es- tabhshed for the form in the preceding pages. Many were not pubHshed at all until the period of the Commonwealth; and only during the dozen years preceding the closing of the theaters did tragicomedies begin to be generally indicated on the title pages of printed quartos. At this time the form was becom- ing more and more conventionalized and more definitely differ- entiated from tragedy and comedy — as evidenced most clearly in minor writers — with the natural result of the more general application of the title name. And altho occasional incon- sistencies still appear at a late date,^° the closing years of the period witness practical unanimity in the recognition of tragi- comedy by name as well as the definite severance of the type from other forms of drama. The extent to which contemporary foreign example may °° No pre-Restoration folios included tragicomedies in their divisions. " For example, tlie three plays of Richard Brome, Love-sick Court, Queens' Exchange, and Queen and Concubine, which follow the mould of contemporary tragicomedy, the not detached from the author's exuberant comic vein, came from the press as "Comedies," 1657-59. 148 have directly influenced English tragicomedy of this period is probably negligible. Pastoral tragicomedy, indeed, was an Italian importation, and its introduction into England doubt- less of considerable historical importance to our subject; but the type itself enjoyed only a sporadic existence, all it had to offer being quickly assimilated by its more vigorous sister growth. And both the Spanish " Celestina "" and the " Cid " are among translations of the time. But a more intrinsic dependence on continental precedent is hard to establish ; altho French tragicomedy of the romantic type which conquered the Parisian stage in the time of Hardy had hardly abated in popularity by 1642, and the Cloak and Sword drama of Lope and Calderon was an even more vigorous growth on the Spanish peninsula. True, much of the spirit of the Spanish national drama is embodied in the work of Fletcher and others; and the same pseudo-romance of French tragicomedy pis__the underlying inspiration for many Caroline dramatists. But English tragicomedies, while preserving many traits of foreign extraction, are rarely traceable to continental originals. Playwrights, when they did not invent their tragicomic plots entirely, turned to fiction rather than drama for material and found in the romantic stories of Spain, Italy, France and Greece an inexhaustible variety of sources from which to dress anew their favorite motives and situations. Later Elizabethan tragicomedy, then, is to be thought of as an offspring of the drame litre, a spontaneous and natural evolution, and as much a national product, knowing no guid- ing criticism but popular taste, as its sister growths in France and Spain. Its direct development from the innovation of Beaumont and Fletcher, the revivers of the romantic tradition in the English drama, to Davenant and Killigrew, the precur- sors of Restoration drama, is along one pretty well-defined highway, whose characteristics, constant and variable, have be^n set forth above. The bypaths noted from time to time, ~which include pastorals, domestic and realistic dramas, aca- " The Spanish Bawd represented in Celestina Or, the Tragicke-Comedy of Calisto and Melibea, translated by James Mabbe (Don Diego Puede-ser), 1631. 149 demic plays, and various anomalies, are only to be expected from a genre of such uncertain dimensions and composite ancestry. The main course follows the leading tradition of its own past — the romantic play of serious interest and happy lending — and leaves an ever widening track from its first real inception at the beginning of the century to its temporary cessation in 1642. CHAPTER VI The Decline of Tragicomedy (1642 to 1700) The interregnum in dramatic activity caused by the repres- sion of the theaters during the civil war and Commonwealth is not to be regarded as a period totally detached from interest in the drama. Altho acting was under the ban and the chief playwrights were exiles in Europe, the drama was far from dead, as is evidenced by continued dramatic composition, the printing of old plays, private performances, the resort to puppet-shows or drolls, and the readiness of the regular drama to break forth on the slightest opportunity. In such ways the theatrical traditions of the past were kept alive in spite of hostile legislation, so that the Restoration in 1660 and the granting of the first patents for licensing theatrical companies found the old drama little impaired in vitality, and still the most potent influence in shaping the new drama to the changed conditions and society of the England of Charles II. Tragicomedy during this interval of closed theaters found a vent for its interrupted popularity chiefly in publication. Denied expression on the stage, it met with a ready welcome from the reading public. During the suppression of the thea- ters no less than forty tragicomedies of the earlier period appeared in print for the first time, including almost all the Fletcherian group — ^which first saw the light in the 1647 folio — and many by Massinger, Shirley, Cartwright, Carlell, and a host of others. Moreover, plays of the type still continued to be produced by banished court wits and other royalist adher- ents who wrote for private circulation or surreptitious per- formance. Apparently tragicomedies even figured in the abor- tive attempts to reopen the theaters during the Commonwealth. On February 5, 1648, John Evelyn witnessed " a tragie-comedy acted in the Cockpit, after there had ben none of these diver- 150 151 sions for many years during the warr."^ And one of the later infractions of the act of suppression has a curious interest here. It seems that on the occasion of a performance by vagrant players in 1653 of the old play of " I\Iucedorus " in the country town of Whitny, an accident occurred that killed some and injured many others. John Rowe, a Puritan Lecturer from Oxford, who saw in the disaster the hand of Nemesis, records the happening in a pamphlet which he entitled "Tragi- Comoedia," evidently by reason of the tragical consequences visited upon the performance of a comedy.^ This pamphlet use of the title name is a distinct innovation that sprang up during the troubled times when England was torn in civil strife. Following the dissensions between King and ParUament and the ascendency of Cromwell to power, there was a general upgrowth of political and personal lam- poons, usually by anonymous authors who championed the royalist cause and took this means of heaping scurrilous abuse i upon the Roundheads. Xot a few of these libels were couched ,; in dramatic form, and for some reason or other usually settled j on the name of tragicomedy to denote their type.^ The earli- est political squib of this sort is the work of Richard Braith- wait, who produced in 1641 a prose piece in four short acts called " Mercurius Britanicus, or The English Intelligencer," described on the title as "A Tragic-Comedy, at Paris. Acted ^Memoirs, I, 391. There is also record of an attempted performance of King and h'o King at Salisbury Court sometime in 1647. Fleay, History of the Stage, p. 365 ; Ward, III, 278. ' To continue the title : Being a Brief Relation of the Strange and Wonderfull hand of God discovered at Witny, in the Comedy Acted there February the Third, where there were some slaine, many hurt, with severall other Remarkable Passages. Together with what was preached in three Sermons on that occasion from Rom. I. 18. Both which may serve as some Check to the growing Atheisme of the Present Age. By John Rowe of C. C. C. in Oxford, Lecturer in the Towne of Witny. Ox- ford, 1653. See CoUier, II, 118; Ward, III, 281 n. ' Occasionally, it seems, as in the case of the Puritan tract of Rowe cited above, pamphlets without dramatic form were given the genre name. Another instance of the same is a Latin satirical poem by the Rev. Adam Littleton, written to ridicule the proceedings of the parliamentary visitors appointed in 1647 for the visitation of Oxford, entitled Tragi-Comcedia Oxoniensis, i648(?). 152 with great Applause." A sub-heading which reads, "The Censure of the Judges; or The Court Cure," betrays the nature of the piece, which, despite its dramatic externals, is only a royalist attack on the political transactions and person- ages of the eventful period ushering in the civil war, and was never intended for presentation.* The later half-dozen or more pamphlet tragi-comedies of the period are rather less pretentious and evidently the work of men of inferior genius. Usually the title is sufficient to reveal the nature of the brief contents of these pseudo-dramas, which — ^whether religious, personal or political — ^are all virulently anti-Puritan. The Commonwealth party in general and Presbyterianism in par- ticular are the butts of abuse in a print of 1647, called " The Scottish Politick Presbyter, Slain by an English Indepen- dent " f while the " Presbyterian Lash : or, Noctroffs Maid whipt,"° is a coarse personal satire on Zackary Crofton, a non-conformist divine, who was prosecuted for whipping his maid-servant and had the temerity to print a defense of his action.' Others were frankly seditious, such as " Craftie Cromwell," in two parts (1648), written respectively by " Mer- curius Melancholicus " and " Marcurius Pragmaticus,"^ and * There also exists an undated Latin edition of this piece, for which see Appendix. Some years later the ready pen of the same author pro- duced another royalist pamphlet of the same sort, dealing — as the title declares — ^with the murder of Charles I : Tragi-Comcedia, Cui in Titulum inscribitur Regicidium, etc., 1663. For full title see Appendix. 'The Scottish Politick Presbyter, Slain by an English Independent: Or; the independents victory over the presbyterian party. The rigour of the Scotch government, their conniving and bribing; the lewdness and de- bauchery of elders in secret. A tragi-comedy, 1647. Reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany, VI, 80. 'The Presbyterian Lash: or, Noctroffs Maid whipt. A Tragy-comedy As it was lately acted in the great rootne at the Pye Tavern at Algate. By Noctroffe the Priest, and severall his parishioners at the eating of a chine of beefe. The first part. London. Printed for the use of Mr. Noctroffs friends. 1661. Supposed to be the work of Francis Kirkman, the book-seller, from the fact that the dedication bears the initials "K. F." 'Kennett, Register and Chronicle (1728), p. 797. ' Craftie Cromwell, Or, Oliver ordering our New State. A tragi-comedie. Wherein is discovered the trayterous undertakings and proceedings of the 153 likewise the two parts of the " Tragi-Comedy, called New- Market-Fayre,"° of the following year, in which the Pro- tector and Fairfax were again coarsely satirized and abused; while the last "tragicomedy" of the sort of which there is record is a " Cromwell's Conspiracy," printed in 1660.^° There is little to be said of these productions, and of course their only interest here is in the use of the title name. They are all of a type, arranged in five short acts of prose and dog- gerel, abusive in tone, and potently reflective of the hatred of the loyalists for the Puritans. In the political libels, the traitorous proceedings of the rebels are exposed and arraigned, and their leaders ridiculed and always shown as coming to grief at the end. Cromwell and Fairfax are of course the chief objects of attack; they are represented as possessed with devils, reviled and lampooned in every way, and their wives come in for even more indecent ribaldry. That the name of tragicomedy proved a popular label for this particular brand of Hterature is probably due to the mock nature of the con- tents. A burlesque of state afifairs arranged in dramatic form I would perhaps most naturally suggest the composite term of tragicomedy especially in an age when that particular species ; was a popular form of drama. At any rate, the pamphlet tragicomedy, which came into being during the era of closed theaters, is interesting as adding one to the many uses that the Said Nol, and his levelling crew. Written by Mercurius Melancholicus. Printed in the yeare, 164S. The Second part of Crafty Crumwell ; or Oliver in his glory as king, A Trage Commedie Wherein is presented, the late treasonable undertakings, and proceedings, of the Rebells, their murthering of Capt. Burley, with their underhand workings to betray their King. Written by Marcurius Pragmaticus. London, Printed in the yeare, 1648, 'A Tragi-Comedy, called New-Market-Fayre, or a Parliament Out-Cry: of State-Commodities, set to sale. Printed at you may goe look. 164Q. The Second Part of the Tragi-Comedy, Called New-Market-Fayre, Or Mrs. Parliaments New Figaryes. Written by the Man in the Moon, Printed at You may goe look, 1649. ^° Cromwell's Conspiracy, A tragy-comedy, relating to our latter times. Beginning at the death of King Charles the First, and ending with the happy restauration of King Charles the Second. Written by a Person of Quality, London, 1660. 154 title name had been called upon to serve in the past. Its next appearance belongs to a later period of troubled politics. But we need not look to pamphlets or to the publication of old plays for the sole manner in which tragicomedy is asso- ciated with the period of the Commonwealth. Dramatic com- position did not entirely cease for lack of a public stage; and the fact that tragicomedy which had so lately conquered the theaters continued to have its disciples is evidenced by the really remarkable number of such plays that fall between 1642 and the Restoration. All were the work of loyalists, patrons of poetry who found time to cultivate the drama even in " this tragical age, when the theater hath been so much out- acted." None were presented, at least not publicly ; and while most are of slight merit, they have a little historical interest. Some of these pieces are to be found among the literary diver- sions with which banished royalists occasionally sought to while away the tedium of exile. Of this nature are two ten- act tragicomedies, " Bellamira " and " Cicilia and Clorinda," which came from the pen of "Tom" Killigrew while official Resident for Charles II in Venice, 165 1. These romantic effusions — ^the latter of which borrows from the " Grand Cyrus" — are of the same harrowing type of the author's earlier tragicomedies. Princesses are in distress and villains pursue until the latter are killed and the former married to the princes of their choice, altho " Cicilia and Clorinda " even ends half tragically for the lovers. Similarly, two of the productions of Sir William Lower, another exiled patron of the drama who employed his leisure in literary pursuits are tragicomedies, altho not original compositions. "The Noble Ingratitude," which styles itself a " Pastoral-Tragi-Comedy," and " The Amorous Fantasme " are taken from the French of Phillippe Quinault, and both were printed at the Hague, 1659 and 1660, where Lower liad taken service in the household of Mary of Orange during the Commonwealth. Other ardent loyalists of the time of little note as poets ' kept alive the old conventional type of romantic drama with tragicomedies in which loyal sentiment is notably prominent. A certain Cosmo Manuche, an Italian who served as major in 155 ■ the army of Charles I, wrote two plays, both of this type, and took little pains to disguise his political affiliations. " The Loyal Lovers" (1652), in fact, is meant for contemporary application, satirizing the adherents of the local government in the knaves and rascals of the comic plot ; while the romantic characters — ^the loyal lovers and their friends — are repre- sented as champions of the King's cause.^^ Again, Manuche's other play, the "Just General" (1650), shows the faithful loyalty of Bellicosus, who steadily refuses to accede to popular clamor and mount the throne which his young king has de- serted to go in pursuit of a lost mistress. Otherwise, these plays are trite enough with their averted executions and super- plus of disguise. Equally conventional is a tragicomedy by George Gerbier D'Ouvilly, a Dutch soldier in the royal cause and dabbler in writing, entitled "The False Favorite Dis- graced" (1657), a play whose plot, setting and character cast offer nothing new over the villain type of tragicomedy that Shirley and others had perfected.^^ " Love's Victory," a con- temporary piece by William Chamberlayne is also a tragi- comedy and one which the author confessedly wrote only for reading, altho an alteration under another name appeared later on the Restoration stage.^^ Loyal sentiment is again much in evidence in the romantic plot, which takes us to Sicily, where an insurrection against the throne is subdued by Oroandes, the faithful general and very embodiment of loyalty. The rebellion quelled, rivalry in love sets in between the monarch and his subject, and Oroandes is compelled to meet his king " Also called The Royal Lovers. ^ The scene where Pausanio, the banished general, at his restoration demands the punishment of his rebellious son, is evidently borrowed — as Genest notes (X, 132) — from Fletcher's Loyal Subject. Also the device of the Duke adopting Friar's disguise to discover the true state of aflEairs, had been employed in tragicomedy by Massinger in the Emperor of the East, and Shirley in the Gentleman of Venice. " Wits Led by the Nose ; or, A Poet's Revenge : A Tragi-Comedy, an anonymous redaction of Chamberlayne's play, acted 1677 and printed the following year. The comic plot, in which the chief characters are English gulls who are the dupes of their servants, is much exalted here and gives the name to the alteration. There is no variation in the serious theme, which is in prose, verse and rime. See Genest, I, 203. 156 in duel. The King falls; and Oroandes, mad with grief, be- lieving himself a regicide, is only prevented at the end from self-destruction by the reappearance of the monarch, alive and moreover united to a former lost mistress, so all are appeased. Of no connexion with the serious theme is an absurd comic plot which apparently supplied the chief interest in the later alteration of the play. The other tragicomedies that fall within the period of closed theaters may be readily dismissed. A number survive only in titles;^* while the "Wandering Lover" (1658), a ridiculous prose composition of a youth of twenty, Thomas Meriton, is too trifling for comment ;^^ and "Love's Labyrinth; or the Royal Shepherdess" (1660) of Thomas Forde, is an unhappy attempt at Arcadian pastoral.^* All these plays clearly be- long to the drama of the past, and indicate no new interests — unless political — on the part of their authors, who at best were only writing for diversion. They show the persistent vitality of the genre, and serve to keep its traditions unbroken during the long pause in the acted drama before the new tastes and fresh influences of the Restoration demanded change. The return of the Stuarts to power in 1660 marks the begin- ning of important innovations in things dramatic as in all else. The general revival of dramatic activity, thus inaugu- rated, had already been anticipated by Davenant's cultivation of a sister-art, and England now had the opera as well as the "In Robert Baron's Pocula Castalia (1650) there is a poem addressed. To my Honour' d Friend Benjamin Garfield Esq; Upon his excellent Tragi- comedy entitled The Unfortunate Fortunate, p. 112. Nothing further is known of this play, nor of two other tragicomedies advertised at the end of The New World of English Words (1658) as " in the Presse, and ready for printing," and again, three years later, at the end of the 1661 ed. of Wit and Drollery, Joviall Poems: — The History of Lewis the eleventh King of France: a Trage-Comedy, and The fair Spanish Captive: a Trage-Comedy. There may also be chronicled an Alfrede or Right Reinthron'd. Being a Tragi-comedie , a manuscript play in the Bodleian, dated 1639 and dedicated to Lady Blount by her brother R. K. " For a critical estimate of this play and its author, consult Langbaine, Dramatick Poets, p. 367 ff. " For full account of this play, see Homer Smith, Pastoral Influence, etc.. Pub. Mod. Lang. Assn. (1897), XII, 387. 157 regular drama. New theatrical conditions resulted in an altered and more modern stage. A front curtain was intro- duced, scenic effects secured by the innovation of movable scenery, and for the first time woman actors interpreted female roles. Two rival companies were given a monopoly of all public performances; and, as both catered exclusively to royal patronage, the drama became less representative of the people and more subservient to the narrow and corrupt society of the court. Of the old dramatists, Davenant and KilHgrew alone remained, and the latter had deserted playwriting for theatrical management. Above all, French influence had set in, and its dominance in dramatic art and criticism is con- tinuous thruout the period. Altered conditions and fresh impulses were straightway effective in breaking up the conventional grooves into which the drama of the past had settled. Yet the old still exer- cised a potent sway over the new. The opening of the theaters witnessed a prompt revival of the earlier favorites, especially the plays of Shakspere and Beaumont and Fletcher, whose popularity, indeed, was unabating thruout the rest of the century. Many of the old plays had long runs. Among tragicomedies, "A King and No King," "Humorous Lieuten- ant," "Philaster," "Loyal Subject," "Spanish Curate," "Mad Lover " and " A Wife for a Month," were all stock plays during the early sixties, and Davenant's " Love and Honor " seems to have been revived with great success. Moreover, the same author's two post-Restoration tragicomedies are only redac- tions of earlier plays. The " Law against Lovers," acted in 1662, is an alteration of Shakspere's " Measure for Measure," with the characters of Benedict and Beatrice from " Much Ado " added ; and the " Rivals," a stock play in 1664, is made over from the "Two Noble Kinsmen," with an alteration of the denouement that preserves both princes alive at the end. It is no doubt largely due to this continued interest in the drama of the earlier generation that tragicomedy owes its perpetuation thruout an age dominated by French models and ~J French pseudo-classicism. For with the Restoration era Eng- 158 lish tragicomedy settles into a period of steady decline, per- ceptible almost from the beginning.^'' " Signs of decadent interest in the type are evident in many ways, altho tragicomedies continued to be written in some number thruout the period. But instead of receiving the attention of the chief playwrights as in the earlier Stuart reigns, the species is rarely cultivated by the leading figures of the age, with the notable exception of Dryden. And the mere number of tragicomedies becomes less impressive on examination. Many are only alterations of earlier models — as in the case of Davenant's two plays mentioned above — or translations of foreign originals; others are trifling produc- tions, political lampoons or anomalies of some sort, most of which were never intended for the stage; and the great majority of conventional pieces are scattered among authors of little reputation as playwrights. Thus, a comparison of the sum of Restoration tragicomedy with that of the later Elizabethans, shows emphatically that the type had reached its high-water mark in the earlier period and was now reced- ing. Causes of decline are readily evident. It can hardly be said that popular taste was reacting against the drama of thrills and happy ending, for popular taste was now a more or less negligible quantity as a factor for play- wrights to reckon with. The guiding spirit in the drama had shifted from the general public to the court, where French precept in dramatic art and criticism held full sway. The influence of current French fashions and models thus brought to bear on the English drama could not but vitally affect tragi- comedy. By 1660 the genre itself in France was practically " At the conclusion of Davenant's Law against Lovers the conversation between Benedict and Beatrice seems to contain an oblique reference to the decay of tragicomedy : Ben. I am afraid 'tis a Licence for Marriage. Beat. No, Sir, Plays that end so, begin to be Out of fashion. Ben. Do you not see your Cousin Juliet? She has been advis'd by a bauld Dramatick Poet Of the next Cloister, to end her Tragy-Comedy With Hymen the old way. 159 dead and the regular drama of Corneille and Racine reigned supreme. With the introduction of classical rule and pre- cept into England, popular tragicomedy became outlawed, and was forced to look for sole support to its own traditions, which continued strong enough to enable it to live but not to \ rule. In the struggle thus begun between pseudo-classicism , /; j on the one hand, and English tradition on the other, tragi- '' [ comedy was quickly dethroned, and rimed heroic tragedy in- J stalled in its stead. With each of these contending forces ; our subject is related. Its continuation along the lines of I past tradition deserves the first consideration. ' It will be remembered that tragicomedy at the end of the Elizabethan period was a fairly well defined species of roman- tic drama, displaying various characteristics, chief of which was the happy ending. The first decade following the Res- toration may be roughly taken as a time when tragicomedies of the old school were still somewhat in vogue, tho showing occasional traces of the new fashions. For example, Richard Flecknoe, whose first tragicomedy of "Erminia" (1661) was refused the stage, came forward in 1664 with " Love's King- dom," a pastoral tragicomedy written according to the clas- sical unities.^* The dramatis personae as well offer departures from the well-worn Arcadian type. Shepherds are lacking, the ladies are all " nymphs," and the satyr's place is taken by Pamphilus, " a vicious young fellow, stranger to Love's King- dom." But the plot has familiar traits: the love-chain is present, rivals contend over the honor of dying for their mis- tress, and the whole action centers on the strange laws so commonly met in pastoral and tragicomedy. Of similar type is Shadwell's "Royal Shepherdess" (1669), which the author confesses to be an adaptation from Fountain's " Rewards of Virtue"; his own contribution consisting chiefly in transfer- ring the narrative into action, for, "tho the French do often relate the most considerable actions in their plays, especially ^ In the author's words, " With all the Rules of Time and Place so exactly observ'd, as whilst for Time 'tis all compriz'd in as few hours as there are Acts; for the Place, it never goes out of the view or prospect of Loves Temple.'' 160 in their tragedies, the English will not be content without see- ing such actions done." The piece is only a conglomerate of old tragicomic motives and situations, linked to pastoral chiefly in the figure of the heroine, a supposed shepherdess, who is saved from execution in the end by the discovery of her royal birth. Stapylton's "Stepmother" (1663) shows its relation to the new period in the introduction of elaborate masques and much of an operatic nature, and its adherence to the old in a romantic plot of conventional design. The Stepmother her- self is a villainous woman — a common Restoration type — who is bent on murdering her second husband, a Prince of Veru- 1am, and his two children, who — it happens — are in love with her own two children. But a conversion of character brings all to rights. ; The old romanticism is equally dominant in Dryden's first tragicomedy, the "Rival Ladies" (1664), in James Howard's "All Mistaken" (1667), a play combining a serious and a comic plot, and in the tragicomedies of Sir William Killigrew, "Ormasdes," "Selindra" and the "Siege of Urbin" (1665- 66). Dryden's play especially is reminiscent of the Beaumont- Fletcher style. A few parts, indeed, are executed in rime — the author's first experiment in that kind of verse; but the play is clearly indicative of Dryden's early adherence to the old English drama, and is distinctly removed from his later and more representative method of tragicomedy. A Spanish novel is the source of an elaborately complicated plot, full of rapid and varied action, in which romantic improbabilities run riot and an astounding denouement not only preserves all from impending disaster but solves a most elaborate love-chain.^* The tragicomedies of William Killigrew, on the other hand, are evidently modeled on the earlier melodramatic effusions of his younger brother Thomas. Two are written in the same "A contemporary tragicomedy also of Spanish ancestry is Sir Samuel Tuke's Adventures of Five Hours (1663), taken from Coello's Los Empenos de Seis Horas. This adaptation had a most extraordinary popularity. Three editions appeared in eight years ; and Pepys and other contempora- ries testify to its great stage success. It much resembles Davenant's Dis- tresses in bustling action, distressed damsels and superfluity of complica- tions. 161 prose style, and all exhibit an almost equal fondness for dis- tressed princesses, intriguing villains, fighting, rescues, and general romantic extravagance. In one, Urbin is besieged by a lover who wooes with an army; in "Ormasdes," the rela- tive merits of love and friendship are put forward to the exaltation of the latter; and "Selindra" introduces us to an unknown princess of Hungary, who between lovers and villains is batted about like a shuttle-cock until the discovery of her identity brings happiness. In all, the device of concealed identity plays a main part, perhaps carried to the most extrava- gant limits in the " Siege of Urbin," where the city is relieved by the combined efforts of two martial strangers, one of whom turns out to be a rival of the besieging Duke and the other a damsel who has donned armor for the sake of love. Of these three indifferent plays, " Selindra " alone is known to have been acted. A few other so-called tragicomedies of no vital consequence also belong to these years of the dominance of the earlier drama ;^° but the plays above mentioned trace the " In the 1662 folio of the Duchess of Newcastle's peculiar dramatic compositions, there is one entitled Matrimonial Trouble, in two parts, the first called a Comedy and the second, which ends in deaths, a Come- Tragedy. And as one of her others. The Religious, contains an averted tragedy, it is also sometimes classed as a tragicomedy. None of the plays of this lady were ever acted. They are in a class by themselves ; all are of her own invention, and made up of a series of disjoined scenes in which allegorical personages carry on conversation. Her acquaintance with tragicomedy is voiced in one of her prefaces thus : " In Tragi-Come- dies I think Poets do not alwayes make all lye bleeding together; but I think for the most part they do ; but the want of this swarm in the last Act and Scene, may make my Playes seem dull and vacant." Equally unimportant is a tragicomedy called Marciano ; or The Dis- covery, an occasional piece acted by amateurs in honor of the Royal Com- missioner, at Edinburgh, 1663, and assigned to Wm. Clark. It presents a romantic story, advanced chiefly by a series of soliloquies, and regularly interspersed with comic scenes ; for, as the Preface explains, " least it should seem too serious for the pallats of those, who expected nothing from the Stage but mirth: It was thought fit to interlude it with a comick transaction." (Reprinted with introduction by W. H. Logan, Edinburgh, 1871.) Another anomaly of the genre title is A Witty Combat: or, the Female Victor (1663), supposedly by Thomas Porter, and described as "Acted 12 162 main course of tragicomedy of old tradition before Dryden's " Essay of Dramatic Poesy." Turning now to tragicomedy in connexion with the new aspects of the dramia, we are confronted with the question of its relation to the rimed heroic species that sprang into being in the early years of the Restoration, and for a time ruled supreme. In its essentials the new heroic play was no stranger on the English stage. Extravagant nobility of sentiment, ex- aggerated valor, heroic actions, and the other accompaniments of the form had been current in English drama since Beau- mont and Fletcher.^^ Moreover, these traits had found their chief abiding place in tragicomedy. Witness the conflicts be- tween love and honor, the strained emotion, the rivalries in noble self-sacrifice, and the paragons of virtue that appear constantly in the tragicomedies of the last of the Elizabethans, notably Carlell, Cartwright and Davenant. In fundamental character, at least, the heroic play of the Restoration was the direct product of latter-day tragicomedy. But the influx of French ideas brought changes which in all but few instances definitely separated the rimed species from the sphere of its pro^biitor. The perfected heroic type was regular. It obeyed rules and proprieties, or at least approximated them. Rime supplanted verse; pure comedy was tabooed; and above all, poetic justice was administered with severity. The result was a stauncher type of play, not tragedy of the traditional formula always, but tragic over and above tragi- comedy. Perhaps quite as many heroic plays confine their catastrophe to the wicked as end in a general slaughter. Fori example, in all of Dryden's so-called heroic tragedies the lovera are allowed to live and the deaths are visited upon others,' by Persons of Quality in Whitson-Week with great applause." The piece is a short prose skit of pure comedy, dramatizing a current incident that was causing a great stir in London. A certain Mary Moders, a notorious impostor, it seems, had palmed herself off as a German Princess and in- duced a yoimg lawyer's clerk to marry her ; and this is the basis of the play. The German Princess that Pepys saw acted April 15, 1664, is probably the same piece. (See Genest, I, 51-3-) ^ See James W. Tupper, Relation of the Heroic Play to the Romances of Beaumont and Fletcher, Publ, Mod, Lang. Assn., 1905. 163 usually the villainous. This double ending, in fact, seems to have been the ideal arrangement ; for in the typical heroic play the hero and heroine come off victorious, tho their happy union be ever so dearly purchased. But such plays, if incomplete as tragedies, are certainly not tragicomedies. True, in many plays of the latter species, deaths are by no means lacking and villains not infrequently suffer a tragic fate; but instances of the sort are usually v^rell confined to the background and are not intended to arouse either pity or terror. In the heroic play the reverse is true. When events reach a tragic crisis, death leaves in its wake kings and queens and emperors, all villains perhaps, but still leading characters, so that the union of lovers is really incidental to the tragic part of the denouement. > Yet in a few cases tragicomedy is definitely identified with the rimed heroic play of approved pattern. One or two even, which offered tragicomic action, were boldly written as such, but as a rule all were denominated tragedies whether they ad- mitted deaths or not.''^ Thus Orrery's "Henry V" (1664) and "Black Prince" (1667) contain nothing tragic in their actions; yet, while the first contents itself with the title of " History," the latter adds that of " Tragedy "^' — a misnomer that called from the contemporaneous Langbaine the following significant comment : " Tho' this Play in the Title-page be call'd a Tragedy, yet it ends successfully: and therefore I presume was rather stiled so by the Author, from the Quality and Grandeur of the Persons in the Dramma, than from any unfor- tunate Catastrophe."^* Both plays, indeed, have all the dignity of tragedy except painful or destructive action, and both rigidly '^ An exception may be noted in a MS. copy of Orrery's Tryphon in the Bodleian : Triphon, a traje-comedy, written by the right honourable Roger earle of Orrery. The play was printed 1669 as a Tragedy. It follows the usual scheme of double ending: the villainous tyrant and his con- federate kill themselves and the lovers are happily joined. A later romantic tragedy of like catastrophe, The Unnatural Mother (1698), Anon., was entered on the Term Catalogues in Feb. of that year as a Tragi- comedy, and printed without any classification. ^Listed, however, on the Term Catalogues, Nov. 22, 1669, as a Tragi- comedy. " Dramatick Poets (1691), p. 27. 164 follow French practise ; " Henry V," in fact, which claims the distinction of being the first full-fledged English heroic play, being confessedly written "in the French Manner."^" Both are pseudo-historical, entirely in rime, with few characters and incidents, no touch of comedy, almost no action, and the unities much in evidence. A conflict between love and honor, or rather friendship, lies at the bottom of each piece, and the latter of course prevails. In the earlier play Owen Tudor nobly re- nounces his love in favor of his king ; and in the " Black Prince" Lord Delaware, whose successful rival is his fast friend, accepts the inevitable with equal heroic grace. Likewise, among the heroic plays of Sir Robert Howard are one or two of related interest to tragicomedy. The " Vestal Virgin" (1665) has the same peculiar technic earlier noticed in Suckling's "Aglaura."^* Equipped with two fifth acts, the play may be a tragedy or tragicomedy at will.^^. In the latter case, the alteration begins at the close of Act IV with the ex- planatory note, " Thus it was Acted the Comical way " ; and accordingly, the general slaughter of good and bad alike is reduced to the killing of one villain, while the other is allowed to repent, and the three models of heroism and friendship are happily joined to ladies of equal nobility. As usual, the play ^See Orrery's letter to a friend, Dodsley's ed. (1739), I, p. v. (Dodsley has mistaken the Black Prince for Henry V.) This play was probably written before 1662, but not acted until 1664, when it proved very popular. For a monograph on the author and his plays, see Ed. Siegert, Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery und seine Dramen sur Geschichte des heroi- schen Dramas in England. Weiner Beitrage zur Eng. Phil. (1906), XXIII. ^ Above, p. 14s. " Compare a contemporary instance of the same thing recorded by the prompter Downes in his Roscius Anglicanus (1708), p. 22: "The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, was mad« sometime after (after 1662) into a Tragi- comedy, by Mr. James Howard, he preserving Romeo and Juliet alive ; so that when the Tragedy was Reviv'd again, 'twas Play'd Alternately, Tragical one Day, and Tragicomical another; for several Days together." This Shaksperian alteration was never printed. The Restoration fondness for remodeling old tragedies in this way is again exemplified by Nahum Tate's alteration of King Lear (acted 1681), and Waller's contribution of a new fifth act to the Maid's Tragedy in 1690 (Genest, I, 337). See below, p. 180. 165 is mostly in rime, and comic admixture is strictly barred: customs which the author takes pains to defend in his well- known preface to the edition.^* In regard to the latter prac- tise, he admits that the earlier English playwrights have usually interwoven mirth and sadness in their plays, and that such a variety is defendable by the example of nature, but he himself is convinced, " That it is most proper to keep the Audience in one entire disposition both of Concern and Atten- tion"; and, moreover, tho the mixture of contraries may be possible in Nature, it is not so fit for presentation — " an entire Connexion being the natural Beauty of all Plays. "^° ' This rigid severance of tragedy and comedy, which was a prominent part of the dramatic creed of such men as the Earl of Orrery and Sir Robert Howard, naturally involved no recognition on their part of a genre of tragicomedy. Conse- 'quently, plays of these writers were styled either tragedies or comedies according as they fulfilled certain proprieties of con- tent and form recognized by classical precept, rather than for any other reason. Thus, Howard's later " Great Favorite, Or, the Duke of Lerma" (1668) is another "Tragedy" of approved style, written in rime and verse, and presenting a lofty and dignified subject, which has its foundation in con- temporary Spanish history. But there is no tragic catastrophe. The Great Favorite saves himself from his enemies by adopt- ing a Cardinal's habit; and we are to understand that his daughter Maria will reconsider her resolve to become a nun and eventually marry the young king. On the other hand, the same author's "Blind Lady" (1660) and " Surprizal " (1665) were called " Comedies " ; but both offer more seriousness than Orrery's " Henry V " or the " Black Prince," particularly the " Surprizal," in which an unregenerate villain provides plenty of tragic possibilities.^" One very important result, so far as tragicomedy is con- '^ Preface to Four New Plays, 1665. Spingarn, Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century (1908), II, 97. ''Ibid., II, 100. '° Both the Great Favorite and the Surprizal were listed as tragicomedies by Langbaine. The Blind Lady was evidently never acted (Genest, X, 135). 166 cemed, of this determination of dramatic species according to the new criteria of French classicism deserves to be briefly recorded at this point, altho its elaboration belongs to the later pages. Restoration tragicomedy, beset on the one hand by an heroic play of double catastrophe, and on the other by an heroic "tragedy" of happy ending, into both of which it had imparted its vitality, now becomes mainly limited in cur- rent notion to a play of double plot, part comic and part romantic — a change of opinion that will be evident enough when we come to consider the tragicomedies of Dryden and the ^-arious critical dicta of the period on the mixed species. For the present it remains to chronicle one final point of contact between tragicomedy and the heroic drama. Only three other plays are necessary to complete the con- nexion of our subject with the pure heroic species. Of these, the '"Amazon Queen" (1667) by Jo. Weston, and ]\Irs. Boothby's "Marcelia" (1669) were written as tragicomedies, and the "Siege of Babylon" (1677) of Samuel Pordage, which could have borne the title with equal propriety, for some reason was left unclassified. The first and last belong to a class of Amazon plays that seem to have had a great vogue in England at this time, due apparently to current French romance.^^ Both plays introduce a number of the same char- ^ The Amoson Queen, in fact, was never acted, because the author had heard of two other plays on the same subject intended for the stage. The prevalence of the species is again attested by an ob\-ious reference in the Siege of Babylon to a contemporary tragedy of similar theme. In the Epilog Statira says : At one House, I am, by Roxana, slain. But see, at this, I am aUve again. Indeed, two other tragicomedies of the period are Amazon plays: The Women's Conquest (1671) by Ed. Howard (see below, p. 176) and an undated anonymous production, called The Female Rebellion. This last, which was printed for the first time in 1872 from a MS. in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow, is a medley of rime, verse and prose, presenting both comic and heroic characters, and centers on an insurrection of Amazon generals against their Queen. The latter and her lover, a captive Scythian King, are of heroic cast, and in the end are united after the revolt has collapsed. The piece is assigned to the latter part of Charles II's reign. See ed. by A. S. (Alexander Smith), Glasgow, 1872. 167 acters, including Thalestris, Queen of the Amazons. Other similarities are marked. Both are completely in rimed verse, devoid of any comic touch, and the theme of each is the omnipresent love and honor, in which rivalries of many sorts absorb the attention. If rivals in love are friends, friendship always prevails, and a rivalry in generosity sets in until some compromise relieves the situation. In the " Amazon Queen " ladies instead of men are the rivals. Thalestris, Roxana and Statira are the suitors for the hand of King Alexander; and when the last named is finally successful, the haughty Amazon Queen resigns her love with a serenity only known to the heroic drama. The " Siege of Babylon " has a far more harrowing theme, but is equally trite in motive and device. The main plot repeats the familiar situation where the mutual love of the hero and heroine is crossed by the passion of a wicked queen for the former. Both in turn are given the choice of death or renunciation of their love, and both eagerly embrace death. But they are not put to the test. The upshot is that the course of events preserves and unites the lovers; and the unsuccessful queen, mad with jealousy, is borne raving from the stage. " Marcelia," on the other hand, both in con- tent and form is somewhat less an heroic play of the new fashion. It is written in prose as well as rime, and, moreover, has a slight admixture of comedy. Plot, characters and situa- tions are all reminiscent of the old style tragicomedy in which a treacherous favorite is the guiding spirit. A king, in a mad infatuation, deserts his own mistress and woos the betrothed of his subject, but in the end, when the villain has been un- masked and banished, he repents his action, unites the lovers, and returns to the first lady. In fact, the rimed heroic type, for all its regularity of form and regard for classical precept, exhibits a constant repetition of the familiar traits of earlier tragicomedy. Both " Marcelia " and the " Siege of Babylon " introduce in the denouement the old effective device of the return to life of supposed victims of villainy. And most of the character types, situations and motives that recur in the heroic species in general are borrowed direct, or only developed, from English romantic tragicomedy. 168 During the period of its heyday, the new heroic fashion com- pletely supplanted tragicomedy in popular favor, and on its decline in the late seventies, the once dominant English stage type experienced no revival. But the influence of the transient vogue is noticeable in almost all the relatively few tragi- comedies that fall either within or after the years of its chief supremacy; an influence seen best perhaps in Dryden's plays of the species. Even the " Rival Ladies," it will be remem- bered, was partly in rime, tho in all else closely identified with English tradition. " Secret Love," which followed in 1667, while by no means an heroic play of the new style, is clearly related to the species ; and Dryden's three later tragicomedies follow a similar formula. These last, which appeared at wide intervals of his later dramatic career, are all antedated by the "Essay of Dramatic Poesy" (1668), to which some attention is due before considering the author's contribution to the form. — .As this document contains the first discussion of tragi- comedy in formal English criticism since Sidney, its historical importance to the subject is evident at once. More imme- diate interest lies in the fact that it also introduces us to con- temporary critical opinion, both pro and con, as to the prac- tise. Among the points at issue in current controversy, the mingling of tragic and comic is represented as one of the - foremost. Thus, in the debate as to the relative merits of the old English drama and French practise, Lisideius, the cham- pion of the latter, condemns tragicomedy as an English ab- normality, which violates the unity of action in interweaving two separate and distinct plots in the same play, to the confu- sion of the audience and the dissipation of their interest.^^ '^Practically the same objection as Sir Robert Howard in his Preface to Four New Plays (1665) had earlier urged against the mingling of kinds (Cp. above, p. 165). Another contemporary judgment concerning this particular violation of decorum is expressed in Milton's preface to Samson Agonistes (1671), where the author speaks of "the Poets error of inter- mixing Comic stuff with Tragic sadness and gravity, or introducing trivial and vulgar persons: which by all judicious hath bin counted absurd, and brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratifie the people." Cp. also Edward Phillips, who in his Preface to Theatrum Poetarum (1673) con- 169 The form, thus weighed in the balance of classical canon, is summarily dismissed with the excommunication : " There is no theatre in the world has any thing so absurd as the EnglisR tragi-comedy ; 'tis a drama of our own invention, and the fashion of it is enough to proclaim it so; here a course of mirth, there another of sadness and passion, a third of honour, and fourth a duel: thus, in two hours and a half, we run through all the fits of Bedlam."^^ On the other hand, Dryden himself, in the person of Neander, not only readily controverts the arguments of his opponent, but boldly exalts the disputed form above all others. The transition from gravity to mirth, he argues, far from being either a strain on the attention or a check to enjoyment, is a natural and beneficial change. " Does not the eye pass from an unpleasant object to a pleas- ant in a much shorter time than is required to this? and does not the unpleasantness of the first commend the beauty of the latter?" Continued seriousness is oppressive, and the inter- spersed mirth furnishes the necessary dramatic counterpart. " I must therefore have stronger arguments," he concludes, " ere I am convinced that compassion and mirth in the same subject destroy each other; and in the mean time cannot but conclude, to the honour of our nation, that we have invented, increased, and perfected a more pleasant way of writing for the stage, than was ever known to the ancients or moderns of any nation, which is tragicomedy."^* ' This daring assertion, the first real defense of tragicomedy »in English criticism, shows Dryden both the champion of ro- mantic license in an age of dawning classical severity and the ardent exponent of English tradition. Later, indeed, he relin- ; quished this position in theory; but in 1668 the dominant in- fluence on the author of the " Rival Ladies " and " Secret Love " was clearly the school of Shakspere and Beaumont and Fletcher. demns " that Linsie-woolsie intermixture of Comic mirth with Tragic seriousness, which being so frequently in use, no wonder if the name of Play be apply'd without distinction as well to Tragedy as Comedy." See Spingarn, I, 208; II, 270. ''W. P. Ker, Essays of John Dryden, I, 57. '^ Ibid., 1, 69-70. 170 Before leaving the " Essay," it may be worth noting that the : arguments set forth both for and against the practise of tragi- comedy are substantially those urged by the earlier critics and defenders of the Spanish national drama; an observation that : gives some support to the position that Dryden was very pos- sibly indebted to Spanish precedent for some of his critical theory.'^ Noteworthy again is the fact that tragicomedy is not debated from the standpoint of the happy ending, but of the unrelated mixture of gravity and mirth. True, practically all romantic tragicomedies of the past had admitted comic parts, which had often even attained the proportions of a well devel- oped sub-plot f^ but this feature was hardly more characteristic of the intermediate species than it was of tragedy. With the advent of the rimed heroic " tragedy," however, which omitted all comedy and which could end happily or unhappily, the critical conception of tragicomedy, as already noted, seems to have become restricted to a play of double plot, one serious and one comic, the former of course ending successfully. This, at any rate, is the formula for the type that Dryden inaugurated in his own practise with " Secret Love " and adhered to in his later career. With these plays we are now concerned. I Beside the " Rival Ladies " already considered, Dryden's contribution to tragicomedy consists of four other plays: "Secret Love" (1668), "Marriage a-la-Mode" (1673), "Spanish Friar" (1681), and "Love Triumphant" (1693). These four plays — tho produced at wide intervals stretching over a period of twenty-five years, during which the author's dramatic views had undergone a complete revolution from those stated in the " Essay " — are practically alike in materials and method of construction. The distinguishing trait of each is the double plot, one serious or heroic and the other humor- ous, the two only superficially connected and usually given °° See W. P. Ker, Essays of John Dryden, I, p. xxxvi ; cp. also Alfred Morel-Fatio, Les DSfenseurs de la Comedia {Bulletin Hispanique, 1902, IV), pp. 31-6. i ™ Cp. Spanish Curate, Fool would^ be a Favorite, City Night-Cap, etc., all of which are named from the'coraic plots. 171 about equal prominence, the serious scenes in verse alternating with the comic in prose. In the romantic plots heroic elements combine with the conventional features of traditional tragi- comedy. Love is always the central interest, ever beset by opposing forces of many sorts, while in the background king- doms are tottering and war is imminent. The characters are all aristocrats — tyrant kings, love-lorn queens, heroes of surpass- ing valor and nobility, heroines torn with love and duty, un- successful rivals, and the other type personages necessary to fill out the cast. Quick changes of fortune keep the action bustling and the outcome in the balance. The hero may be now imprisoned and the next moment dethroning the tyrant; while 'Sudden revelations of identity, conversions of character, and happy discoveries furnish a full quota of surprises. Events never culminate in a catastrophe. In the end all are reconciled: a contest of arms may resolve into a contest of magnanimity, unsuccessful love is resigned to its fate, and the hero and heroine are happily joined. Constant repetition of motive and situation is a distinctive feature of the serious parts of these plays. The stock elements of heroic drama recur again and again in all ; and in " Mar- riage a-la-Mode " and " Love Triumphant " the plots them- selves are little more than repetitions. In both plays love is crossed first by parental interference and next by honor; the hero is first thought to be the King's son and later is discovered to be of another royal line; both heroines place duty to father above love for the hero; and in each case an insurrection ushers in the denouement. The other two tragicomedies as well exhibit many of the same features, always an insurrection and always a moral struggle between love and some form of honor. In the " Spanish Friar " wjien the young hero learns that the deposed king, whose murder his newly wedded wife has sanctioned, is his own father, he is torn by a whirlwind of conflicting emotions: Love, justice, nature, pity, and revenge. Have kindled up a wildfire in my breast, And I am all a civil war within! But the disclosure that the king still lives happily solves his 172 moral dilemma. And again, in " Secret Love/' when the hero discovers that the Maiden Queen cherishes a secret and ardent passion for him, a conflict between love and duty results — love for his betrothed and duty toward his sovereign; but the struggle ends with the Queen herself, the author's "great and absolute pattern of honour," nobly resigning in favor of her humble rival. In short, there is little in character, senti- ment or plot that is not directly traceable to heroic drama or romantic tragicomedy. Turning now for a moment to the comic admixture in these plays — which figures so prominently in the author's theory of tragicomedy — we find that it is not only equally elaborate with the serious portion, but in one or two instances even fur- nishes the main interest. Both the " Spanish Friar " and " Marriage a-la-Mode " take their titles from the comic plot f and in the latter this part is so obviously the chief concern that the play itself is termed a '." Comedy."^* Certainly in these two plays, at least, the lighter portions have the better claim to merit. Both Melantha, the affected lady, and Domi- nick, the rascally friar, are telling satires of contemporary application, and the latter is generally rated as one of the best humorous creations of Restoration comedy of manners. These comic plots are all concerned with love intrigues, clever but coarse, carried on between gallants, maids of honor, and profli- gates and gulls of one sort or another. As stated above, the two plots are but indifferently united and each is conducted to an independent conclusion. Dryden, indeed, prides himself on the skillful manner with which he has tied the conflicting interests in the " Spanish Friar," and perhaps more ingenuity is displayed in that case than in the others;^" but at best the juncture is a perfunctory one. The two casts may be taken "The sub-title of the Spanish Friar, called the Double Discovery, refers to the serious plot. "Again Langbaine, writing a few years later, takes exception to this denomination : " This Play the' stil'd in the Title-page a Comedy, is rather a Tragi-Comedy, and consists of two different Actions; the one Serious, the other Comick, both borrow'd from two Stories which the Author has tackt together." Dramatick Poets (1691), p. 166. Cp. above, p. 163. "" See dedication to the Spanish Friar; cp. also preface to Don Sebastian. 173 from the same court, and they usually have one or two char- acters in common, a courtier or a soldier who may be the dependent or relative of the hero of the serious plot, and comes to his aid in time of need. Thus, Carlos, one of the colonels prominent in the comic plot of " Love Triumphant," heads the revolt that overthrows the tyrant king and places Alphonsus in power ; and the connexion in the " Spanish Friar " is some- what similar. This exaltation of the comic plot in tragicomedy, its practical severance from the serious interest, and the part it plays in the critical conception of the form, are, in fact, the chief innovations that the Restoration introduces to the genre, all of which are seen to best advantage in Dryden's work.*" Tho Dryden cultivated tragicomedy periodically thruout his dramatic career, it must be remembered that his attitude toward the type changed diametrically in his later years from that enunciated in the " Essay." After " Marriage a-la- Mode " in 1673, his ideas of dramatic art began to undergo a gradual revolution to the classic point of view, which Rapin, Boileau and Bossu were proclaiming in France and Rymer in England ; so that the author of the " Spanish Friar " and " Love Triumphant" was no longer the ardent champion of tragi- comedy and romantic license of earlier years, but a complete convert to classic theory. In the " Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy" (1679), which proclaims this change of standpoint, appears a direct retraction of his previous dictum on tragi- comedy : " Two different independent actions distract the at- tention and concernment of the audience, and consequently destroy the attention of the poet; if his business be to move terror and pity, and one of his actions be comical, the other tragical, the former will divert the people, and utterly make void his greater purpose."*"^ And on these grounds he con- demns his own " Marriage a-la-Mode." "'The Comical Revenge: or. Love in a Tub (1664) by George Etherege may be mentioned in connexion with Dryden's tragi-comedies as a s imila r composition of combined comic and romantic plot, altho its contemporary rating was always as a comedy. "And later in the same essay: "He who treats of joy and grief together is in a fair way of causing neither of those efEects." W. P. Ker, I, 208, 223- 174 From this time on Dryden's critical attitude toward tragi- comedy, or any mingling of kinds, continues to be one of con- demnation. It is an ill-ordered practise, yet it pleases popular taste; and this is his excuse for his own continued cultivation of the form. His very next play was the " Spanish Friar," a flagrant violation of his new critical tenets. But, as he states in the dedication, " For this time I satisfied my own humour, which was to tack two plays together; and to break a rule for the pleasure of variety. The truth is, the audience are grown weary of continued melancholy scenes ; and I dare venture to prophesy, that few tragedies except those in verse shall succeed in this age, if they are not lightened with a course of mirth. For the feast is too dull and solemn without the fiddles. "*- The double plot of " Love Triumphant," as well, the author admits, cannot be defended by reason or authority, but it is " a fault," he adds, " which I would often practise, if I were to write again, because it is agreeable to the English genius. We love variety more than any other nation ; and so long as the audience will not be pleased without it, the poet is obliged to humour them."*^ After "Love Triumphant," Dryden wrote no more plays, yet in his " Parallel of Poetry and Painting " (1695) he returned again to the subject of tragicomedy, but only to reiterate his objections to its hybrid nature. " Our "Ibid., I, 249. Cp. similar sentiment in the preface to Don Sebastian 1690) : " I have observed, that the English will not bear a thorough tragedy; but are pleased that it should be lightened with underparts of mirth"; also the preface to Cleomones (1692): "After all, it was a bold attempt of mine, to write upon a single plot, unmixed with comedy; which, though it be the natural and true way, yet is not to the genius of the nation." Scott-Saintsbury ed., VII, 316 ; VIII, 220. Dryden, writing in later years, repeated his objections to the double plot structure of the Spanish Friar: "Neither can I defend my Spanish Friar, as fond as otherwise I am of it, from this imputation (Gothic style) : for though the comical parts are diverting, and the serious moving, yet they are of an unnatural mingle: for mirth and gravity destroy each other, and are no more to be allowed for decent than a gay widow laughing in a mourning habit." And later in the same essay: "The faults of that drama are in the kind of it, which is tragi-comedy. But it was given to the people : and I never writ anything for myself but Antony and Cleopatra." A Parallel of Poetry and Painting (1695), W. P. Ker, II, 147, 152. " Scott-Saintsbury ed., VIII, 375-6- 175 English tragi-comedy must be confessed to be wholly Gothic," he writes, " notwithstanding the success which it has found upon our theatre."** And later in the " Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satire" (1697), the structural peculiarity of the species again draws his comment : " In a play of the English fashion, which we call a tragi-comedy, there is to be but one main design ; and though there be an underplot, or second walk of comical characters and adventures, yet they are subservient to the chief fable, carried along under it, and helping to it; so that the drama may not seem a monster with two heads. "*^ This last passage even seems to indicate that the author justified the form provided there was organic connexion and a proper balance between the serious and comic plots. At any rate, these critical utterances on the subject are all right in line with one tolerably well defined conception of tragicomedy, illustrated best in Dryden's own practise and sub- stantiated by other evidence of the period. Dryden's contribution to tragicomedy is easily the most con- siderable and important of the period. No other writer, in fact, seriously cultivated the kind. The other plays of the title that fall between 1670 and the end of the century form a heterogeneous group, representing almost as many authors as plays, and generally indicative of the steady decadence of the form. The spirit of the age called for comedy rather than for serious drama; and while tragedy continued to occupy the efforts of the chief poets, tragicomedy as a stage factor was almost a negligible quantity during the last quarter of the century, steadily dwindling in prestige and quality with each^ succeeding decade. This is shown in part by the fact that the various excrescent forms of the type almost double the number of proper tragicomedies. Some are translations of foreign models; others are Elizabethan alterations, testifying to the continued popularity of the earlier masters ; while the Revolution of 1688 ushered in another outburst of political tragicomedies, all written for an imaginary stage. There re- main, then, beside the plays of Dryden, only about a dozen miscellaneous pieces that keep alive the tragicomedy of past "W. P. Ker, II, 146. "Ibid., II, 102. 176 tradition. These, moreover, rather defy classification. Most show the hereditary traits of the species allied in one way or another to Restoration practise; and all are of indifferent merit. Among this last group are a few that offer some little criti- cal interest to the subject. Edward Howard's Amazon tragi- comedy, called the "Women's Conquest" (1671), is intro- duced by an elaborate preface, in which the author, in his discussion of the current dramatic questions, makes much the same observations on tragicomedy as his contemporaries : — ! It is a two-fold type, a mixture of heroic and comic parts, ; and distinctly an English product. He has given the title to : his own play after the example of the Elizabethans, whose I tragicomedies "are well enough known to be at this day no inconsiderable ornament and entertainment of the Stage." He will not, however, attempt to justify the word, "Since every Play, if strictly taken, must be either Tragedy or Comedy, excluding Farce." But he wisely surmises the term to be an invention of former English poets to denominate "mixt Plays," which the heroic part exalted above the title of comedy.*^ Howard's play itself unites in one plot both \ the serious and comic characters, all of whom get into the same entanglements by reason of a strange Scythian law whereby a man may divorce his wife at pleasure. This dis- crimination against women arouses the hostility of a neighbor- ing Amazon queen. War results: the women are victorious; the law repealed; and all settled according to heroic code.*^ ( Somewhat the same manner of mixture is preserved in Ravens- *° To continue his remarks on the mixed species : " I do not find but the highest of our English Tragedies ... are at all undervalued by their Authors, in being sweetned with mirth, for as all people do not come purposely to sympathize their passions with those of the Plays, so some will expect to be diverted accordingly; nor do I believe that it is less natural (as some have thought) to form a Play, that shall have this variety of Genius, then I do to find of mankind some grave, reserv'd, fierce, cruel, others of more aiery and pleasant converse, to mingle humours and affairs together." " Ed. Howard was also the author of a non-extant Change of Crowns, which Pepys saw April 15, 1667, and described as "a great play and serious." On this evidence Genest (I, 69) lists it as a tragicomedy. 177 croft's "King Edgar and Alfreda" (1677), a pseudo-histori- cal piece, in which the author has introduced "a run of Comedy, but not after the manner of our Old Tragi-Comedies, where one-half of the Play are Heroes, and the other Me- chanicks and Buffoons."** The serious interest, which con- cerns a love episode chronicled of King Edgar, ends tragically in fact. An elaborately artificial denouement results in the accidental killing of both the Queen and Ethelwold, which, however, clears the way for the union of the King and Alfreda. Still more conglomerate in character is Nathaniel Lee's "Princess of Cleve'' (c. 1680-82), well described by the author in his dedication as "this Farce, Comedy, Tragedy, or mere Play."*' The serious parts arise to real tragic pathos, while the comedy is disgustingly low. One death occurs; but in the end the Princess wins her moral struggle, and the profligate gallant, who is the hero of both plots, repents his evil ways. Among the better known playwrights of the day, Crowne and Wilson each made one experiment in tragicomedy, while Mrs. Behn produced three plays of the title. A generally scrambled character is about the sole quality these productions have in common. "Juliana, or the Princess of Poland" (1671), Crowne's first play, introduces a double romantic love story in a pseudo-historical setting, where two warring Polish factions meet to elect a king, and interweaves comedy and spectacle in a turbulent action of fighting, rescues and sudden changes of fortune, all of which — barring the suicide of a baffled Cardinal — ends in approved tragicomic fashion. Wil- son's "Belphegor" (1690), on the other hand, offers nothing to substantiate its claim to the genre title. The familiar story from Machiavelli of the Marriage of the Devil gives abundant opportunity for comedy and spectacle, and with it the author has united a more dignified plot; but the action presents no " See the author's prefaced Life of Edgar, King of the West Saxons. '" Printed 1689 without classification, but entered in the Term Catalogues, June, 1697, as a Tragi-Comedy. This p5ay is one of the many of the period founded on French romance. 13 178 serious interest."" Of Mrs. Behn's tragicomedies, "Forced Marriage" (1671) and the "Young King" (c. 1679) follow romantic tradition, are written in verse and rime, and offer no particular departures from the commonplace. The plot of the first is confined to a court, and the denouement is given a sepectacular turn by the supposedly murdered heroine perso- nating first her own ghost and then her angel. In the latter, love is given its usual background of war; the characters are decidedly those of French romance;"^ and two subordinate love plots are cleverly organized with the main theme. The "Widow Ranter" (1690) is different — a deliberate mixture of comedy and tragedy, entirely in prose and topical in inter- est. The play is primarily a satire on colonial misgovernment in Virginia; while the historical figure of Bacon, the instiga- tor of Bacon's Rebellion, and an Indian Queen furnish a romantic interest, and their deaths a tragic catastrophe. A few other scattered and unimportant tragicomedies are so conventional in character and plot that they might with pro- priety date from the preceding age. Such a play is an anony- mous "Emilia" (1672), a tragicomedy of the mistaken iden- ™ Almost equally unentitled to the name of tragicomedy is the con- temporary Successful Strangers (1690) of Wra. Mountfort, a play of love intrigue in Spanish fashion, mostly in prose, and — with the exception of one serious episode — ^pure comedy. With it should be mentioned a curious anomaly in the shape of a religious tragicomedy by Richard Tuke : The Divine Comedian or the Right Use of Plays, Improved, in a sacred Tragy- Comcedy, 1672, which appeared earlier the same year under the title, The Soul's Warfare, comically digested into scenes, acted between the Soul and her enemies. As these titles indicate, it is distinctly a moral pro- duction ; nor is it known to have been acted. The period also claims two academic tragicomedies : a later version of the Bellum Grammaticale en- titled. The Warr of Grammar n. Tragick-Comedy Acted by the Scholars of Cranebrook School more than once not without Applause. In which the whole vulgar Grammar with something of the Authors own, is festiveously handled, by Samuel Hoadley, 1666, with a ms. copy of the same, Basileia sen Bellum Grammaticale Tragico-Comcedia, preserved in British Museum, Add. Mss. 2272s (described by J. Nichols, Lit. Anec. of the i8th. Cen., VIII, 761); and a MS. play in the Bodleian: Talpa ; sive Conjuratio Papistica. Tragico-comwdia, Autore Thom: .Singleton, Scrip ta Febr: J mo. 1688/9. "The plot is founded mainly on the CUop&tre of Calprenide. 179 tity formula, given the added feature of regularity, the author expressly avowing his allegiance to decorum and the unities."^ Years later the actor Jos. Harris compiled old motives into a tragicomedy of the villainous favorite type, called " The Mistakes" (1690). For four tedious acts the arch-intriguer disrupts friendships, estranges lovers, and hoodwinks a Vice- roy, and when caught in the fifth, is so repentant that he pleads for death lest he work more mischief — a request that is mag- nanimously overruled and banishment substituted in its stead. To conclude the list of these sporadic productions of tradi- tional type, it remains only to chronicle two anonymous tragi- comedies that appeared in 1697 : " The Triumphs of Virtue " and " Timoleon ; or, the Revolution," both of conventional design. In the former the virtue of a romantic heroine con- verts a monarch from evil intentions, reclaims a dissipated brother, and recalls a recreant lover, and the latter play unites a satirical comic plot to the serious theme. With these two plays English romantic tragicomedy practically passes off the stage. As previously stated, it was probably due to the persistent popularity of the later Elizabethans thruout the Restoration period that tragicomedy survived, even to the limited extent indicated by the above plays, in an age of devotion to comedy and growing reaction against romance. Of the old masters, Shakspere and Beaumont and Fletcher continued to be the favorites on the later Restoration stage; and both in revivals and alterations of their plays tragicomedies shared promi- nently. " A King and No King " and " Philaster " especially seem to have commended themselves to Restoration taste, in spite of the lack of interest in Shakspere's romantic ^ In the dedication the author says : " The Writing or Language, I have accomodated to the Persons, Verse; for the more Heroick, and Prose, for the rest, with often allay of this with the other, to make it more flexible, which else would be too stiif." And in an additional note : " The Unity of Place (besides that of Time and Persons) so exactly observed, as there is never any breach or breaking of the Scenes, until the end of the Act." The play had not been acted when printed. The superscription bears the words: Emilia, a Tragedy; but the piece is correctly denominated in the Epilog, Tragi-Comcdy. 180 comedies. Even when Langbaine wrote in 1691 both were holding the stage with great success ;^^ while the popularity of " Philaster " is further attested by two alterations that fall within the later years of the century. The first of these, pre- sumably the work of the Duke of Buckingham about 1683, appeared under the suggestive title of " The Restauration : or, Right will take Place," but was evidently never acted and not even printed until 1714.°* With the names of the dramatis persona disguised, an added prolog and epilog, and some slight alterations in detail, the play practically follows its original, and seems free from any more pointed political significance than that conveyed by the altered title. Settle's revision in 1695, on the other hand, advertises "the last two acts new written ; " and by the addition of some new scenes the tragic action is intensified, but the final denouement is unchanged."" Other favorites of the time include Fletcher's " Island Prin- cess," which gave rise to no less than three alterations during the period."* Shakspere's " Cymbeline " was materially re- vised by Durfey and renamed the " Injured Princess, or the Fatal Wager" (1682)."^ And of related interest to the sub- ject is Tate's version of "King Lear" (1681), which ends happily; while Waller, to please the court, attempted "to soften the rigour" of the "Maid's Tragedy" by a new fifth act which preserves all alive."* "^ Of these two plays Langbaine says : " King and No King, a Tragi- comedy, which notwithstanding its Errors discover'd by Mr. Rymer in his Criticisms, has always been acted with Applause, and has lately been re- viv'd on our present Theatre with so great success, that we may justly say with Horace, Haec placuit semel, haec decies repetita placebit. . . . Philaster, or Love lies a Bleeding: a Tragi-Comedy which has always been acted with Success; and has been the diversion of the Stage, even in these days" (pp. 210, 213). The Humorous Lieutenant Langbaine had also " often seen acted with Applause " (p. 209). ■" For full title, see Appendix. " Genest, II, 66. '" First anonymously in 1669 and printed as a Comedy; next " Reviv'd with alterations " by Nahum Tate in 1687 ; and finally made into an opera by Motteux in 1699. " Durfey also altered Fletcher's Sea Voyage as A Common-Wealth of Women. A Play (1686), which omits all the serious incident. '"Langbaine, Dramaiick Poets (1691), p. 212. The alteration was not successful. 181 To attempts of this sort to improve upon old plays must be added a few tragicomedies translated from foreign originals. Of French cultivators of the species, Corneille and Quinault seem to have aroused the only direct echo across the channel. In the preceding era the " Cid " had made its appearance in English dress, and the eve of the Restoration, it will be remem- bered, had ushered in two of Quinault's tragicomedies, the work of Sir William Lower.°° Later translations from these authors include two more tragicomedies. In 1670 a certain John Dancer gave a faithful version of Corneille's " Nico- mede," and followed it in 1675 with " Agrippa, King of Alba : or, The False Tiberinus," taken from Quinault. Both plays were acted successfully at Dublin — ^where, it seems, the author was in the service of the Lord Lieutenant — and both represent the same type of " regular " tragicomedy, or tragedy of happy ending, which has its English counterparts in such plays as the " Black Prince " and the " Amazon Queen." Two other tragicomedies complete the list of translations. "The Royal Cuckold: or, Great Bastard" (1693), an evident lampoon on Lewis XIV of France,*" purports to be a trans- lation from the German by Paul Vergerius ; and the " Marshall of Luxembourg, upon his Death-Bed" (1695) is the title of an anonymous version of a contemporary French piece."^ Both are reproductions of sporadic and unimportant sur- vivals of the genre abroad, and were evidently never acted. ' Of even less intrinsic importance as drama is a late group of political or pamphlet tragicomedies which furnishes the concluding aspect of the subject in the Restoration era. This particular dramatic excrescence of Commonwealth times ap- peared again during the political upheavals attending the Revolution of 1688. The abdication of King James and the "Above, p. 154. *" Taken from a book called the Secret History of Lewis XIV of France. — Biographia Dramatica. '^ Lancaster records n. MS. original of this play in the Bibliotheque Nationale, dated 1700: Monsieur le marechal de Luxembourg au lict de la mort, tragicomedie en cinq actes , . . MDCC. MS. fr. 2957, fol. 232. (The French Tragi-Comedy, p. 151, note 4.) The English version dated 1695 was reprinted 1710. 182 establishment of the new regime released pent-up Protestant hatred of the fallen King and the Papistry in a series of dra- matic pamphlets, most of which were termed tragicomedies like their predecessors of Cromwellian times. In fact, they represent only a more elaborate form of the same sort of contemptible squib encountered in the earlier period; viru- lently partisan in spirit, grossly satiric in tone, and purely political in purpose. Events connected with the downfall of the Stuart tyranny and the Irish revolt are the subjects ; pop- ular scandals of the late court are aired at length ; the charac- ters of James and the priests put in the worst possible light ; and the cruelty and cowardice of the Irish Catholics exposed and ridiculed. None, it is safe to say, were ever publicly pre- sented. In 1690 appeared a trilogy of "tragicomedies " of this sort: " The Bloody Duke ; or the Adventures for a Crown," " The Abdicated Prince: or, the Adventures of Four Years," and "The Late Revolution: or, the Happy Change"; — the three advertised as containing " a full account of the private In- trigues of the Two Last Reigns, and of all the most remark- able Transactions that have hapned since."'^ The first two are companion pieces, professedly by the same anonymous author ; the scene of each laid at the court of " Alba Regalis," and the characters and events so thinly masked as to be readily recognized. James II is the chief object of attack. In the first he is the " Bloody Duke," whose crimes are represented as culminating in the murder of his own brother. King Charles II, whereby he gains the crown ; and the " Abdicated Prince " is a continuation of his infamous career as King, together with his downfall. Other court personages under disguised names come in for scurrility and ridicule, while an honest Remarquo, a deep observer of the intrigues going on about him, appears as a sort of raisonneur in each piece. The " Late Revolution " deals with events just preceding the arrival of William of Orange, and is levelled more particularly against Popery. Father Peters is the butt of abuse; his designs are all frus- trated by the advance of the Dutch ; and he and his party barely "^ See conclusion of the Bloody Duke, 183 escape destruction in the Protestant triumph. All three plays vie with one another in grossness of ribaldry and lack of any redeeming feature. Others are less personal but equally partisan. " The Royal Voyage, or the Irish Expedition " of the same year, which describes the famous defense of London- derry, has as its chief end "to expose the Perfidious, Base, Cowardly, Bloody Nature of the Irish, both in this and all past Ages;"^^ and the " Siege and Surrender of Mons " (1691) rehearses the events of that historic occurrence to disclose " the Villany of the Priests, and the Intrigues of the French." Both are equally undramatic, consisting chiefly of a series of scenes alternating between the opposing forces ; while one last " tragicomedy " of the same type, " The Siege of Derry " (1692),*'* pictures again the events recounted in the "Royal Voyage." To all these half-dozen anti-Jacobite tragicomedies the title name seems to be applied with the same indiscrimina- tion noticeable in the earlier anti-Puritan tracts. Perhaps its use in such cases may be traced to much the same impulse that leads one today to describe as tragicomic a South American revolution or any other upheaval in state or politics that invites satire or has its amusing or farcial side. A more subtle explanation is baffling."' The steady decay of tragicomedy during the period reviewed has been noted from time to time in the preceding pages. A summarizing view of the situation only emphasizes the extent "^ The name of this play, as the author notes, " relates to another part yet to come." The present piece deals only with events leading up to William's Irish expedition, concluding with the news of his arrival at Carrickfergus. Evidently the second part never appeared. "* There is also record of a tragicomedy of the same date called Piety and Valor; or Derry Defended, which the editors of the Biographia Dramatica presume to be only another edition of this same piece. "With the six pamphlet tragicomedies considered above should be mentioned one other not in dramatic form : The Revolter. A Trage- Comedy Acted between the Hind and Panther, and Religio Laid, &c. London, Printed in the Year 1687. As the title suggests, this is a personal satire on Dryden's turning Papist. It is not even in dialog, being made up largely of quotations from the two works in question, whereby the au- thor sets forth the inconsistencies of the Laureate's religious tenets. See Scott-Saintsbury ed., X, 7. 184 of decline and the relative insignificance of the species com- pared with its past eminence. In many ways the position that tragicomedy occupies in Restoration drama is practically the reverse of that attained before the closing of the theatres. In the earlier period the chief playwrights of the day lent their best efforts to the form, while among later cultivators Dryden is the only important figure. Moreover, the body of Eliza- bethan tragicomedy is practically homogeneous, whereas in the latter period the various irregular and excrescent forms of the species far outnimiber the output of normal tragi- comedies. In fact, subtracting unacted pieces, translations, redactions, pamphlets, and anomalies of all sorts from the eighty odd tragicomedies considered in the present chapter, we find that the remnant totals little more than one third of the whole. Causes of this disintegration have already been sug- gested. Tragicomedy was distinctly out of harmony with the classical spirit of the time, while the rise of comedy and opera and the decline of romance no doubt aided in reducing the form to an outworn fashion. Moreover, the chief vitality of the genre had been absorbed in the rimed heroic species, which in all but some half-dozen cases took the name of tragedy. In short, of all the formative influences of the time, the con- tinued vitahty of the Elizabethans alone made for the persist- ence of romantic tragicomedy on the Restoration stage. Yet amid continued revivals and redactions of former favorites, each succeeding decade brought forth fewer new plays of the old type. From 1660 English tragicomedy, as an independent drjmiatic kind, was steadily on the wane, and by 1700 it had flickered completely out of existence. The dominance of old tradition thruout this period has been marked from beginning to end. The course of Restoration tragicomedy, as described by the legitimate and representative plays of the type, is directly along the lines inaugurated by Beaumont and Fletcher and continued by Massinger, Shirley, and the other later Elizabethans. The same romantic plots, motives, characters and situations employed by these authors reappear little altered in the plays of Manuche, Flecknoe, William Killigrew, Dryden and Mrs. Behn. Even the few 185 tragicomedies of heroic formula betray an almost equal de- pendence on previous example. What innovations the Res- toration brought to the species are innovations of form rather than of material. The keener critical sense of the age is evidenced in a curbing of romantic license and an increased regularity of structure, even in the tragicomedies of old tradi- tion. Some are actually constructed with each unity strictly observed ; while in many the author's concern for critical pro- prieties is voiced in preface or prolog ; and the increased at- tention given comic parts, and their severance from the main theme — so noticeable in Dryden — ^are results of the same thing. Occasional lapses into rimed verse, the frequent insertion of operatic and spectacular elements, and the recurrence of heroic traits, further relate the type to the distinctive features of the period. With these divergencies. Restoration tragicomedy is merely the decadent end of Elizabethan. It is in the realm of criticism that the period brings new interest to the subject. Before the closing of the theatres, tragicomedy, while un- supported by critical theory, was clearly recognized as a form whose distinctive feature was the happy outcome of tragical events. The Restoration conception of the species, however, according to the critical utterances of Dryden and his contem- poraries, has been found to consist primarily in the mingling of tragic and comic parts in one play, in apparent disregard of the character of the denouement. This departure in critical attitude may be explained as a natural result of the dominance ' of French ideas in Restoration dramatic theory. In pseudo- classic circles abroad, tragedy and tragicomedy could no longer be distinguished by the nature of the ending. Corneille had renamed his "Cid" a tragedy on account of its regular features, and had followed it with other "tragedies" of the same sort. In 1657 d'Aubignac had devoted a chapter of his " Pratique du Theatre " to a discussion of tragicomedy and a condemnation of the word in its modern acceptation, con- tending that by the example of the ancients tragedies could end happily, and that the name of tragicomedy for such plays was not only ill-applied but destroyed their beauty by foretell- 186 ing the outcome."" As this treatise was translated into Eng- lish in 1684, it no doubt aided in giving credence to the view already well established in critical circles that the happy out- come did not unmake a tragedy that fulfilled the requirements of material and form. The " Black Prince " and the " Great Favorite" were both "tragedies" to their authors. Rymer described his own "Edgar" (1678) as the "sort of Tragedy, which ends happily; ""^ and Dryden, speaking of "A King and No King" in his "Grounds of Criticism" (1679), asserted that "if the farce of Bessus were thrown away," the play would be "of that inferior sort of tragedies, which end with a prosperous event." "* That Dryden distinguished this type of play from tragicomedy is further attested by the dedication of the " Spanish Friar," in which, after declaring the difficulty of conducting two contrary actions in one piece, he adds : M " We have taken away the name of Tragedy from all those Plays where the Catastrophe is happy, and without blood, though both the Subject and Persons are heroick, and have given them the name of Tragicomedys. . . . " I shall not absolutely fall out with this name, but I shall shew that it is at least superfluous, since the word Tragedy signifies as well those Plays that end in joy, as those that end in blood; provided still the Adventures be of Illustrious persons. And besides, the signification of the word Tragicomedy is not true in the sense we use it; for in those plays that we apply it to, there is nothing at all Comical, all is grave and heroick, nothing popular and burlesk. " But moreover, this title alone may destroy all the beauty of a Play, which consisting particularly in the Peripetia, or return of Affairs, it may discover that too soon ; since the most agreeable thing in a Dramma is, that out of many sad and Tragick appearances, the Event should at last be happy, against the Expectation of the whole Audience ; but when once the word Tragicomedy is prefix'd, the Catastrophe is presently known, and the Audience the less concern'd with all the Incidents that trouble the designs of the chief Actors ; so that all their Pathetick complaints do but weakly move the Spectator, who is prepossessed with an Opinion that all will end well ; whereas if we were ignorant of the Event, we should tremble for them, and be likewise more delighted with the return of good Fortune that should deliver them." The Whole Art of the Stage . . . Written in French by the command of Cardinal Richelieu, by Monsieur Hedelin, Abbot of Aubignac, and now made English. London, 1684. Book IV, Chap. V, p. 144-5. Cp. above, pp. 4, 7. " Advertisement to play. "W. P. Ker, I, 212. A King and No King had already been considered by Rymer as one of the Tragedies of the Last Age (1678). 187 " Neither is it so trivial an undertaking, to make a tragedy end happily ; for 'tis more difficult to save than 'tis to kill. The dagger and the cup of poison are always in a readiness ; but to bring the action to the last extremity, and then by probable means to recover all, will require the art and judgment of a writer, and cost him many a pang in the performance." ** With the domain of tragicomedy thus encroached upon by tragedy, the result was that the conception of the former kind — in the minds of the critical at least — ^became restricted to a play admitting both serious and comic parts, — a feature which, in fact, had always been more or less characteristic of tragi- comedy in the past. Dryden's four later plays of the type are obviously constructed with this notion in mind, and the same is true of others of the period. This conception, furthermore, while making no provision for the character of the denoue- ment, evidently tacitly concedes that the serious plot shall end happily. Dryden is careful to call his " Don Sebastion " (1690) a tragedy, altho it admits as elaborate a comic plot as the " Spanish Friar " ; and with only one or two exceptions the title name is never applied in the Restoration period to tragedies of comic admixture.^" From first to last thruout the period the idea of tragicomedy as a play of two-fold plot is pretty consistently supported both in theory and practise, and is to be remembered as a heritage that the age passed on to future criticism.''^ "'W. P. Ker, I, 249. "The exceptions are: Mrs. Behn's Widow Ranter (above, p. 178) and [ an alteration of the first part of Shakspere's Henry IV attributed to Better- ton, K. Henry IV. with the Humours of Sir John Falstaff. A Tragi- comedy. As it is Acted at the Theatre in Liitle-Lincolns-Inn-Fields By His Majesty's Servants. Revived, with Alterations. Written Originally by Mr, Shakespear. London, 1700 (Genest, II, 219). Cp. also a later revision of the same, K. Henry IV. with the Humours of Sir John Falstaff. A Tragi- comedy, By Mr. W. Shakespear. London, 1721. " In connexion with this chapter it may be noted that Francis Kirk- man's two play lists of the period (the first published with Tom Tyler and His Wife, 1661, and the second appended to John Dancer's Nicomede, 1670) are the first in England to indicate the tragicomedies, evidently following printed titles, but full of blunders and generally inaccurate. Langbaine's first catalog, called Momus Triumphans (1688), copies Kirk- man's errors and is equally worthless. He however corrected most of his mistakes of classification in his later Dramatick Poets (1691). CHAPTER VII Concluding Aspects of English Tragicomedy Little remains to be said of tragicomedy as an independent dramatic species after its last feeble flickerings at the close of the seventeenth century. The forces that made for the gradual extinction of the form on the Restoration stage be- came only more dominant with the advent of the Augustan era. French classicism, which had secured a firm foothold in the age of Dryden, gained a veritable triumph in the age of Pope. The further separation of tragedy and comedy and the more painful observance of decorum and correctness thus developed, led the eighteenth century to boast as great a critical refinement over the Restoration period as the latter had felt over the Elizabethan. The trend of popular taste further divorced the new century from any interest in romantic tragi- comedy. The reaction against the licentiousness of the Resto- ration stage resulted in a general movement toward a moral and sentimental comedy, in which domestic themes replaced ro- mantic, and middle-class society supplanted royalty. Reason and morality became the standards of literary judgment. In short, every influence tended to preclude the revival of a form whose romantic excesses, unnatural portrayal of life, disregard of poetic justice, defiance of the laws of cause and effect, and other absurdities, proclaimed the relic of a barbarous age. All things considered, then, it is not surprising that tragicomedy was a word almost unknown in eighteenth century drama. To critics it represented a monstrosity safely interred among the crudities of the past ; and its riddance was hailed as a credit to the purer taste of the age.^ As a living growth, traditional 'For example, Wm. Cooke, Elements of Dramatic Criticism (i77S), Chap. XIV: "We are happy, however, in treating of this subject, that we are now speaking of its manes; tragi-comedy having left this country (where, we are afraid, it was originally hatched) above half a century ago ; for declining, as the present state of the stage is ; our taste has, as 188 189 tragicomedy had disappeared from the EngHsh stage never to return. Its subsequent history is concerned only with the various echoes it aroused in latter-day dramatic practise and critical opinion. Of the few points of contact between eighteenth century drama and tragicomedy, the most vital perhaps is found in the continued stage popularity of old English plays. Among the persistent revivals of Elizabethan and Restoration favorites thruout the century, old tragicomedies appeared periodically, representing, in fact, the last chapter in the stage history of the form. As in the preceding era, the Beaumont-Fletcher plays were in most favor. The opening years of the century wit- nessed the presentation of " A King and No King," " Humor- ous Lieutenant," "Loyal Subject," "Island Princess" and " Woman Pleased," some of which kept the boards thruout the century. In 171 1 " Philaster " was successfully performed, after an absence of fifteen years from the stage, and came on again in 171 5. Later, George Colman's alteration of the play (1763) marked the beginning of a series of revivals that ex- tended into the nineteenth century. Massinger's " Bondman," slightly altered, was acted 1719 with Betterton in the title role,^ and years later a second revision by Cumberland appeared. The growing interest in Shakspere and the great popularity of his tragedies resulted in repeated revivals of his romances during the latter half of the century. Other Elizabethan tragicomedies as well figured on the late eighteenth century stage in the general revival of romantic interest; while of the . Restoration type, Dryden's " Spanish Friar " was a permanent fixture thruout the age. In spite of this rather considerable interest in romantic tragicomedy, no original pieces of the sort resulted. The few yet, purity enough to reject this seduction with universal contempt; and we hope, for the credit of posterity, no succeeding age will relapse into a. species of the drama, at once so repugnant to all the laws of art as well as nature." ' The Bond-Man: or Love and Liberty. A Tragi-comedy. As it is now Acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane. By His Majesty's Servants. London. 1719. The alterations in this edition are attributed to Betterton. Genest, II, 644. 190 sporadic productions of the century that bear the genre name illustrate the form chiefly in the decadent aspects noted in the preceding period. Elkanah Settle's " Siege of Troy " (c. 1703) is the only one of the group that is claimed to have been acted f tho Martin Bladen's " Solon : or, Philosophy No Defence against Love " (1705) was evidently intended for the stage and may have some title to serious drama. The other half-dozen are trifles or absurdities of one form or another, and only illustrate the tendency already encountered to apply the title name to illegitimate types of drama.* This decadent use of the term was a natural result of the disappearance of the species itself ° The Siege of Troy, a Tragi-Comedy, as it has been often acted with great Applause. London, n. d, (1703). * The titles are usually sufficient to indicate the character of the pieces. All may be found in the Biographia Dramatica. In chronological order they are : — Caledonia; or, the Pedlar turn'd Merchant, A Tragi-comedy, As it was Acted by His Majesty's Subjects of Scotland, in the King of Spain's Province of Darien. London: 1700. This is not a play at all but an anonymous verse satire on the Darien expedition. Ireland Preserv'd: or the Siege of London-Derry. Together with the Troubles of the North. Written by the then Governour (John Michel- burne), 2 pts., London, 1705. Part II adds, A Tragi-comedy. The Tragi-Comedy of Joan of Hedington. Scene Hedington. In Imitation of Shakespear, A capricious skit published in the Useful Miscel- lanies of Dr. Wm. King, London, 1712. The prolog states. Our Play won't make ye Laugh, nor make ye Cry, For 'tis a perfect Tragi-comedy. Hoops into Spinning-Wheels. A Tragi-Comedy. Written by a gentle- man in Gloucestershire (John Blanch). Gloucester, 1725. The English Stage Italianis'd. In a new Dramatic entertainment, called Dido and Mneas: or. Harlequin, a Butler, a Pimp, a Minister of State, Generalissimo, and Lord High Admiral: dead and alive again, and at last crown'd King of Carthage, by Dido. A Tragi-Comedy, after the Italian manner; by way of Essay, or first step towards the farther Im- provement of the English Stage. Written by Thomas D'Urfey, Poet Laureat de lure. London: 1727. This posthumous piece is only a farcical scenario. The Reign of Hellebore, King of Rien de Tout. A Tragi-Comedy. Printed at York, 1760. The Spanish Celestina was translated and adapted to the English stage, supposedly by J. Savage, in 1707; and the Pastor Fido was put into heroic couplets by an anonymous translator in 1736. 191 from the regular stage. The word recurs here and there thru- out the century as a sort of makeshift term of whimsical appli- cation.° Quite a number of " tragi-comic farces " appear among the operatic and pantomimic entertainments that sprang up in great numbers during the first half of the century. To such pieces the term was applied in all sorts of grotesque com- binations. For example, John Gay entitled his "What d'ye call it?" (1715) a " Tragi-Comi-Pastoral Farce," explaining in the preface that the whole art of such composition lay " in interweaving the several kinds of drama with each other, so that they cannot be distinguished or separated." Accordingly, the piece presents a tragic plot, interlarded with comedy and accompanied with music, the whole intended as a parody on familiar contemporary tragedies. Instances of this sort are common enough in the eighteenth century illegitimate drama, but represent a wide divergence from any integral relation to our subject. ■ c: ': With tragicomedy after 1700 an extinct genre in the living drama, an unrecognized name on the regular stage, and a relic of the past in critical opinion, the questions arise. What de- veloped in its stead? what supplied its functions? what occu- pied the intermediate ground of that which was neither right, tragedy nor right comedy? For surely the demand for the play of serious theme and happy ending persisted even in an age that had discarded romantic improbabilities and tragicomic absurdities as contrary to rule and reason. In fact, as the traditional romantic features of the species fell into disuse, its perennial traits became absorbed in the two dramatic forms of classical recognition. Both in tragedy and, more particu- ' " Note, for example, the following titles : The play-house scuffle, or. Passive Obedience kickt off the stage. Being a true relation of a new-tragi-comedy , as it was acted last week at the play- house in Drury-Lane ; by several notorious actors, frequently call'd Her Majesties Servants, but of late turn'd their own masters. In two canto's. London. 1710. Tragi-Comical Reflections, of a Moral and Political Tendancy, occasioned By the Present State of the two Rival Theatres in Drury-Lane and Lincolns- Inn-Fields. By Gabriel Rennel, Esq; London: 11. d. (1725). The History of England, from the Norman Conquest to the present time; or a tragi-comic song, in four parts. By Nathan Withy. Worcester, 1789. 192 larly, in sentimental comedy, the eighteenth century found recourse for that which tragicomedy had once supplied. In the first place, the idea already current in England that the term tragedy could include plays of happy catastrophe per- sisted strongly thruout the eighteenth century, and in critical debate became involved in the question of "poetic justice" lately raised by Rymer, a doctrine on which the professed dic- tators of correct taste were much at variance. At the be- ginning of the century, Dennis and Gildon argued for the equal distribution of rewards and punishments' in tragedy ; the virtu- ous and innocent should be allowed to triumph and the guilty alone suffer. And Shakspere's non-observance of this doctrine brought forth their unqualified censure. On the other hand, Addison and Steele as vigorously denounced poetical justice as having " no Foundation in Nature, in Reason, or in the Prac- tice of the Ancients."' Thus critical opinion on this point con- tinued to be divided thruout the century.^ In practise, how- ever, poetical justice received a complete vindication. Popular taste favored it; and this — as Pye, a late defender of the doc- trine, maintained — constituted the court of last appeal, whose affirmative decree on the question had reversed the dictatorial edict of Addison and his coterie. "The, Tragedy of King Lear," he cited in proof, " has always ended with the happiness of Cordelia and the restoration of the old monarch, from the first alteration of it by Tate."* As a matter of fact, the double Spectator, No. 40. Cp. also, Tatler, No. 82. 'The following passage from Goldsmith, Art of Poetry (1761), states the situation : " Tragedy is not always to end with the misfortunes of some principal person; for sometimes it may have a happy Catastrophe, and sometimes a double one ; that is, happy for the good, and unhappy for the guilty; but the single and unfortunate Catastrophe is reckoned the best, as it is most likely to produce terror and compassion. — It is a dispute indeed among the critics, whether virtue should always be rewarded, and vice punished in the Catastrophe of a Tragedy; but the reasons on the negative side seem the strongest." 11, 170. 'A Commentary illustrating the Poetic of Aristotle (1792). P- 265 fE. The author goes on to express his own preference thus : — " To argue from my own feelings, that arrangement of dramatic fable is at the same time the most affecting, and the most pleasing iii which those characters in whose welfare we are strongly interested, after experiencing the greatest distress. 193 ending resulting from a strict observance of poetic justice is one of the distinctive features of eighteenth century tragedy. Moreover, tragedies of no tragic catastrophe at all became in- creasingly common. Mere regularity of form might be in it- self suificient to call forth the title; the concluding event, at least, was unessential. An admirable case in point is Colman's alteration of "Philaster" (1763), which is termed a "Trag- edy," altho the tragfic action is considerably reduced in order to make the hero's conduct more reasonable. The author's de- fense of the title illustrates the attitude of the age: "If to move the passions of pity and terror are the two chief ends of Tragedy, there needs no apology for giving that title to the play of Philaster. If Lear, Hamlet, Othello, &c. &c. notwithstand- ing the casual introduction of comick circumstances in the natural course of the action, are tragedies ; Philaster is so too."* One road by which tragicomedy disappeared is evident enough. Secondly, by a corresponding extension of meaning, the term comedy, in its eighteenth century usage, came to encroach as much beyond its traditional bounds. The new moral and sen- timental species, which sprang into vogue early in the century in the general reaction against past licentiousness, introduces an interesting sidelight to our subject. Dating in spirit at least from Elizabethan times, sentimental comedy first became a full-blown and consequential type on the English stage in such plays as Colley Gibber's " Careless Husband" (1704) and Richard Steele's "Conscious Lovers" (1722), whence it con- tinued to flourish with vigor thruout the century even after the ridicule of Goldsmith had tempered its popularity. The sentimental and moral treatment of a domestic theme and while their utter ruin or death seems inevitable, are at once relieved by a sudden revolution of fortune quite unexpected and yet not improbable ; and the pleasure received from this will be greatly encreased if the dis- tress of the fable arises from tyranny and oppression, the author of which is involved in ruin by the peripetia. Such an arrangement will both excite pity and terror, and the catastrophe will be still agreeable to our feelings. This form is exemplified in the Wife for a Month of Beaumont and Fletcher, the Marriage A-la-Mode of Dryden, the Grecian Daughter, and above all in the fourth act of the Merchant of Venice." ' Advertisement, 14 194 wherein suffering abounded and virtue triumphed became the estabhshed basis of the species. This introduction of the graver elements of pathos and morality into comedy naturally resulted in a more serious type of play. Comedy no longer furnished fun and amusement, but stirred the deeper emotions of pity and sorrow and called forth the love of virtue. The sentimental type, indeed, may be well described as a kind of intermediate between tragedy and comedy. In its more serious presentations of social life it is but a step removed from the type of domestic tragedy that Heywood and others had essayed in the Elizabethan period and Lillo revived in the eighteenth century. The " London Merchant " (1731), in its problematic theme, penitent sinner and morally satisfactory ending, only echoes the " English Traveller " and the " Witch of Ed- monton." A brief indication of the distinctive character of sentimental comedy — or comedie larmoyante, as it was known in France ^" — is sufficient to show its generic resemblance to tragicomedy. It presented an essential serious interest and at the same time catered to the love of the happy ending. Moreover, amid pre- vailing gravity, it almost invariably introduced some comic element. But beyond such general similitudes, parallels be- tween the two types languish. Tragicomedy, accepted in its traditional sense, connoted something very different from the later species. Its scenes are in fanciful realms remote from actuality ; its actions compass the fates of kingdoms as well as lovers ; its leading personages are the monarchs and heroes of romance ; it presents an exaggerated portrayal of character, a tangled web of incident, and solves its dilemmas as fancy and not truth directs. From traits of this sort it is a goodly drop to the prosaic features of sentimental comedy : its sor- rows and sufferings of middle-class English society, its truer representation of life, its social problems, and its emphasis on moral lessons and virtuous conduct. With the thrills, the hair- breadth escapes from death, and the general theatricality of tragicomedy, it has nothing to do. Financial ruin, virtue in '" For a discussion of the subject in France, see G. Lanson, Nivelle de La Chaussee et la ComSdie Larmoyante (1887). 195 distress, marital troubles — make up its stock in trade of seriousness. Whereas tragicomedy might arouse both pity and terror and temper all with a happy ending ; sentimental comedy could stir pity alone, and its final reconciliation falls far short of the stage effectiveness of its romantic predecessor. The happy denouement is usually foreshadowed far in ad- vance. As in modern melodrama, there is never a doubt but that Fortune is on the side of young love and virtue. For one set of dramatic falsities, sentimental comedy substituted only another. It is plain, then, that there is scant lineal relation between the two forms. Sentimental comedy was in no sense a con- tinuation of tragicomedy, tho it developed in time to take the place in popular favor vacated by the latter, and for that reason deserves some notice. By subservience to the happy ending, it fell short of tragedy ; yet it abused the name of comedy. Its intermediate scope is well put by Diderot in commenting on his own " Le Fils Naturel" (1757), a play of the type. To a query as to the classification of the piece, he replied that it belonged to le genre serieux, which he de- cribed as a medial form lying between tragedy and comedy, which had the advantage of being able to draw from both, while they were restricted within prescribed bounds.^^ Serious drama it was, and as such it suggests the manner in which something akin to tragicomedy has been represented on the stage to the present day. Strangely enough, by the sanction of critical opinion, eigh- teenth century comedy was allowed to range almost at will. It might admit the graver elements of tragedy ad libitum and still be comedy. Even the classical Voltaire would deny no liberties to this species : with equal propriety it might be en- tirely jocose, or a mixture of seriousness and pleasantry, or, " TroisUme Entretien appended to Le Fils Natural {(Euvres — ed. 1821 — • IV, 184 fif.). With the usual critical view of tragicomedy, he goes on to comment on that genre as follows : " Vous voyez que la tragi-comedie ne peut etre qu'un mauvais genre, parce qu'on y coufond deux genres eloignes et separes par une barriere naturelle. On n'y passe point par des nuances imperceptibles ; on tombe a chaque pas dans les contrastes, et I'unite disparait." Ibid., p. 187. 196 indeed, toute serieuse.^^ On the other hand, no such Hcense was allowed tragedy. The slightest admixture of levity brought down an avalanche of critical opprobrium from the self-constituted champions of true taste. The result was that practically no eighteenth century tragedy, in England at least, admitted comedy; and comic portions were even cut out of many of the old stock plays. For that particular violation of decorum in the tragedies of the past, those of Shakspere especially, critics had no condemnation strong enough.^^ It was decried as a practise contrary to art, taste, and the author- ity of the ancients, and one for which there was no defense. Moreover, the introduction of levity in a tragic theme was universally hailed as tragicomedy, which brings up the whole question of the critical side of the subject in the eighteenth century, the most interesting aspect of its posthumous history. To the growing interest in Shakspere . that the various edi- tions of his work and the stage popularity of his plays aroused all thru the century, is largely due the numerous learned opinions on tragicomedy that accompany the criticism of the age. An examination of the faults and virtues of the great Elizabethan disclosed that he had mingled tragic and comic, or, in other words, had been guilty of tragicomedy. This, in turn, revealed that the same had characterized the age, and, in fact, that the stage had been but lately purified of this barbarous practise. Almost all critics had something to say on the sub- ject : most condemned the mixed species utterly ; a few had the temerity to defend it. Some echoed the Restoration opinion of its English origin ; others declared it belonged to a far earlier period. But as to what constituted tragicomedy all were agreed. The very first utterances on the subject introduce the points at issue and forecast the general trend of future opinion. Nicholas Rowe, the first of a long line of Shaksperian editors, "See preface to the Enfant Prodigue (1738). "This aspect of eighteenth century criticism is treated at length in Professor Lounsbury's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist (1901), Chap. IV, much of which is pertinent to our subject. 197 in accord with the prevailing classicism, declared of his author's work : " His Plays are properly to be distinguish'd only into Comedies and Tragedies. Those which are called Histories, and even some of his Comedies, are really Tragedies, with a run or mixture of Comedy amongst 'em. That way of Trage-comedy was the common mistake of that age, and is indeed become so agreeable to the English taste, that tho' the severer Critiques among us cannot bear it, yet the generality of our audi- ences seem to be better pleas'd with it than with an exact Tragedy."" Two years later, 171 1, Addison, writing in the "Spectator," more nearly expressed the extreme classicist's abhorrence of the form : " The Tragi-Comedy, which is the Product of the English Theatre, is one of the most monstrous Inventions that ever entered into a Poet's Thoughts. An Author might as well think of weaving the Adventures of JEneas and Hudibras into one Poem, as of writing such a motly Piece of Mirth and Sorrow. But the Absurdity of these Performances is so very vijible, that I shall not insist upon it."" With opinions of this sort the contemporary criticism of Dennis and Gildon accorded in the main. Neither was a thoro- I going classicist, yet neither had anything to offer in favor of tragicomedy. Dennis, however, vigorously denied Addison's claim that the form was an English invention^" — a point which Gildon had earlier contested in connexion with Dryden's similar assertion." The latter critic, moreover, while admitting that the ill-advised union of grief and laughter, " what is done so commonly among us in our Tragi- comedies," was an absurdity that even Shakspere had been '^^ Some account of the Life, etc. of Mr. William Shakespear, 1709 (D. N. Smith, Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare, 1903, p. 10).' ^'Spectator, No. 40, April 16, 1711. '° " He is vilely mistaken if he thinks that Tragi-Comedy is of the Growth of our English Theatres." Letters, familiar, moral and critical (1712), p. 407. " " We did not invent Tragicomedy, as is plain from the Prologue of Plautus to his Amphitryo (Quotes). Nay this unnatural Mixture was even before Tragedy was in Perfection; that is in the Infancy of the Stage in both Athens and Rome; till rejected and the Stage reformed from it by the greatest Wits and Poets of these Cities, as a Mixture wholly monstruous and unnatural." Remarks on the Plays of Shakespear, in Rowe's edition (1710), VII, 431. 198 guilty of, protested Rowe's observation that such mixtures pleased better than tragedies. For, excepting Shakspere's, " we have not for some Years past had any of the kind on the Stage, which have pleas'd ; The Fatal Marriage and Oroonoko are the last, that I can remember"^* — z statement significant in more ways than one. On the theory of tragicomedy, however, unanimity pre- vailed. The above utterances surest the ideas that the eigh- teenth century had come to associate with the term. It evi- dently could denote either of two different styles of composi- tion, between which the lines of demarcation were not always clear : ^jret, the haphazard mixture of mirth and gravity, which Shakspere's want of art had led him to practise, and which was usually condoned as the fault of his age ;'^* and S«X)nd, the union of two distinct plots, one comic and one serious, which Dryden and his contemporaries had popular- ized in the Restoration era. Beyond these boimds, the eigh- teenth century critical view of tragicomedy never strayed. Under the first heading, hardly an Elizabethan play, strictly speaking, was exempt from the opprobrious classification.-^ Shakspere's tragedies especially, when unpurged of their comic admixture, fell under the ban ; even " Hamlet " was rated by ^ Ibid., p 437 ; and. Essay on the Art, Rise and Progress of the Stage in Greece, Rome and England, Ibid., pp. ix, Ixrii. Cp. also the same author's J-.arui-s of Poetry (1721), p. 23. Tor example. Lord Ljrttelton, Dialogues of the Dead 1 1760), Dialogue XIV : " The strange mixture of tragedy, comedy, and farce in the same play, nay sometimes in the same scene, I acknowledge to be quite inex- cusable. But this was the taste of the times when Shakespeare wrote"; also, Pye, in the same connexion. Commentary illustrating the Poetic of Aristotle (1792), p. 127: "That the necessity of committing this fault was imposed on him by the tsste of the public, is apparent, from the prac- tice of all the contemporary writers, and if he has contrired to do it with less impropriety than others, it surely is no small d^ree of merit" -' One critic went so far as to declare that the compositions of that period were so heterogeneous that they could not even be properly called tragicomedies, but were caationsly denominated plays. Critical Reflections on the Old English Dramatick Writers. Extracted from a Prefatory Dis- course to the neoj Edition of Massinger's Works (Anon.), 1761, I, p. ; 199 some a tragicomedy.^^ But it was rather the play of double plot, which dated from the later period, that was regarded as the full-blown form of the species.^^ The basis of this con- ception of tragicomedy the age had inherited from the pre- ceding era, but in the general growth of critical feeling had extended beyond its original bounds. The mere presence of a comic sub-plot, regardless of the denouement of the serious interest, was enough to define the type. Hence, "Venice i Preserved," " Fatal Marriage," " Oroonoko," and other pre- I vious tragedies of the sort were all tragicomedies in the eigh- j teenth century,^^^ as well as the " Spanish Friar " and " Love 'Triumphant." It was by such abuses of the genre title that the critical view of tragicomedy became completely detached from any foundation in the stage tradition of the form. That the Duke of Buckingham should have entitled his alteration of I " Philaster " a tragicomedy, was evidently a matter for com- ment at the time of Colman ; for " that word," the latter ex- I plained, " according to its present acceptation, conveys the idea : of a very different species of composition ; a play like the * Spanish Friar, or Oroonoko, in which two distinct actions, one serious and the other comick, are unnaturally woven together." =^ The unnaturalness and absurdity of the practise few failed "" For example, see Stevens's letter to Garrick on the latter's altered version of Hamlet. Garrick Correspondence, I, 451. ^To quote Pye, A Commentary, etc., p. 127 ff. : "However faulty the practice of the age of Shakespear may have been in this respect (mingling kinds), it was reserved for the next, though proud of their encreasing refinement, to produce that monster of the drama, the regular tragi-comedy ; where two distinct fables, the one distressful, the other ridiculous, were carried on together ; not only violating the unity of action, but making so absurd a mixture of sorrow and mirth, that as Addison observes, a poet might as well think of weaving the adventures of jEneas and Huldibras into one poem. . . . The error of Shakespear is like that of Homer, in intro- ducing Thersites in a serious poem, but the tragi-comedy resembles the Iliad and Margites, mixed together." Cp. also John Penn, Letters on the Drama (1796), Letter IX. "^'For example, compare Gildon, above, p. 198. ^Advertisement to Philaster, a Tragedy (1763), altered by Geo. Colman from Beaumont and Fletcher. 200 to dwell on at length. In accepted critical opinion such a pro- cedure represented the worst possible violation of decorum ; it outraged the canons of classical usage and correct taste; it was an insult to art. The specific points urged against the iform were only those of the past renewed and amplified. The fchief ground of complaint seemed to be the dissonant emo- tional effect that tragicomedy was supposed to create in the jtnind of the spectator. According to the fallacious reasoning of the day, tragedy and comedy introduced together produced impressions that mutually destroyed each other and left the mind in a state of confusion. Thus Gildon emphatically con- tested Dryden's early arguments maintaining the propriety and excellence of the mixed species. The soul that can respond to the swift transitions of tragicomedy, he argued, and " start from Tears to Laughter, and from Laughter to Tears, five times in one Play, . . . must be like some Childrens and Womens who can weep and laugh in a Breath." And as to the question of agreeable relief afforded by the " unnatural Mix- ture," one might as well think of acting a tragedy and a com- edy together, which no one could think a perfection. "And yet," he added, "most if not all of our Modern Tragi- comedies are even as if a Tragedy and Comedy was acted together; the Comic Part of them having no more to do with or Relation to the Tragic, than if it were another Play."^* The learned Oxford lecturer, Joseph Trapp, who viewed the form in the light of its classical ancestry, arrived at much the same conclusions. Since contrary passions counteracted each other, what was more absurd, he urged, than a play whereby the mind was continually distraught between sorrow and joy; adding the reflection that whereas ancient tragicomedy was absurd enough in joining characters of contrary station, its modern prototype had gone further in uniting serious and trivial events as well.^^ Much later in the century, William Cooke, who devoted a chapter of his " Elements of Dramatic "^ Remarks on the Plays of Shakespear (1710), Rowe's ed., VII, 432 fif. " Prwlectiones Poetics, Oxonii: 1719, III, 4-S. The first edition appeared in 1711. 201 Criticism'' (1775) to the subject,^" reiterated the impossibiUty of laughing and crying together, and as to the unity of action violated by tragicomedy, merely repeated the words put into the mouth of Lisideius a century before. ^^ These same stric- tures — the weakened and unnatural effect produced by tragi- comedy and its infraction of the unity of action — were echoed later again at the close of the century in John Penn's " Letters on the Drama" (1796),^^ and, in fact, may be considered the stock objections urged against the practise thruout the repre- sentative criticism of the age. In a century thus generally hostile to tragicomedy, the few attempts to justify that manner of composition are conspicuous by their very audacity. No one, indeed, could deny the ille- gitimacy of the species according to the rules of criticism; yet no one, on the other hand, could deny the perennial popu- larity of Shakspere and the fidelity of his plays of the sort to actual life, if not to art. Colley Gibber was perhaps the first to suggest that mirth judiciously introduced into tragedy might be reckoned a positive beauty; but such liberties he limited to the sphere of the chosen few.^° It was reserved for Dr. Johnson to voice an actual defense of the practise. Writing in the "Rambler" in 1751,^" he gave as his opinion that one ^ The Elements of Dramatic Criticism. Containing an analysis of the stage under the following heads. Tragedy, Tragi-Comedy, Comedy, Panto- mime, and Farce. By William Cooke, 1775. Chap. XIV, Of Tragi- Comedy. ^ Cp. the following passage with the Essay of Dramatic Poesy (Ker ed., I, 57) : " One of the great requisites both of tragedy and comedy, is unify of action ; now, in a tragicomedy, there are two distinct actions carrying on together, to the perplexity of the audience, who, before they are well engaged in the concernments of one part, are diverted to another, and by those means, espouse the interest of neither : from hence likewise arises another inconvenience equally as absurd, which is, that one half of the characters of the play are not known to each other; they keep their distances like the Mountagues and the Capulets, and seldom begin an acquaintance till the last scene of the fifth act, when they all meet upon the stage to wind up their own stories." ^ Letter IX, On Tragi-comedy. ''An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, Comedian, written by him- self (1740), R. W. Lowe ed., 1889, I, 123. *'No. 156. 202 who proposed to regard no other laws than those of nature, would be inclined to receive tragicomedy to his protection. " For what is there in the mingled drama," he asks, " which impartial reason can condemn? The connexion of important with trivial incidents, since it is not only common but perpetual in the world, may surely be allowed upon the stage, which pretends only to be the mirror of life." Not only the example of nature but experience supports the practise ; for " is it not certain that the tragic and comic affectations have been moved alternately with equal force; and that no plays have oftener filled the eye with tears, and the breast, with palpitation, than those which are variegated with interludes of mirth?" Yet Johnson's justification was not unqualified. He would not vindicate tragicomedy by the success of Shakspere; he would rather regard its successful achievement by that poet as a further proof of his transcendent genius; and perhaps even Shakspere, he added, might have been yet greater had he left this mode of composition untried. Later he repeated much the same argument, admitting the mingled drama to be con- trary to the rules of criticism, but grounding its defense in nature and proclaiming it a more faithful picture of life than either tragedy or comedy.^^ Whereas Johnson defended tragicomedy on abstract grounds. Sir Joshua Reynolds found a justification for the practise in the old plea of its appeal to popular taste. " The criticks who renounce tragi-comedy as barbarous," he declared, "speak more from notions which they have formed in their closets, than any well-built theory deduced from experience of what pleases or displeases, which ought to be the foundation of all rules." In his opinion, the critical judgment of the day as- sumed a refinement on the part of the popular audience that did not exist ; and so long as this state prevailed and the human passion for the variety and contrarieties of tragicomedy per- sisted, a dramatic work should use every means to contribute to that end.*^ But positions of this sort were practically ^Preface to Shakespear, 1768 (D. N. Smith, Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare, p. 118 ff.). *" See The Plays of William Shakspeare, ed. of 1793, annotated by Sam'l Johnson and Geo. Stevens, I, 49 n. 203 untenable in an age that had declared for art pure and unde- filed. Only one or two other voices echoed the opinions of Johnson and Reynolds. Horace Walpole, in the preface to the second edition (1765) of his " Castle of Otranto," professed his inability to understand why occasional pleasantry ought any more to be banished from tragedy, than pathetic serious- ness from comedy. And it seems that the Monthly Reviewers, on one occasion at least, offered a partial defense of tragi- comedy. Pye's unqualified censure of the species they de- clared a " rash anathema," observing that such a play as the " Tempest " so nearly realized the perfect union of a solemn and a ludicrous fable into one inseparable whole, that a " tragic comedy " could not but seem practicable. And they were fur- ther of the opinion that complete transitions of temper might be accomplished if unity of manners were preserved, as evi- denced by the sentimental dramas of the day.^^ All eighteenth century critics, however, whether denouncing or defending tragicomedy, were treating of a mode of composition that might include almost any play of the past age, from a tragedy of blood like " Hamlet " to a romance like the " Tempest " ; and in this respect, their arguments either for or against are somewhat beside the point. One last aspect of the critical interest in the mingled drama is more vitally connected with the subject. ^Monthly Review, Oct., I79S, XVIII, 123. Cp. a much later defense of the species in an article on Dryden's Dramatic Works by H. Southern, pub- lished in the Retrospective Review, 1820, I, 160 : " We are very far from being of the faction, who would hunt down tragi-comedy as a monster, to which criticism should give no quarter : on the contrary, we are disposed to think that it is the only species of the drama, which is calculated to afford a just description of human life There — all is not gloom — nor all sunshine — pleasant smiling vallies peep forth amidst utter desolation, the dreariest waste and the most inaccessible rocks neighbour a fertile soil ; as the ripe and blushing strawberry frequently pillows itself on a bed of snow, by the side of which it often grows on the lofty mountains of Switzerland. All is unequal, all diversified. The hero of the court may be the hero of the tavern, and the armed warrior who kills his thousands, may scare pacific passengers in the streets in his drunken frolics. In this light, Shakespear saw man, and his tragi-comedy is merely the history of human life." 204 ■ Whence tragicomedy had taken its inception was a question that first received serious attention in the eighteenth century. iDryden and others of his time had proclaimed the species an 'invention of the English theater, and the more dogmatic of the Augustans were content to accept the same judgment. Critics of more historical point of view, however, were far from concurring. Even Dennis and Gildon, at the beginning of the century, had challenged this theory. The latter had shown by the evidence of Plautus the existence of tragicomedy in classical times, and Trapp had offered additional data in support of the same view.^* Later, the growing historical interest in the modern drama led others to arrive at an idea of the medieval origin of tragicomedy. Bishop Warburton, in speaking of the early morality and farce, declared that the English theater, by jumbling together these two forms, had "begot in an evil hour, that mungrel Species, unknown to Nature and Antiquity, called Tragi-Coniedy."^^ Another stu- dent of the drama traced the species to the fact that ancient tragedy, when originally revived on the English stage, became straightway debased with low comedy to delight the populace.^* And, at the beginning of the next century, Coleridge — whose conception of tragicomedy was evidently that of his predeces- sors — attributed the origin of the form to the necessity always characteristic of the English stage of at once instructing and gratifying the people, whence the devil and the vice in the early religious drama, and the fool or clown on the modem "^ Pralectiones Poetics (1719), III, 4: " Scio a doctissimo Vossio de antiquorum prtstextatis & togatis disserente hsec adnotari. (Institut. Poet., Lib. Ill, Cap. VII.) ' Erant & mixtse ex praetextatis, & togatis ; quae tabemariae appellabantur : ubi personae prsetextatae cum togatis jungerentur. Festus in Schedis Pomponii laeti : Togatarum duplex genus : pratextatarum, hominum fastigio; qua sic appellantur, quod togis prcetextis remp, ad- ministrent: tabernariarum, quia hominibus excellentibus etiam humiles permixti. Src. Ex his liquet, si praetextatae fabulae quodammodo erant Tragcedias; togatffl autem Comcediae: Tabernariam (quae mixti erat argu- menti) fuisse, ut Plautus vocat, Tragico-comoediam &c. Ejusmodi est Amphitryo Plautina, & Gracorum Hercules Licymnius.' " ^Warburton, ed. of Shakespear (1747), V, 344. Cp. also. Bishop Percy, An Essay on the Origin of the English Stage (1767), p. 15 of 1793 ed. "Thos. Hawkins, The Origin of the English Drama (1773), I, p. ix. 205 stage.^^ Such observations mark the initial historical attention that tragicomedy received in England, and have some interest as playing a part in heralding the approach of the scientific method of literary investigation.'* It is chiefly in the field of criticism that tragicomedy has any claim to attention after 1700. On the stage, we have seen that it was practically an unknown species from the beginning of the century. Altered conditions and tastes relegated its romantic extravagances among outworn fashions, while its place as intermediate drama was usurped both by tragedy and comedy. Much the same situation prevailed thruout the cen- tury. Tragicomedy was never revived as a stage type,'° tho analogies similar to those traced between the genre and senti- " Literary Remains, see Works (ed. of Prof. Shedd, 1853), IV, 33. It may be noted that Coleridge favorably defines the type : " Tragi-comedy, or a representation of human events more lively, nearer the truth, and permitting a larger field of moral instruction, a more ample exhibition of the recesses of the human heart, under all the trials and circumstances that most concern us, than was known or guessed at by ^schylus, Sophocles, or Euripides." ^ Perhaps the first real historical consideration of tragi-comedy is con- tained in Walker's Revival of the Drama in Italy (1805), in which the author takes occasion to note various landmarks in the early history of the form, and shows that it was not only cultivated by the ancients but first revived in modern times by the Italians. See pp. 54, 262. °° A few instances of the use of the title name date from the early nine- teenth century, but have no vital significance. They may be briefly listed below ; none were ever acted : — The Key of the Garden, A Tragi-Comedy. By Serj. Young, Dundee, 1801. The Wife With Two Husbands : A Tragi-Comedy, in Three Acts, Trans- lated from the French (of Pixerecourt), by Miss Gunning, London: 1803. The Theatric Count, a Tragic Comedy, in five acts: from the Orgoglio Cupitoso, Conte teatrino, of Gonsago Bicchieri. Adapted for representa- tion on the English Stage. London, 1809. See Biographia Dramatica, The Wife's Trial; or, The Intruding Widow. A Dramatic Poem. Founded on Mr. Crabbe's Tale of " The Confidant" By C, Lamb, (Pub- lished in Blackwood's Mag., Dec, 1828.) Lamb in his letters refers to this piece as a tragicomedy, doubtless led to do so by his acquaintance with Elizabethan drama. The play tiuns on a serious domestic situation and ends happily. See Works (E. V. Lucas, 1903), VII, 735, 738, 747. It may be added that a few contemporary pieces of the illegitimate drama were denominated Serio-Comic, 206 mental comedy might be found in much of the later eighteenth century drama. The approach of the Romantic movement created a reawakened interest in the Elizabethans and a return to favor of thrills and terrors, baffled villains and successful heroes and heroines. These new romantic tendencies, appro- priated chiefly by the now flourishing " illegitimate " drama, resulted in much that is reminiscent of the older drama — the use of familiar motives and devices, striving for theatrical effect, the happy solution of difficulties, and other tragicomic measures, — all of which is seen to good advantage in the dra- matic medleys of George Colman the younger and his coterie. And something similar might be said of the French importa- tion of melodrame, which began its long ascendency in England at the opening of the nineteenth century. With these later aspects of the drama, however, we have little to do. As in the case of sentimental comedy, they merely serve to show how the stage has never lacked for something intermediate between tragedy and comedy. English tragi- comedy, properly so-called, had long since run its course. A product of mingled medieval and Renaissance tradition, it first came into full-blown existence on the English stage in the work of Beaumont and Fletcher. During the years of their ascendent influence it flourished with ever increasing vigor, degenerating into a definite and conventional type, which by 1642 was the dominant stage form. Kept alive during the era of closed theaters, it emerged in 1662, and, little modified in form or materials, continued to maintain itself on the Restoration stage. But its heyday was over. Beset by classi- cism and at variance with popular taste, it steadily waned in popularity, and, before the advent of the Augustan era, had come to a full stop. Such in brief is the course of English tragicomedy, an extinct dramatic kind. APPENDIX A List of English Tragicomedies The following list is an alphabetical arrangement of the English tragicomedies considered in the preceding pages, in- cluding all plays that offer any documentary evidence for their genre classification and such other contemporary pieces as ful- fil or approximate the conditions of the type form. The titles are reproduced from the earliest editions, and are quoted in full or with slight omissions; additional information is put in brackets. The date given represents, of course, the year of printing, and the place of publication is London unless other- wise stated. Non-extant tragicomedies are printed in italics. ^ The Abdicated Prince : or, the Adventures of Four Years. A Tragi-Comedy, As it was lately Acted at the Court at Alba Regalis, By several Persons of Great Quality. (Anon.) 1690. Adrasta: or. The Womans Spleene, And Loves Conqvest. A Tragi-comedie. Never Acted. (John Jones.) 1635. The Adventures of Five Hours. A Tragi-Comedy. — Non ego Ventosce Plebis suffragia venor. Horat. Fr. 21°. (Sir Samuel Tuke.) 1662. Aggrippa King of Alba: or. The False Tiberinus. As it was several times Acted with great Applause before his Grace the Duke of Ormond then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, at the Theatre Royal in Dublin. From the French of Mon- sieur Quinault. (John Dancer.) 1675. Aglaura. (Sir John Suckling.) 1638. Alexander and Campaspe. See Campaspe. Alfrede or Right Reinthron'd. Being a Tragi-comedie. 1659. (Dedicated to Lady Blount by her brother R. K. A MS. in the Bodleian Library.) 207 208 All Mistaken ; Or The Mad Couple. A Comedy, Acted by His Majestyes Servants, at the Theatre Royal. Written by the Honorable James Howard, Esq. 1672. The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus, King of Aragon, As it hath bene sundrie times Acted. Made by R. G. (Robert Greene). 1599. Alvredus sive Alfredus, Tragico-Comosdia ter exhibita in sem- inario Anglorum Duaceno ab ejusdem collegii Juventute, Anno Domini M.D C.XIX. Authore Guilielmo Drureo nobili Anglo. Duaci. 1620. The Amazon Queen ; or the Amours of Thalestris to Alexander the Great. A Tragi-Comedy. (Never acted.) By Jo. Weston Esq. Licensed Febr. 11, 1666-7. Roger L'Estrange. Printed 1667. The Amorous Warre A Tragi-Comoedy. (Jasper Mayne, D.D.) 1648. The Amourous Fantasme, A Tragi-comedy. By Sr. William Lower Knight. Hage, 1660 (translated from the "Fan- tome Amoureux" of Philippe Quinault). A new Tragicall Comedie of Apius and Virginia, Wherein is liuely expressed a rare example of the vertue of Chas- titie, by Virginias constancy, in wishing rather to be slaine at her owne Fathers handes, than to be deflowred of the wicked ludge Apius. By R. B. (Richard Bower). I57S- Arabia Sitiens, or a Dreame of a Drye Yeare, a tragi-comoedye. By William Percy. 1601 (Percy MS. No. 2. Duke of Northumberland's Library). Arviragvs and Philicia. As it was acted at the Private House in Black-Fryers by his Majesties Servants. The first and second Part. (Lodowick Carlell.) 1639. The Bashful Lover. A Tragi-Comedy. As it hath been often Acted at the Private-House in Black-Friers, by His late Majesties Servants, with great Applause. Written by Philip Massenger, Gent. 1655. Basileia seu Bellum Grammaticale Tragico-Comoedia. Sub ferias Nativitatis acta, a Generosis Scholse Cranebur- gensis alumnis. An. 1666. . . . Samuel Hoadley His 209 Book 1667. (B.M. Add. Mss. 22725. See The Warr of Grammar.) vThe first part of Bellamira her Dream: or, the Love of Shadows. A Tragi-Comedy, The Scene Naples and Sicily. Written in Venice, by Thomas Killigrew. 1663. y'The second part of Bellamira her Dream: or, the Love of Shadows. A Tragi-Comedy, The Scene Naples and Sicily. Written in Venice, by Thomas Killigrew. 1663. Bellum Grammaticale sive Nominum Verbumque discordia civilis Tragico-Comoedia Summo cum applausu olim apud Oxoniensis in Scaenam producta et nunc in omnium ad Grammaticam animos appellunt oblectamentum edita Lon- dini Excudebant B.A. & T. Fawcet Impensis Joh : Spenceri. 1635. (MS. in Bodleian Library. See Bolte, Andrea Guarnas Bellum Grammaticale und Seine Nachahmungen, Berlin, 1908, p. 106 ff.) vBelphegor: or. The Marriage of the Devil; A Tragi-Comedy. Lately acted at the Queen's Theatre in Dorset-Garden. By Mr. Wilson. 1691. VThe Black Prince. (Printed with Tryphon as) Two New Tragedies; The first Acted at the Theatre-Royal, by his Majestie's Servants; The other By his Highness the Duke of York's Servants. Both Written by the Right Honour- able the Earl of Orrery. 1669. (Entered in Term Cata- logiies Nov. 22, 1669, as "A Tragi-Comedy.") /The Bloody Duke ; or the Adventures for a Crown. A Tragi- Comedy, As it was Acted at the Court at Alba Regalis, By several Persons of Great Quality. Written by the Author of the Abdicated Prince. 1690. The Bond-Man: An Antient Storie. As it hath been often Acted with good allowance, at the Cock-pit in Drury-lane : by the most Excellent Princesse, the Lady Elizabeth her Seruants. By Philip Massinger. 1624. The Bond-Man: or Love and Liberty. A Tragi-comedy. As it is now Acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane. By His Majesty's Servants. 1719. (Altered from Massinger by Thomas Betterton.) Campaspe, Played beefore the Queenes Maiestie on newyeares 15 210 day at night, by her Maiesties Children and the Children of Paules. (John Lyly.) 1584. (Ed. of 1591, "A tragi- cal! Comedie of Alexander and Campaspe.") The Careles Shepherdess. A Tragi-Comedy Acted before the King & Queen, And at Salisbury-Court, with great Ap- plause. Written by T. G. (Thomas Goffe) . Mr. of Arts. With an Alphebeticall Catologue of all such Plays that ever were Printed. 1656. Celestina: or, the Spanish Bawd. A Tragi-Comedy. Taken from the Spanish Play of Mateo Aleman, Author of Guz- man. Reduc'd from 21, as it is in the Original, to 5 Acts; and adapted to the English Stage. (J. Savage?) 1707. A Challenge for Beautie. As it hath beene sundry times Acted, By the Kings Majesties Servants: At the Blacke- friers, and at the Globe on the Banke-side. Written by Thomas Heywood. 1636. Christvs Rediviws, Comcedia Tragica, sacra et noua. Authore Nicolao Grimoaldo. Discite Ivsticiam Moniti. Coloniae loan. Gymnicus excudebat. Anno !M.D.XLIII. (See Pub. Mod. Lang. Assn., 1899, XIV.) VThe first part of Cicilia & Qorinda, or. Love in Arms. A Tragi-Comedy, The Scene Lombardy. Written in Turin by Thomas Killigrew. 1663. s/The second part of Cicilia & Qorinda, or. Love in Arms. A Tragi-Comedy, The Scene Lombardy. Written in Flor- ence by Thomas Killigrew. 1663. The Cid, A Tragi comedy, out of French made English : And acted before their Majesties at Court, and on the Cock- pit Stage in Drury-lane by the servants to both their Majesties. (Joseph Rutter.) 1637. (The Second Part followed in 1640.) \/ The City-Night-Cap : Or, Crede quod habes, & habes. A Tragi- Comedy. By Robert Davenport. As it was Acted with great Applause, by Her Majesties Servants, at the Phoe- nix in Drury Lane. 1661. Claracilla (With The Prisoners). Two Tragae-Comedies. As they were presented at the Hicenix in Drury-Lane, by her ^I"^ Servants. Written by Tho. Killigrew, Gent. 1 641. 211 /The Comical Revenge : or. Love in a Tub. Acted at His High- ness The Duke of York's Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. (George Etherege.) 1664. The Coronation, A Comedy. (James Shirley and John Fletcher.) 1640. The Court Secret, a Tragi-comedy : Xever acted. But prepared for the Scene at Black-Friers. Written by James Shirley. Xever printed before. 1653. Craftie Cromwell, Or, OUver ordering our Xew State. A tragi-comedie. Wherein is discovered the trayterous undertakings and proceedings of the said Xol, and his levelling crew. Written by ^lercurius Melancholicus. Printed in the yeare, 1648. The Second part of Craft}- CrumweU; or Oliver in his glori- as king. A Trage Commedie Wherein is presented, the late treasonable tmdertaldngs, and proceedings, of the RebeUs, their murthering of Capt. Burley, with their underhand workings to betray their King. Written by ^larcurius Pragmaticus. Printed in the yeare, 1648. Cromwell's Conspiracy. A tragy-comedy, relating to our latter times. Beginning at the death of King Charles the First, and ending with the happy restauration of King Charles the Second. Written by a Person of Quality. 1660. Custom of the Country. (John Fletcher.) 1647. The Tragedie of Cymbeline. \\'iUiam Shakespeare. 1623. The excellent Comedie of two the moste faithfullest Freendes, Damon and Pithias. Xewly Imprinted, as the same was shewed before the Queenes ^laiestie, by the Children of her Graces Chappell, except the Prologue that is some- what altered for the proper vse of them that hereafter shall haue occasion to plaie it, either in Priuate, or open Audience. ^lade by !Maister Edwards, then beynge Maister of the Children. 1571. (In the author's pro- log, '' a tragicall commedie.") The Deseruing Fauorite. As it was lately Acted, first before the Kings ^Maiestie, and since pubhkely at the Black- Friers. By his Maiesties Seruants. \\'ritten by Lodo- wicke Carlell, Esquire, Gentle-man of the Bowes, and 212 Groome of the King and Queenes Priuie Chamber. 1629. (Ed. of 1659, "A Tragi-Comedy.") The Deuils Law-case. Or, When Women goe to Law, the Deuill is full of Businesse. A new Tragecomoedy. The true and perfect Copie from the Originall. As it was ap- prouedly well Acted by her Maiesties Seruants. Written by lohn Webster. 1623. Diana's Grove; or, the FaithfuU Genius. A tragi-comedy. (Before 1603. Anon., and never acted. A MS. in pri- vate hands. See Halliwell, and Fleay.) The play of Dicke of Devonshire; a Tragi-Comedy. c. 1636. (Anon. Eg, MS. 1994. Bullen, Old Plays, v. 2.) The Distresses. Sr. William Davenant Kt. 1673. The Divine Comedian or the Right Use of Plays, Improved, in a sacred Tragy-Comaedy. (With a subordinate title, The Souls Warfare.) By Rich. Tuke. 1672. The Doubtful Heir, a Tragi-comedie, as it was Acted in the private House in Black-Friers, Written by James Shirley. Never printed before. 1652. The Dukes Mistris, As it was presented by her Majesties Servants, At the private House in Drury-Lane. Writ- ten by lames Shirly. 1638. Emilia. London: Printed for the Author. (Anon.) 1672. (In the Epilog the play is called a "Tragi-Comedy.") The Emperour of the East. A Tragse-Comcedie. The Scaene Constantinople. As it hath bene diuers times acted, at the Black-friers, and Globe Play-houses, by the Kings Maiesties Seruants. Written by Philip Massinger. 1632. The English Stage Italianiz'd, In a new Dramatic entertain- ment, called Dido and ^neas: or, Harlequin, a Butler, a Pimp, a Minister of State, Generalissimo, and Lord High Admiral : dead and alive again, and at last crown'd King of Carthage, by Dido. A Tragi-Comedy, after the Italian manner; by way of Essay, or first step towards the farther Improvement of the English Stage. Written by Thomas D'Urfey, Poet Laureat de Jure. 1727. The English Traveller. As it hath beene Publikely acted at the Cock-Pit in Drury-lane : By Her Maiesties seruants. 213 Written by Thomas Heywood. 1633. (In author's pre- face called a " Tragi-comedy.") Erminia. Or, The fair and vertuous Lady. A Trage-comedy. Written by Rich. Flecknoe. Printed for the Author, MDCLXI. (Ed. of 1665, " Erminia, or the Chaste Lady; A Trage-Comcedy.") yThe Fair Favorite. Sr. William Davenant Kt. 1673. The Fair Maid of the Inn. (John Fletcher and Philip Mas- singer.) 1647. (Folio of 1679, "A Tragi-Comedy.") The Fair Maid Of The West. Or, A Girle worth gold. The first part. As it was lately acted before the King and Queen, with approved Hking, By the Queens Majesties Comedians. Written by T. H. (Thomas Heywood). 1631. (Second part separate title page with same im- print.) The fair Spanish Captive: a Trage-Comedy. (Advertised at end of The New World of English Words, 1658, as " in the Presse, and ready for Printing." Also at the end of Wdt and Drollery, Joviall Poems, 1661.) A Faire Quarrell. As it was Acted before the King and diuers times publikely by the Prince his Highnes Seruants. Written By Thomas Midleton and William Rowley Gentl. 1617. The Faithful Shepherd. A Pastoral Tragi-comedy, Written in Italian, by the Celebrated Signer Baptista Guarini. Translated into English, and Adorn'd with a new Set of Cuts. (Anon.) 1736. [/ The Faithfull Shepheardesse. By lohn Fletcher. Printed at London for R. Bonian and H. Walley, and are to be sold at the spread Eagle ouer against the great North dore of S. Paules. (n. d., c. 1609/10. In author's preface, " a pastoral tragi-comedy.") The False Favourit Disgrac'd, and the Reward of Loyalty. A Tragi-Comedy, Never Acted. (George Gerbier D'Ouvilly.) 1657. V The Female Rebellion A Tragicomedy, (n. d. Anon. From a MS. in the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow. Printed for the first time, 1872.) 214 The Floating Island: A Tragi-Comedy, Acted before his Majesty at Oxford, Aug. 29. 1636. By the Students of Christ-Church. Written by William Strode, late Orator of the University of Oxford, The Aires and Songs set by Mr. Henry Lawes, servant to his late Majesty in his publick and private Musick. 1655. The Fool would be a Favourit: or, the Discreet Lover. A . Trage-Comedy. By Lodowick Carlell, Gent. 1657. • The Forc'd Marriage, or the Jealous Bridegroom. A Tragi- comedy, As it is Actedat His Highnesse the Duke of York's Theatre. Written by A. Behn. 1671. Fortune by Land and Sea. A Tragi-Comedy. As it was Acted with great Applause by the Queens Servants. Written by Tho Haywood and William Rowly. 1655. The Galilean's Victory A Tragi-Comedy of Religious Life in England In Four Acts. By Henry Arthur Jones. 1907. (Later called The Evangelist.) The Generall : A Tragi-Comedy. Attributed to James Shirley. (Printed by Halliwell, 1853, A Brief Description of the Ancient & Modern Manuscripts . . . Plymouth Library.) The Gentleman of Venice A Tragi-Comedie. Presented at the Private house in Salisbury Court by her Majesties Servants. Written by James Shirley. 1655. The Gentleman Usher. By George Chapman. 1606. The German Princess. See A Witty Combat. The Glasse of Gouernement. A tragicall Comedie so entituled, bycause therein are handled aswell the rewardes for Ver- tues, as also the punishment for Vices. Done by George Gascoigne Esquier. 1575. The Governor. A tragi-comedy. By Sir Cornelius Formido. 1656. (MS. in British Museum. See Halliwell.) The Great Duke of Florence. A Comicall Historic. As it hath beene often presented with good allowance by her Ma"°^ Servants at the Phoenix in Drurie-Lane. Written by Philip Massinger. 1636. V The Great Favourite, Or, the Duke of Lerma. As it was Acted at the Theatre-Royal By His Majesties Servants. Written by the Honourable Sir Robert Howard. 1668. 215 The Heire an excellent Comedie. As it was lately Acted by the Company of the Reuels. Written by T. M. (Thomas May.) Gent. 1622. v/The History of Henry the Fifth. As it was Acted at His Highness the Duke of York's Theatre. Written by The Right Honourable the Earl of Orrery. 1667. The Honest Man's Fortune. (John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, and others.) 1647. (Folio of 1679, " A Tragi-Comedy.") Hoops into Spinning-Wheels. A tragi-comedy. Written by a gentleman in Gloucestershire (John Blanch.) Glou- cester, 1725. The Humorous Lieutenant. (John Fletcher.) 1647. (Folio of 1679, "A Tragi-Comedy.") Hymens Triumph. A Pastorall Tragicomsedie. Presented at the Queenes Court in the Strand at her Maiesties mag- nificent intertainement of the Kings most excellent Maies- tie, being the Nuptials of the Lord Roxborough. By Samuel Daniel. 1615. The Imposture a Tragi-Comedie, As it was Acted at the private House in Black Fryers. Written by James Shirley. 1652. The Inconstant Ladie. Acted at Blackfriers. The Scsene Burgundie. (A. Wilson, n.d. Printed from MS. in Bod- leian by P. Bliss, Oxford, 1814.) 1/ The Injured Princess, or the Fatal Wager: As it was Acted at the Theater-Royal, By his Majesties Servants. By Tho. Durfey, Gent. 1682. (From Shakspere's Cymbe- line.) Ireland Preserv'd: or the Siege of London-Derry. Together with the Troubles of the North. Written by the then Governour (John Michelburne). Part I. 1705. (Part II adds, "A Tragi-comedy.") The Island Princess. (John Fletcher.) 1647. (Folio of 1679, "A Tragi-Comedy.") The Island-Princess: As it is Acted at the Theatre Royal, Reviv'd with Alterations. By N. Tate. Gent. 1687. The Scottish Historic of lames the fourth, slaine at Flodden. Entermixed with a pleasant Comedie, presented by Obo- 216 ram King of Fayeries : As it hath bene sundrie times pub- Hkely plaide. Written by Robert Greene, Maister of Arts. 1598. The Tragi-Comedy of Joan of Hedington. Scene Hedington. In Imitation of Shakespear. (William King.) 1712. ^Juliana or the Princess of Poland. A Tragicomedy. As it is Acted at His Royal Highness the Duke of York's Theatre. By J. Crown, Gent. 1671. The Just General: A Tragi :Comedy, Written by Major Cosmo: Manuche. 1652. The lust Italian. Lately presented in the priuate house at Blacke Friers, By his Maiesties Seruants. (William Davenant.) 1630. (Folio of 1673, "a Tragi-Comedy.") The Key of the Garden. A Tragi-Comedy. By Serj. Young. Dundee, 1801. A King and no King. Acted at the Globe, by his Maiesties Seruants: Written by Francis Beamount and lohn Flecher. 1619. King Edgar and Alfreda. A Tragi-Comedy. Acted at the »• Theatre-Royal, Written by Edward Ravenscroft, Gent. 1677. K. Henry IV. with the Humours of Sir John Falstaff. A Tragi-Comedy. As it is Acted at the Theatre in Little- Lincolns-Inn-Fields By His Majesty's Servants. Re- vived, with Alterations (by Tho. Betterton). Written Originally by Mr. Shakespear. 1700. K. Henry IV. with the Humours of Sir John Falstaff. A Tragi-Comedy, By Mr. W. Shakespear. 1721. The Knight of Malta. (John Fletcher and Philip Massinger.) 1647. The Ladies Priviledge. As it was Acted with good allowance at the Cock-pit in Drury-lane, And before their Majes- ties at White-Hall twice. By their Maiesties Servants. . The Author Henry Glapthorne. 1640. The Ladies Triall. Acted By both their Majesties Servants at the private house in Drury Lane. (John Ford.) 1639. The Lady-Errant : A Tragi-Comedy. Written by Mr William Cartwright, Late Student of Christ-Church in Oxford, and Proctor of the University. 1651. y J 217 Landgartha. A Tragie-Comedy, as it was presented in the new Theater in Dublin, with good applause, being an Ancient story. Written by H. B. (Henry Burnell). Printed at Dublin Anno, 1641. _^''The Late Revolution: or, the Happy Change. A Tragi- comedy, As it was Acted throughout the English Do- minions In the Year 1688. Written by a Person of Quahty. 1690. ^The Law against Lovers. Sr. William Davenant Kt. 1673. The Laws of Candy. (John Fletcher and Philip Massinger.) 1647. (Folio of 1679, " A Tragi-Comedy.") The History of Lewis the eleventh King of France: a Tr age- Comedy. (Advertised at end of The New World of Eng- lish Words, 1658, as " in the Presse, and ready for Print- ing." Also at the end of Wit and Drollery, Joviall Poems, 1661.) A Looking Glasse for London and England. Made by Thomas Lodge Gentleman, and Robert Greene. In Artibus Magis- ter. 1594. (MS. title page to 1598 quarto, "Tr. Com.") The Lost Lady. A Tragy Comedy. (Sir Wm. Berkley.) 1638. Love and Honour, Written by W. Davenant Knight. Pre- sented by His Majesties Servants at the Black-Fryers. 1649. Love Crownes the End. A Pastorall Presented by the schollees of Bingham in the County of Notingham; in the yeare 1632. Written by lo, Tatham Gent. 1640. (Ed. of 1657, " a Tragi-Comedy.") The Lovers Melancholy. Acted at the priuate House in the Blacke-Friers, and publikely at the Globe by the Kings Maiesties seruants. (John Ford.) 1629. y The Lovers Progress. (John Fletcher and Philip Massinger.) / ^^^'^- \/ Love's Kingdom. A Pastoral Trage-Comedy. Not as it was Acted at the Theatre near Lincolns-Inn, but as it was written, and since corrected by Richard Flecknoe. With a short Treatise of the English Stage, &c. by the same Author. 1664. 218 Love's Labyrinth; or. The Royal Shepherdess: A Tragi- Comedie. By Tho. Forde, Philothal. 1660. Loves Victory: A Tragi-comedy. By WiUiam Chamberlaine of Shaftsbury in the County of Dorset. 1658. (Never acted. Redacted in 1678 as Wits led by the Nose.) The Love-sick Court, or the Ambitious Politique. A Comedy Written by Richard Brome: 1658. \/ Love Triumphant ; or, Nature will Prevail. A Tragi-Comedy. As it is Acted at the Theatre Royal, By Their Majesties Servants. Written by Mr. Dryden. 1694. The Loyal Lovers: A Tragi-Comedy. Written by Major Cosmo Manuche. 1652. The Loyal Subject. (John Fletcher.) 1647. (Folio of 1679, "A Tragi-Comedy.") The Mad Lover. (John Fletcher.) 1647. (Folio of 1679, "A Tragi-Comedy.") Mahomet and his heaven, or Epimethea, graund Empresse of the deserts of Arabia, or a dreame of a drye summer, or the weather- woman ; a tragoecomoedye. (MS. in Cam- bridge Library. See Arabia Sitiens.) The Maid of Honour. As it hath beene often presented with good allowance at the Phoenix in Drurie-Lane, by the Queenes Majesties Servants. Written by Philip Massin- ger. 1632. The Malcontent. By lohn Marston. 1604. (S. R. July 5, / 1604, "Tragicomedia.") NrMarcelia: or the Treacherous Friend. A Tragicomedy. As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal, by His Majesties Ser- / vants. Written by Mrs. F. Boothby. 1670. v/Marciano: or The Discovery. A Tragi-Comedy, Acted with great applause, before His Majesties high Commissioner, and others of the Nobility, at the Abby of Holyrudhouse, on St. Johns night: By a company of Gentlemen (Author, William Clark?) Edinburgh, Printed in the year, 1663. V Marriage A-la-mode A Comedy John Dryden. 1673. The Marshal of Luxembourg, upon his Death-Bed. A tragi- comedy. Done out of French. (Anon.) Collen, 1695. 219 A Tragi-Comedy : Called, ]\Iatch mee in London. As it hath beene often Presented; First, at the Bull in St. lohns- street; And lately, at the Priuate-House in Drury-Lane, called the Phoenix. Written by The: Dekker. 1631. The Second Part of the Play Called the Matrimonial Trouble. A Come-Tragedy. By Lady ^Marchioness of Newcastle. 1662. (The first Part is entitled "A Comedy.") Measvre for Measure. (Among Comedies.) William Shake- speare. 1623. The excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. With the extreme cruelty of Shylocke the lew towards the saide Merchant, in cutting a iust pound of his flesh. And the obtaining of Portia, by the choyse of three Caskets. Writ- ten by W. Shakespeare. 1600. Mercurius Britanicus, or The English Intelligencer. A Tragic- Comedy, at Paris. Acted with great Applause. (By R. Braithwait.) 1641. Mercurius Britannicus. Judicialis Cen- fFebris Judicialis. sura ; vel, Curialis Cura. Tragi-Comoedia Lutetiae, Summo cum applausu publice acta. (A Latin version of the above, n.d. 1641 ?) v^he Mistakes, or, The False Report : A Tragi-Comedy. Acted by their Majesties Servants. Written by Mr. Jos. Harris. The Prologue Written by Mr. Dryden, The Epilogue by Mr. Tate. 1691. A Most pleasant Comedie of Mucedorus. the kings sonne of Valentia and Amadine the kings daughter of Arragon, with the merie conceites of Mouse. Newly set foorth, as it hath bin sundrie times plaide in the honorable Cittie of London. Very delectable and full of mirth. (Anon.) 1598. A Tragi-Comedy, called New-Market-Fayre, or a Parliament Out-Cry: of State-Commodities, set to sale. Printed at you may goe look. 1649. The Second Part of the Tragi-Comedy, Called New-Market- Fayre, Or Mrs. Parliaments New Figaryes. Written by Sententia navalis. 220 the Man in the Moon. Printed at you may goe look. 1649. Nicomede. A Tragi-Comedy, Translated out of the French Of Monsieur Corneille, By John Dancer. As it was Acted at the Theatre-Royal In Dublin. Together with an Exact Catalogue of all the English Stage-Plays printed, till this present Year 1671. The Noble Choice; or, the Orator. By Philip Massinger. (S.R. Sept. 9, 1653.) The Noble Ingratitude. A Pastoral-Tragi-Comedy. By Sr. William Lower Knight. Hage, 1659. (Translated from the French of Philippe Quinault.) A Tragecomedye called, The Noble man written by Cyrill Tourneur. — S.R. Feb. 15, 1612. The Noble Tryal. A tragi-comedy. By Henry Glapthorne. (S.R. Nov. 29, 1660.) Nothing Impossible to Love. A tragi-comedy. By Sir Robert Le Greece. (S.R. June 29, 1660.) (Ormasdes; or) Love and Friendship, a Tragy-Comedy. Written by Sr William Killigrew, Vice-Chamberlane to Her Majesty. Oxford, 1666. The Partiall Law A Tragi-Comedy By an unknown author (c. 1615-30). Now first printed from the original manu- script Edited by Bertram Dobell. 1908. The Passionate Lovers, A Tragi-Comedy. The First and Second Parts. Twice presented before the King and Queens Majesties at Somerset-House, and very often at the Private House in Black-Friars, with great Applause. By his late Majesties Servants. Written by Lodowick Carlell, Gent. 1655. The Phoenix, As it hath beene sundry times Acted by the Children of Paules. And presented before his Maiestie. 1607. Philaster. A Tragedy. Written by Beaumont and Fletcher. With Alterations (by George Colman). First acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, on the 8th of October, 1763. Philaster : or, Love lies a bleeding. A Tragi-comedy. As it is 221 now acted at His Majesty's Theatre Royal. Revis'd, and the Two last Acts new Written (by Elkanah Settle.) 1695. Philenzo and Hippolita. By Philip Massinger. (S.R. Sept. 9, 1653.) v/ Phylaster. Or Loue lyes a Bleeding. Acted at the Globe by his Maiesties Seruants. Written by Francis Baymont and lohn Fletcher. Gent. 1620. The Picture. A Tragecomedie, As it was often presented with good allowance, at the Globe, and Blacke-Friers Play-houses, by the Kings Maiesties seruants. Written by Philip Massinger. 1630. Piety and Valour; or Derry Defended. See Siege of Derry. The Platonick Lovers. A Tragsecomedy. Presented at the private House in the Black-Fryers, By his Majesties Servants. The Authour William D'avenant, Servant to her Majestic. 1636. The Poor-Mans Comfort. A Tragi-Comedy, As it was diuers times Acted at the Cock-pit in Drury lane with great applause. Written by Robert Dauborne Master of Arts. 1655. The Presbyterian Lash: or, Noctroffs Maid whipt. A Tragy- comedy As it was lately Acted in the great roome at the Pye Tavern at Algate. By Noctrofife the Priest, and sev- eral! his parishioners at the eating of a chine of beefe. The first part. Printed for the use of Mr. Noctrofifs . friends. (Francis Kirkman?) 1661. V"The Princess of Cleve, As it was Acted At the Queen's Theatre in Dorset-Garden. By Nat. Lee, Gent. 1689. (Entered in Term Catalogues as a " Tragi-Comedy," / June, 1697.) The Princesse: or, Love at first Sight. A Tragi-Comedy: The Scene Naples and Sicily. Written in Naples by Thomas Killigrew. 1663. The Prisoner; or, The Fair Anchoress of Pausilippo. By Philip Massinger. (S.R. Sept. 9, 1653.) The Prisoners (with Claracilla). Two Tragas-Comedies. As they were presented at the Phoenix in Drury-Lane, by 222 her M"«= Servants. Written by Tho. Killigrew, Gent. 1641. , c The Right Excellent and famous Historye, of Promos and Cassandra; Deuided into two Commicall Discourses. In the fyrste parte is showne, the vnsuff arable abuse, of a lewde Magistrate: The vertuous behauiours of a chaste Ladye : The vncontrowled leawdenes of a fauoured Cur- tisan. And the vndeserued estimation of a pernicious Parasyte. In the second parte is discoursed, the perfect magnanimitye of a noble kinge, in checking vice and fauouringe Vertue:- Wherein is showne, the Ruyne and ouerthrowe, of dishonest practises: with the aduaunce- ment of vpright dealing. The worke of George Whet- stones Gent. 1578. The Prophetess, A Tragical History. (John Fletcher and Philip Massinger.) 1647. Pseudomagia A Latin tragi-comedy, by William Mewe, a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1618-26. (MS. Emmanuel Coll., Camb. 1.3. 16; also MS. of Trinity Coll. Camb.) The Queen and Concubine. A Comedie By Richard Brome. 1659- The Queen of Corinth. (John Fletcher and Philip Massinger.) 1647. (Folio of 1679, "A Tragi-Comedy.") The Queen, or the Excellency of her Sex. An Excellent old Play. Found out by a Person of Honour, and given to the Pubhsher, Alexander Goughe. (Anon.) 1653. The Queene of Arragon. A Tragi-Comedie. (William Hab- ington.) 1640. The Queenes Arcadia. A Pastorall Trage-comedie presented to her Maiestie and her Ladies, by the Vniuersitie of Oxford in Christs Church, In August last. (Samuel Daniel.) 1605. The Queenes Exchange, A Comedy, Acted with generall applause at the Black-Friers By His Majesties Servants. Written by Mr. Richard Brome. 1657. Tragi-Comoedia, Cui in Titulum inscribitur Regicidium, per- spicacissimis judiciis accuratius perspecta, pensata, com- 223 probata; Authore Ric: Brathwait, i^rmigero, utriusque Academise Alumno. 1665. The Reign of Hellebore, King of Rien de Tout. A Tragi- comedy. (Anon.) Printed at York. 1760. The Religious. Lady Marchipness of Newcastle. 1662. The Renegado, A Tragsecomedie. As it hath beene often acted by the Queenes Maiesties seruants, at the priuate Play-house in Drurye-Lane. By Philip Massinger. 1630. Reparatus, sive, Depositum. Tragico-Comoedia, prima pars. Seu Reparatus desperabundus. By William Drury. 1628. The Restauration : or, Right will take Place. A Tragicomedy. Written by George Villiers, late Duke of Buckingham. From the Original Copy, never before Printed. 1714. (An alteration of Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster.) The Rival-Ladies. A Tragi-Comedy, As it was Acted at the Theatre Royal. Nos hcec novimus esse nihil. (John Dryden.) 1664. The Rivals. A Comedy. Acted by His Highnes the Duke of York's Servants. (William Davenant.) 1668. Romeo and Juliet. An unprinted alteration by James Howard, c. 1662. See Downes' Roscius Anglicanus (1708), p. 22. The Royal Cuckold : or, Great Bastard. Giving an account of the Birth and Pedegree of Lewis le Grand, the First French King of that Name and Race. A Tragy-com- edy, As it is Acted by his Imperial Majesty's Servants, at the Amphitheater in Vienna. Translated out of the German Language, by Paul Vergerius. 1693. The Royal Lovers. See The Loyal Lovers. The Royal Shepherdess. A Tragi-comedy, Acted By his Highness the Duke of York's Servants. (Thomas Shad- well.) 1669. The Royal Voyage, or the Irish Expedition : A Tragicomedy, Acted in the Years 1689 and 90. (Anon.) 1690. The Royall King, and The Loyall Subject. As it hath beene Acted with great Applause by the Queenes Maiesties Servants. Written by Thomas Hey wood. 1637. The Royall Master; As it was Acted in the new Theater in Dublin : And Before the Right Honorable the Lord 224 Deputie of Ireland, in the Castle. Written by lames Shirley. 1638. The Royall Slave. A Tragi-Comedy. Presented to the King and Queene by the Students of Christ-Church in Oxford. August 30, 1636. Presented since to both their Majesties at Hampton-Court by the Kings Servants. (William Cartwright.) Oxford, 1639. Sapientia Solomonis: Drama Comicotragicum. (Anon. B.M. MS. No. 20061. See Shakspere Jahrbuch, XXXIV, 224.) The Scottish Politick Presbyter, Slain by an English Inde- pendent: Or; the independents victory over the pres- byterian party. The rigour of the Scotch government, their conniving and bribing; the lewdness and debauchery / of elders in secret. A tragi-comedy. (Anon.) 1647. vThe Sea Voyage. (John Fletcher and Philip Massinger.) 1647. Secret Love; or, the Maiden-Queen, as it is acted by His Majesty's Servants at the Theatre Royal. Written by John Dryden, Esq. 1668. The Seege of Urbin. A Tragy-Comedy. Written by Sr Wil- liam Killigrew, Vice-chamberlaine to Her Majesty. Ox- ford, 1666. Selindra. A Tragy-Comedy. Written by Sr William Killi- grew. Oxford, 1666. The Tragicocomedie of Serpents By Lodowik Lloid Esquier 1607. The Shepheards Holy-Day. A Pastorall Tragi-Comsedie. Acted Before Both Their Maiesties at White-Hall, by the Queenes Servants. With an Elegie on the death of the most noble Lady, the Lady Venetia Digby. Written by J. R. (Joseph Rutter). 1635. The Siedge: Or, Love's Convert, A Tragi-Comedy. Writ- ten by Mr William Cartwright, Late Student of Christ- Church in Oxford, and Proctor of the University. 165 1. The Siege. Sr. William Davenant Kt. 1673. The Siege and Surrender of Mons. A Tragi-Comedy. Expos- ing the Villany of the Priests, and the Intrigues of the French. (Anon.) 1691. 225 The Siege of Babylon : As it is Acted at the Dukes Theatre. Written by Samuel Pordage, of Lincolns-Inn, Esq; 1678. The Siege of Derry. A Tragi-Comedy. (Anon.) 1692. The Siege of Troy, a Tragi-Comedy, as it has been often acted with great Applause. (Elkanah Settle.) n.d. (1703-) Solon: or, Philosophy No Defence against Love. A Tragi- Comedy. With the Masque of Orpheus and Euridice. Written by Captain Martin Bladen. 1705. The Spanish Bawd represented in Celestina Or, the Tragicke- Comedy of Calisto and Melibea. (James Mabbe, under pseudonym of "Don Diego Puede-ser.") 1631. /The Spanish Curate. (John Fletcher and Philip Massinger.) 1647. The Spanish Friar, or The Double Discovery. Acted at The Duke's Theatre. Written by John Dryden, Servcuit to His Majesty. 1681. The Spanish Gipsie. As it was Acted (with great Applause) at the Privat House in Drury-Lane, and Salisbury Court. Written by Thomas Midleton, and William Rowley. Gent. Never Printed before. 1653. The Step-Mother, A Tragi-Comedy, Acted with great Applause at the Theatre in Little Lincolns-Inn-Fields, By His Highness the Duke of York's Servants. (Sir Robert Stapylton.) 1664. The Strange Discovery: A Tragi-Comedy. Written by J. Gough. Gent. 1640. The Success full Straingers, A Trage-Comedy : Acted by their Majesties Servants, at the Theatre Royal, Written By William Mountfort. 1690. The Swisser Acted At The Blackfriers (A. Wilson.) 1631. (B. M. Add. Mss. 36759. Edited by Albert Feuillerat, Paris, 1904.) Talpse; sive Conjuratio Papistica. Tragico-Comaedia. Au- tore Thom: Singleton. Scripta Febr: 7 mo 1688-9. (MS. in Bodleian.) The Tempest. (Among Comedies.) William Shakespeare. 1623. 16 226 The Theatric Count. A Tragic Comedy, in five acts; from the Orgoglio Capitoso, Conte teatrino, of Gonzago Bicchi- eri. Adapted for representation on the English stage. (Anon.) 1809. Timoleon: or, The Revolution. A Tragi-Comedy, (Anon.) 1697. Trappolin Creduto Principe ; or, Trappolin suppos'd a Prince : An Italian Tragi-Comedy. The Scene, part of Italy. Written by Sir Aston Cokain. 1658. The Triumphs of Virtue. A Tragi-Comedy, As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal, by His Majesty's Servants. (Anon.) 1697. Tryphon (with The Black Prince). Two New Tragedies; The first Acted at the Theatre-Royal, by his Majestie's Servants ; The other By his Highness the Duke of York's Servants. Both Written by the Right Honourable the Earl of Orrery. 1669. (MS. in Bodleian, " Triphon, a traje-comedy.") The Twins. A Tragi-Comedy. Acted at the Private House at Salisbury-Court, with general Applause. Written by W. Rider, Master of Arts. 1655. \r The Two Noble Kinsmen : Presented at the Black-friers by the Kings Maiesties servants, with great applause: Written by the memorable Worthies of their time; Mr. John Fletcher, and Mr. William Shakspeare Gent. 1634. (S. R. Apr. 8, 1634-5, "a TragiComedy.") The two noble ladies and the converted conjurer. ... A trage- comicall historic oftentymes acted with approbation at the Red Bull in St. Johns Streete by the company of ye Revells. (Anon. Eg. MS. 1994.) n. d. (c. 1619-22.) The Unfortunate Fortunate. A Tragi-comedy. By Benjamin Garfield Esq; (Mentioned only in Robert Baron's Pocula Castalia, 1650, p. 112.) The Unnatural Mother, the Scene in the Kingdom of Siam. As it is now Acted at the New Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn- Fields, by His Majesty's Servants. Written by a Young Lady. 1698. (Term Catalogues, Feb. 1698, "Love's Reward; or The unnatural Mother. A Tragi-comedy. Written by Madam ,") 227 The Tragicomoedi of the vertuous Octauia. Done by Sanmel Brandon. 1598. A Very Woman, Or the Prince of TarenL A Tragi-Ccmiedy. As it hath been often acted at the Private-House in Black-Friers, by his late ilajesties Servants, with great Applause. Written by Philip Massenger, Gent 1655. The Vestal \'irgin; or, the Roman Ladies. A Tragedy. By Robert Howard. 1665. The Wandring Lover. A Tragy-Comedie. Being Acted sev- erall times privately at sundry places by the Author and his friends with great applause. \\'ritten by T. M. (Thomas Meriton), Gent 1658. The Warde, a Tragicomedy, written by Thomas Xeale. (Dated Sept 16, 1637. MS. Rawl. Poet. 79. in the Bodleian.) The Warr of Grammar a Tragick-Comedy Acted by the Scholars of Cranebrook School more than once not witibi- out Applause. In which the whole vulgar Grammar with something of the .Authors own, is festiveously handled. (By Samuel Hoadly, 1666. See Basileia seu Bellum Grammaticale. ) The Weakest goeth to the Wall. As it hath bene sundry times plaide by the right honourable Earle of Oxenford, Lord great Chamberlaine of England his seruants. (By Thomas Dekker?) 1600. The Widdow Ranter or. The History of Bacon in Virginia. A Tragi-comedy, acted by their Majesties Servants. Written by Mrs. A. Behn. 1690. / A Wife for a ilonth. (John Fletcher.) 1647. (Folio of 1679, " A Tragi-Comedy.") The Wife With Two Husbands: A Tragi-Comedy, in Three Acts. Translated from the French (R. C. Guilbert de Pixerecourt), by Miss Guiming. 1803. The Wife's Trial; or, the Intruding Widow. A Dramatic Poem. Foimded on Mr. Crabbe's Tale of " The Con- fidant." Charles Lamb. 1828. (Called a "tragi-com- edy " by author in letters to P. G. Patmore, July 19, 1827, and to Bernard Barton, Aug. 28, 1827.) / 228 The Winters Tale. (Among Comedies.) William Shake- speare. 1623. A Tragi-Coomodie, called The Witch; Long since acted by His Maties Servants at the Black-Friers. Written by Tho. Middleton. (MS. n. d. c. 1627. Ed. by I. Reed, 1778.) The Witch of Edmonton A known true Story. Composed into A Tragi-Comedy By divers well-esteemed Poets; William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, John Ford, &c. Acted by the Princes Servants ; often at the Cock- Pit in Drury- Lane. once at Court, with singular Applause. Never printed till now. 1658. Wits Led by the Nose; or, A Poet's Revenge: A Tragi- Comedy, As it is Acted at the Theatre Royal. 1678. (An anonymous redaction of Chamberlaine's Love's Vic- tory.) A Witty Combat: or, the Female Victor. A Trage-Comedy. As it was Acted by Persons of Quality in Whitson-Week with great applause. Written by T. P. (Thomas Porter.) Gent. 1663. (Same play as the German Princess.) Women Pleas'd. (John Fletcher.) 1647. (Folio of 1679, "A Tragy-Comedy.") The Womens Conquest: A Tragi-Comedy. As it was Acted by his Highness the Duke of York's Servants. Written by the Honourable E. H. (Edward Howard.) 1671. The Young Admirall. As it was presented By her Majesties Servants, at the private house in Drury Lane. Written by James Shirly. 1637. Young King; or, the Mistake. As 'tis acted at his Royal Highness The Dukes Theatre. Written by A. Behn. 1683. BIBLIOGRAPHY This bibliography represents the principal sources — exclu- sive of plays — which have contributed more or less directly to the preparation of the essay. Less important items in- corporated from time to time in the text or footnotes are, as a rule, not repeated here. Allen, H. W. Celestina or the Tragi-Comedy of Calisto and Melihea. . . . Also an Interlude of Calisto and Melebea. Edited with Introduction and Appendices (Library of Early Novelists). London, 1908. Arber, E. A Transcript of the Register of the Company of Stationers of London, 1^54-1640. 5 vols. London, 1875-1894. The Term Catalogues, 1668-1709. 3 vols. London, 1903-06. Arnaud, C. £tude sur la vie et les wuvres de I'abbe d' Aubig- nac et sur les Theories dramatiques au XVIIe si^cle. Paris, 1887. Aubignac, Frangois Hedelin Abbe d'. La Pratique du Thea- tre (Paris, 1657). English translation, The Whole Art of the Stage. London, 1684. Baker, D. E. Biographia Dramatica (1764, continued by I. Reed and S. Jones to 1812). 3 vols. London, 1812. Bertana, E. La Tragedia (Storia dei Generi Letterari Ital- iani). Milano, 1906. Bilancini, P. Giambattista Giraldi e la Tragedia Italiana nel sec. XVL Aquila, 1890. Bond, R. W. The Complete Works of John Lyly. 3 vols. Oxford, 1902. Brunet, J. C. Manuel du Libraire et de V Amateur de Livres. 5 vols. Paris, 1860-64. Brunetiere, F. L'Svolution d'un Genre, La Tragedie. Revue des Deux Mondes, VI, 1901. 229 / 230 Bullen, A. H. The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Variorum Edition. 3 vols, issued. London, 1904-. Chambers, E. K. The Medieval Stage. 2 vols. Oxford, 1903- Chappuzeau, S. Le Theatre Frangois. Edition of Paris, / 1876. X/Chase, L. N. The English Heroic Play. Dissertation, Co- lumbia, 1903. Chassang, A. Des essais dramatiques imites de I'antiquite au XVe et au XVIe siecles. Paris, 1852. Churchill, G. B., and Keller, W. Die lateinischen Univer- sitdts-Dramen Englands in der Zeif der Konigin Elisa- beth. Shakspere Jahrbuch, XXXIV, 1898. Cloetta, W. Beitrdge zur Litteratwrgeschichte des Mittel- alters und der Renaissance. 2 vols. Halle, 1890-92. Collier, J. P. The Aistory of English Dramatic Poetry. 3 vols. London, 1831. Cooke, W. The Elements of Dramatic Criticism. London, 1775- Creizenach, W. Geschichte des neueren Dramas. Vols. 1-4 (pt. I.). Halle, 1 893-1909. Die Shauspiele der englischen Komodianten. Deutsche Na- tional-Litteratur, XXIH, 1889. De Moratin, L. F. Origenes del Teatro Espanol. Paris, 1838. Donatus, A. Ars Poetica. Bononise, 1659. Ebert, A. Entwicklungs-Geschichte der Franzosischen Trag- odie. Gotha, 1856. Faquet, fi. La Tragedie frangadse au XVIe Siecle. Paris, 1883. Fleay, F. G. A Biographical Chronicle erf the English Drama, 1 559-1642. 2 vols. London, 1891. FofFano, F. Ricerche Letterarie. Livomo, 1897. Fontanini, G. Biblioteca dell' Eloquenza Italiana. 2 vols. Venezia, 1753 . Fontenelle, B. Le B. CEuvres. 12 vols. Amsterdam, 1764. Fournel, V. La Litterature independante et les ecrivains oublies. Paris, 1862. 231 Gayley, C. M. Plays of Our Forefathers. New York, 1907- An Historical View of the Beginnings of English Comedy (Prefixed to Representative English Comedies.) New York, 1903. Genest, J. Some Account of the English Stage, from the Res- toration in 1660 to 1830. 10 vols. Bath, 1832. Gildon, C. Remarks on the Plays of Shakespear. Rowe's Edition of Shakespeare, VII, 1710. Goedeke, K. Grundrisz zur Geschichte der Deutschen Dich- tung. 8 vols. Dresden, 1884-1905. Gray, C. H. Lodowick Carliell. Dissertation, Chicago, 1905. Greg, W. W. A List of English Plays Written before 1643 and Printed before 1700. London Bibliographical Society, 1900. A List of Masques, Pageants, &c. London Bibliographical Society, 1902. 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Paris, 1900. Meineke, A. Fragmenta Comicorum Greecorum. 5 vols, in 7. Berlini, 1839-57. Menendez y Pdayo, M. Historia de las Ideas Esteticas en Espana. Vols. 8-16 of his Obras. Madrid, 1884-91. Morel-Fatio, A. La Comedia espagnole du XVIIe siecle. Paris, 1885. Les Defenseurs de la Comedia. Bulletin Hispanique, IV, 1902. Xisiely, Udeno (Fioretti, Benedetto). Proginnasmi Poetici. 5 vols. Firenze, 1695. Penn, J. Letters on the Drama. London, 1796. Petit de Julleville, L. Histoire de la langue et de la litteraiure frangaise. 8 vols. Paris, 1896-99. Pye, H. J. A Commentary illustrating the Poetic of Aristotle, by examples taken chiefly from the modern poets. Lon- don, 1792. Quinn, A. H. Faire maide of Bristow, with an introduction and notes. Dissertation, Pennsylvania, 1902. Rigal, E. Alexandre Hardy et le Theatre frangais a la fin du XVIe et au commencement du XVHe siecle. Disserta- tion, Paris, 1889. Rosenbach, A. S. W. The Influence of "The Celestina" in the Early English Drama. Shakspere Jahrbuch, XXXIX, 1903. Rossi, V. Battista Guarini ed II Pastor Fido. Torino, 1886. Salza, Abd-El-Kader. Luca Contile Uomo di Lettere e di Negozj del Secolo XVI. Firenze, 1903. Schack, A. F. Von. Geschichte der dramatischen Literatur und Kunst in Spanien. 2 vols. Beriin, 1845. ScheDing, F. E. Elizabethan Drama, 1 558-1642. 2 vols. Bos- ton, 1908. Scott, Sir Walter, and Saintsbury, G. The Works of John Dryden. 18 vols. Edinburgh and London, 1882-93. Siegert, E. Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery und seine Dramen sur Geschichte des heroischen Dramas in England. Wiener Beitrage zur Eng. Phil., XXIII., 1906. 233 Smith, D. X. Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare. Glasgow, 1903. Smith, G. G. Elizabethan Critical Essays. 2 vols. Oxford, 1904. Smith, H. Pastoral Influence in the English Drama. Publica- tions Modern Language Association, XII, 1897. Speroni, M. S. Opere. 5 vols. Venezia, 1740. Spingam, J. E. Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century. 3 vols. Oxford, 1908-09. A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance. Second edition. New York, 1908. Stephen, L., and Lee, S. Dictionary of National Biography. 62 vols. London and New York, 1885-1900. Symmes, H. C. Les Debat de la Critique Dramatique en Angleterre jusqu' a la Mort de Shakespeare. Dissertation, Paris, 1903. Thorndike, A. H. The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakespeare. Worcester, Mass., 1901. Tragedy (The Types of English Literature). Boston, 1908. Ticknor, G. History of Spanish Literature. 3 vols. New York, 1854. Tupper, J. W. The Relation of the Heroic Play to Beaumont and Fletcher. Publications ^lodem Language Associa- tion, XX, 1905. Vossius, G. J. Poeticarum Institutionum. Vol. 3 of his Opera (6 vols.). Amsterdam, 1695-71. Walker, J. C. Revival of the Dratna in Italy. Edinburgh, 1805. Ward, A. W. A History of English Dramatic Literature. 3 vols. London, 1899. The London Merchant or The History of George Barnwell and Fatal Curiosity. By George Lillo (Belles-Lettres Series). Boston, 1906. INDEX The Index contains the names of authors and the titles of works — in- cluding bibliographical citations — mentioned in the text or footnotes of the foregoing treatise. The Appendix and the Bibliography are not indexed. More important references are printed in bold-faced type. Abdicated Prince, The, 182. Acolastus, 21. Addison, Joseph, 192, 197, I99n. Adelphorum, gn. Adrasta, 145. Adventures of Five Hours, The, i6on, iEschylus, 4, 52, 2osn. Aglaura, 14s, 164. Agrippa, King of Alba, 181. Alcaeus, 8, gn. Alcestis, X, 4, 29. Alexander and Campaspe, 77, 78, 92. 93, 94- Alexander, Sir William, 89. Alexto and Angelica, i2on. Alfreda or Right Reinthroned, i56n. All for Money, 66. All Mistaken, 160. Allen, H, W., 45n. Atphonsus of Aragon, yg, 81, 82, 87. Altile, 29, 30, 31, 32. Alvredus sive Alfredus, 14s. Amadis de Gaula, 46n. Amazon Queen, The, 166-167, 181. Amicizia. See Pescara, La, Aminta, 34. Amorous War, The, 144. Amphitruo, 6-8, 9, 19, 20, 24, 28, 3in, 37, 40, so, 71. T-9T^- 'k.v6,^u>v, sive Lazarus Redivivus, i2n. Anaxandrides, 8. Angiolgabriello di Santa Maria, 33". Antivalomeni, 32. Apollo e Leucotoe, zjn. ApologHico de las comedias espa- fiolas, so. Apologia (of De Nores), ion, 37, 4in; (of Savio), 42-43; (of d'Eredia), 44. Apology for Poetry, 71-72, 91, 93, 94. Apology for the Life of Colley Gib- ber, An, 20 in. Appius and Virginia, 61, 62-63, 65, 7S, 80, 92, Apuleius, 71. Arabia Sitiens, 103. Ariosto, 36, 40, 41. Aristophanes, s, 8n, 51. Aristotle, xii, 2, 3, 4, 8, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 4in, 42, 64, 137. Armin, Robert, 87. Arrenopia, 30, 80. Ars Poetica, 6. Art of Poetry, I92n. Art Po6tique, 55, Arte Nuevo de Hacer Comedias, ^n, Sn, 49- Arvvragus and Philicia, 140. As You Like It, 85. Asmondo, 33n. Astrophel and Stella, 730, 93. Aubignac, F. H. Abb6 d', 4, 7, 185, x86n. Audignier, Vital d', 11 gn. Auto de moralidade, 47n. 234 235 Bale, Bishop, 63. Balticns, Martiims, 21. Bang, W., 14211. Baron, Robert, 15611. Barran, Henry de, 1811, 54. Barreda, Francisco de la, 511, 51, 58. Bashful Lover, The, xiii, 131, 132, 133- BasUeia seu Bellum Grammaticaie, I78n. Bauch, Gnstav, 2111. Beaumont and Fletcher (see, also, Beaumont, Francis, and Fletcher, John), X, xiii, xiv, xv, 81, 87, 96, 97, 100, io7n, no, 111-113, 114, 124, 130, 139, 141, 148, 157, 160, 162, 169, 179, 184, 189, 19311, 19911, 206. Beaumont, John, 10711, in, 114. Behn, Mrs. Aphra, 177, 178, 184, 18711. Believe as You List, 131, Bellamira, 154. Bellum Grammaticaie, 88-8g, 92, 94, I45n, I78tu Belphegor, 177. Beni, Paolo, 42, 43. Berkeley, Sir William, i2on, 142. Bertana, E., 330. Betterton, T., i87n, 189. Betulios, Xystus, 21, 24. Biographia Dramatica, xvn, i8in, i83n, i9on, 205n. Black Prince, The, 163, 164, 165, 181, 186. Blackwood's Magazine, 20511. Bladen, Martin, 190. Blanch, John, 19011. Blind Lady, The, 165. BUss, P., 14311. Bloody Duke, The, 182. Blount, Edward, 7811. Bodin, J., 901J. Boileau-Despreaux, Xicolas, 173. Bolte, Johannes, 88n. Boothby, Mrs. F., 166. Bond. R, W., 77n- Bondman, The, 131, 132, 189. Bossn, Jj^ Rene, 173. Bower, Richard, 62, 64, 75, 92. Bradamante, 54, 55, 56, 80. Braga, T., 2311. Eraithwait, Richard, 151. Brandon, Samuel, 89, 92. Bright, B. H., 10311. Brome, Richard, 14711. Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, 180, 199. Bullen, A. H., 84, i29n. Buonguglielmi, F. S., 27n. Bumell, Henry, 146. Butcher, S. H., sn. Calderon, 148. Caledonia, igon. Calepino, Ambrogio, 7. Calisto and Melibea, 41a. 74, 75. Calisto y Melibea, Tragicomedia de. See Celestina. Calistus, The tragical Comedie of, 74, 93- Calprenede, La, 17811. Cambyses, 65, 68, 71. Canace, 8, 3on, 3111. Cangenia, La, 270. Captivi, 4, 24. Carde of Fancie, 82, 93. Careless Husband, The, 193. Careless Shepherdess, The, 145. CarleU, Lodowick, xiii, 139, 140, 142, 150, 162. Cartwright, William, 139, 143-144, 145, ISO, 162. Casaubon, L, 5. Cascales, Francisco, 50. Cast ell of Perseverance, The, 13. Castle of Otranto, The, 203. Caxton, William, 76. Cecaria, 27. Celestina, 45-46, 74, 73. 93, 94, 148, i9on. Certain Notes of Instruction, 70. 236 Cervantes, 121, 128. Challenge for Beauty, The, 125. Chamberlayne, William, is 5. Chambers, E. K., 2311. Change of Crowns, The, 17611. Chapman, George, 99, 100. Chassang, A., ign. Chaucer, Geoffrey, zyn, 63n, 119. Chrestien, Florent, 6. Christus Redivivus, 4, i3n, 22n, 23-24, 61, 92, 93, 94. Cibber, CoUey, 193, 201. Cicero, 10, 38. Cicilia and Clorinda, 154. Cid, The, x, sgn, 146, 148, 181, 185. Cigarrales de Toledo, 52n. Cinthio, Giraldi, 3n, sn, 8, 29-32, 33. 40, 57, 66n, 80, 98, 100. City Night-Cap, The, 140, 142, i7on. Claricilla, 144, Clark, William, i6in. Cleomones, I74n. Cleopatra, yzn. Cleopatre, I78n. Cloetta, W., 28n. Cloridon and Radiamanta, 76. Coello, Antonio de, i6on. Cokayne, Sir Aston, 146. Coleridge, S. T., 204, 2osn. Collier, J. P., 830, 15 in. Collins, J. C, 8on. Colman, George, 189, 193, 199. Colman, George (the younger), 206. Comedia de Capo y Espada, 47-48, 57, 121. Comedy of Errors, The, 85n. Comical Revenge, The, i73n. Commentary illustrating the Poetic of Aristotle, A, 19211, igSn, iggn. Common Conditions, 75. Common-Wealth of Women, A, i8on. Comwdotragcedia, ixn, 8-9, 23n. Compendia della Poesia Tragicom- ica, 40. Confidant, The, 205n. Conflict of Conscience, The, i6n, 6S, 69. Conscious Lovers, The, 193. Considerationi intorno al Pastor Fido, 42. Contarini, Francesco, 33n. Contile, Luca, 27-28, 3on. Conversations of Jonson with Drum- mond, io7n. Cooke, William, i88n, 200, 2oin. Corneille, Pierre, x, 146, 159, 181, 185. Coronation, The, 136, 139. Cortes de Jupiter, 46n. Court Secret, The, 136, I37n, 138. Crabbe, George, 2osn. Craftie Cromwell, 152. Creizenach, W., 6n, I2n, ign, 2in, 23n, 46n, 7gn, 8on, 84n, logn. Cresfonte, II, 32. Critical Reflections on the Old Eng- lish Dramatick Writers, i98n. Crofton, Zackary, 152. Croix, Antoine de la, i8n, 54. Cromwell's Conspiracy, 153. Crowne, John, 177. Cumberland, Richard, i8g. Custpm of the Country, The, 120, 121. Cyclops, 5-6, 37, 58. Cymbeline, xiii, 113, 114, 180. Daborne, Robert, 129. Damon and Pythias, 61-62, 64, 66, 67, 72. 75, 92, 93, 94- Dancer, John, 181, i87n. Daniel, Samuel, 72n, 89, 103, 104- 106, 108, 109, 129, 14s. Dante, 36, 40, 41. Davenant, William, xiii, 124, 139, 140, 141, 148, 156, 157, 158, i6on, 162. Davenport, R., I29n, 140, 142. Day, John, io2n. De Arte Poetica, 3n. 237 De Moratin, L. F., 4711. De Nores, Giasone, ion, 35-38, 41, 42. Ve Poeta, zn. De satyrica Graecorum poesi et Romanorum satyra, 511. Dekker, Thomas, 84, 124, 127, 129, 137- Dennis, John, 192, 197, 204. Deserving Favorite, The, xiii, 142. Devil's Law Case, The, 129. Dialoghi, 44* Dialogues of the Dead, i98n. Diana's Grove, 103. Dick of Devonshire, 129. Dictionarum Latino Graecum, yn. Diderot, D., 195. Dinolochus, 9. Discorsi (of Cinthio), 31. Discorsi poetici (of Summo), 42, 43- Discorso (of Summo), 32. Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satire, A, 175. Discourse of English Poetry, 83. Distracted Emperor, The, 84. Distresses, The, 140, i6on. Divine Comedian, The, I78n. Divine Comedy, The, 40. Dobell, B., I44n. Doll's House, The, x. Don Duardos, 46n. Don Sebastian, 1.72a, I74n, 187. Donatus, 9. Donatus, A., 3n. Doubtful Heir, The, 136, I37n, 138, 139- D'Ouvilly, G. G., 153. Downes, John, i64n. Dramatick Poets, An Account of the English, xvn. Drury, William, 145. Dryden, John, xiii, 158, 160, 162, 166, 168-175, i83n, 184, i8s, 186, 187, 188, 189, i93n, 197, 198, 200, 203n, 204. Du Ryer, Pierre, 57. Duke of Millayn and the Marques of Mantua, 76. Duke's Mistress, The, 136, 137. Durfey, Thomas, 180, igon. Dutch Courtesan, The, 100. Duthilloeul, H. R., I45n. Dyce, A., I37n. Dymock, John, 104. Edgar, 186. Edward I, 87. Edwards, Richard, 61-62, 63n, 64, 6S, 67, 70, 75. 76, 92, 94, 95- Electro, 4, Elements of Dramatic Criticism, The, i88n, 200, 2oin. Emilia, 1 78, 1 79n. Empenos de Seis Horas, Los, i6on. Emperor of the East, The, 131, 132, 135, 15511. Endimion, 77. Enfant Prodigue, L', i96n. English Stage, Some Account of the, XV n. English Stage Italianized, The, i9on. English Traveller, The, 126, 130, 194. Epiccme, 109, I24n. Epitia, 30, 66n. Eredia, Luigi d', 44. Erotilla, 33a. Erminia, 159. Essay of Dramatic Poetry, 162, 168-170, 173, 20in. Essay on the Art, Rise and Prog- ress of the Stage, An, igSn. Essay on the Origin of the English Stage, An, 204n. Etherege, George, i73n. Eumenides, 4. Euripides, x, 4, 5, 6, 29, 32, 36, 37, 39, 40, 52, 58, 20Sn. Evangelist, The. See Galilean's Victory, 238 Evelyn, John, 150. Every Man out of his Humor, 411, 9in. Example, The, 137. Exortagao a la Guerre, 46n. Expostulatio Spongia, 51. Fair Favorite, The, 141. Fair Maid of Bristow, The, 97n, 98. Fair Maid of the Inn, The, 120, 121, 122. Fair Maid of the West, The, 123, 126, 130. Fair Quarrel, The, 128. Fair Spanish Captive, The, I56n. Faithful Shepherdess, The, 103, 106-108, 112, 115. Falls of Princes, The, lyn. False Favorite Disgraced, The, iss- Famous Victories of Henry V, The, 87. Fantasme Amorous, The, 154. Fatal Marriage, The, 198, 199. Felix and Philiomena, 76. Female Rebellion, The, i66n. Ferdinandus Servatus, 19-20, 22. Feuillerat, A., I43n, Figueroa, Cristobal Suarez de, son. Filomena, 47n. Fils Naturel, Le, 195. Fioretti, Benedetto, ion, 44. First Fruits, 83. Fleay, F. G., xvn, 103, I29n, I37n, iSin. Flecknoe, Richard, 141, 159, 184. Fleire, The, loi. Fletcher, John, 103, 104, 106, 109, III, 113, 114-124, I2S, 126, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 138, 139, 145. 146, 148, 150, 1551, 180. Floating Island, The, 144. Florilegium, 8n. Florio, John, 83. Foffano, F., 44n. Fontanini, G., 28n. Fontenelle, B. Le B., ixj Fool Would be a Favorite, The, 142, i7on. Force of Blood, The, iign. Forced Marriage, The, 178. Ford, John, 127, 133, I42n. Forde, Thomas, 156. Formido, Sir Cornelius, 145. Fortune by Land and Sea, 12s. Fountain, John, 159. Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum, 8n. Fragoa d'Amor, 46n. French Tragi-Comedy, The, xi n, S3n, s6n, i8in. Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 79, 81. Fulwell, Upian, 69. Furness's New Variorum Shakes- peare, I09n. Galilean's Victory, The, vii n. Gallathea, 77. Garfield, Benj., I56n. Gamier, Robert, 54, 56, 89. Garrick, David, iggn. Garrick Correspondence, iggn. Gascoigne, George, 63, 64, 65, 70, 71, 92, 94- Gay, John, 191. Gayley, C. M., I3n, i6n. General, The, 137. Genest, J., xvn, issn, i62n, i64n, i6sn, i76n, i8on, iSgn. Gentleman of Venice, The, 136, I37n, 139, 140, iSSn- Gentleman Usher, The, 99, loi. George a Greene, 79, 81. German Princess, The, i62n. Gildon, Charles, 192, 197, iggn, 200, 204. Giraldi. See Cinthio. Giraldus, Gregorius, 9, Giudizio di Paride, II, 27n. Glapthome, Henry, 142. 239 Glass of Government, The, i6n, 6i, 63-64, 6s, 7on, 78, 80, 92, 93, 94. Gnaphaeus, William, 21, Goffe, Thomas, 145. Goldsmith, Oliver, 19211, 193, Golias, 23. Gosse, E., 13711. Gosson, S., 75.' Gcugh, J., 140. Governour, The, 145. Gozze, Gauges de, 43. Grand Cyrus, The, 154. Gray, C. H., I42n. Great Duke of Florence, The, 131, 133. 134, 135. Great Favorite, The, 165, 186. Grecian Daughter, The, 19311. Greene, Robert, 3on, 7311, 76, 78- 82, 83, 84, 87, 92, 93, 94, 95, 98, 113- Greg, W. W., xvn, 3311, 10511. Greville, Fulke, 89. Grimald, Nicholas, 4, 1311, 2211, 23- 24, 61, 92, 94. Grosart, A. B,, 8in. Grotius, Hugo, sn. Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy, The, 173, 186. Guardian, The, 132. Guarini, G. B., xi, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 26, 27, 32, 33-41, 42, 49, SI, 52, 55, 57, S8, 5911, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 112, 14s, 146. Guarnas, Andreas, 88. Guazzoni, Diomisso, 27n. Gunning, Miss, 205n. Habington, William, 142. Hain, L., ign. Hall, Bishop, 90. Halliwfell, J. O., xvn, I03n, I37n. Hamlet, 198, iggn, 203. Hardy, Alexandre, 53, 54, 56-57, S9, 102, 140, 148. Harington, Sir John, 72, 88. Harpocration, gn. Harris, Jos., 179. Hart, Alexander, i2on. Hart, J. M., 23n. Hatcher, O. L., iisn. Hawkins, Thomas, 2a4n. Hazlitt, W. C., i03n. Hecatommithi, 30, 66n, 80. Heir, The, 124. Helen, 4, 29, Helidorus, 140. Henry IV, 88, i87n. Henry V (of Shakspere), 88; (of Orrery), 163, 164, 165. Henry VI, 88. Herdclito y Demdcrito, son. Herpetulus, the blew knighte, 76. Heywood, Thomas, 98, 124-126, 130, 194. Hilaro-tragcedia , g-io, 36, 37, 40. Historia Batica, ign, 20, 21. Historia Poetarum, Graecorum ac Latinorum, gn. History of England, The, 19 in. Hoadley, Samuel, I78n. Honest Man's Fortune, The, 120, 121. Hoops into Spinning-Wheels, igon. Horace, 6, 36, 39, 62, 70. Horestes, 68, 71. How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad, 97. Howard, Edward, i66n, 176. Howard, James, 160, i64n. Howard, Sir Robert, 164, 165, i68n. Humorous Lieutenant, The, 115, 117, 118, 157, i8on, 189. Hutten, Leonard, 88, 92. Hymen's Triumph, 105-106. Ibsen, Henrik, x. Imposture, The, 136, i37n, 138. Inconstant Lady, The, 143. Injured Princess, The, 180. Ion, 4, 29. Iphigenia, 4, 29. Ireland Preserved, igon. 240 Isaccio, 3311. Island Princess, The, 115, 117, 180, 189. Isle of Gulls, The, lozn. lack Juggler, 69. Jack Straw, 87. James IV, Scottish Historie of, 3011, 80-81, 84, 87, 95, 98. Joan of Hedington, i9on. Jones, Henry Arthur, vii n. Jones, John, 145. Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 201-202, 203. Jonson, Ben, 4n, 91, 96, 98, 104, io7n, log, i24n, 146. Juliana, 177. Just General, The, 155. Just Italian, The, 140. Kennet, Bp., iszn. Ker, W. P., i69n, i7on, I73n, I75n, i86n, i87n, aoin. Key of the Garden, The, 205n. Killigrew, Thomas, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 148, 154, 157, 160. Killigrew, Sir William, 160-161, 184. King, Dr. William, igon. King and No King, A, 111-113, 114, IIS, ii6n, 117, isin, 157, 179, I Son, 186, 189. King Edgar and Alfreda, 177, Kirkman, Francis, iS2n, i87n. Kitzscher, Johann von, 20. Knack to knowe a Knaue, A, 65. Knight in the Burnyng Rock, The, 76. Knight of Malta, The, iis, 117, 123. Knight's Tale, The, 6311. KnoUes, Richard, gon. Konigk in Arragona, 7gn. Kyd, Thomas, 82n, 93. La ChoMss^e, Nivelle de, et la Comedie Larmoyante, ig4n. Lady Cornelia, The, 11 gn. Lady Errant, The, 143, 145. Lady's Privilege, The, 142. Lady's Trial, The, 133. Lancaster, H. C, xi n, i8n, ign, 2in, 27n, 46n, 53, ssn, 56, i8in. Landgartha, 146. Langbaine, G., xvn, is6n, 163, i65n, I72n, 180, i87n. Lanson, G., i94n. Lamb, Charles, 205n. Larum for London, A, 87. Late Revolution, The, 182. Law against Lovers, The, 157, isSn. Lawrence, W. J., i46n. Laws of Candy, The, 115, 117, 118. Laws of Poetry, The, igSn. Lear, King (alteration by N. Tate), 1640, 180, 192. Lee, Nathaniel, 177. Leir, King, 87. Letters on the Drama, iggn, 201. Lewis XI, The History of, is6n. Like Will to Like, 6g. Lillo, George, ig4. Lindsay, W. M., 7n, Lisander and Calista, A Tragi- comicall History of, iign. Lisandro y Roselia, 46n. Littleton, Adam, ism. Liviera, G. B., 32. Lloyd, Lodowick, 103. Lobkowitz, J. C, 48n. Lodge, Thomas, 79, 92. Logan, W. H., i6in. London Merchant, The, 194. London Prodigal, The, 98. Longer thou livest. The, 69. Looking Glass for London and Eng- land, A, i6n, 79-80, 92, 93. Lope de Vega, 3n, 4, s. 47-49. S'. 52. 56, S7, 97n, 121, 148. Lopez de Vega, Antonio, ion. Lost Lady, The, 142. Lounsbury, T. R., ig6n. 241 Love and Honor, xiii, 141, 157. Love Crowns the End, 14s. Love Triumphant, 170, 171, 173, 174, 199- Lover's Melancholy, The, 133. Lovers' Progress, The, 119, 130. Love's Kingdom, 159. Love's Labyrinth, 156. Love's Metamorphoses, yj. Love's Pilgrimage, 123. Love's Victory, 155. Love-sick Court, The, 14711, Lowe, R. W., 2oin. Lower, Sir William, 154, 181. Loyal Lovers, The, 155. Loyal Subject, The, 115, 117, 118, I24n, I5sn, 157, 189. Lucas, E. v., 20511. Lupton, Thomas, 66. Lydgate, John, 1711. Lyly, John, 72, 76-78, 92, 95. Lyttelton, Lord, I98n. Mabbe, James, 4Sn, i48n. Mad Lover, The, 115, 118, 157. Magdalena Evangelica, 24n. Magri, Gerotheo di, 27n. Mahomet and his Heaven, I03n. Maid of Honor, The, 131, 133, 134, 135- Maid's Tragedy, The (alteration by Waller), i64n, 180. Mairet, Jean, 57, 58. Malacreta, Giovanni, 42, 43. Malcontent, The, gg, 100, loi, 102, 128. Manuche, Cosmo, 154-155, 184. Marcelia, 166-167. Marciano, 16 in. Marechal de Luxembourg, Mon- sieur le, 1 8 in. Marie Magdalene, 6g. Marlowe, Christopher, 78, 79, 84, 87, 90. Marriage a-la-Mode, 170, 171, 172, 173, I93n- 17 Marsan, J., 33n. Marshall of Luxembourg, The, 181. Marsi, Antonio, 27. Marston, John, 99, 100, 128. Martineche, E., 49n, Massinger, Philip, xiii, 115, 119, 124, 125, 128, 130-135, 136, 138, 15O1 15511, 184, 189, i98n. Match Me in London, 129, 137. Matrimonial Trouble, i6in. May, Thomas, 124. Mayne, Jasper, 144. Mayor of Queenborough, The, 1 02n. Measure for Measure, x, 66, 100, 157- Meineke, A., 8n, gn. Mejor Principe Trajano Augusta, El, 51. Melancholicus, Mercurius, 152. Menendez, y Pelayo, M., 490, 5on, 5in, 52n. Merchant of Venice, The, 85, 86, I93n. Mercurius Britanicus, 151. Meres, Francis, 65. Meriton, Thomas, 156. Mesa, Cristobal de, son. Mewe, William, 145. Michelburne, John, igon. Midas, 77. Middletown, Thomas, 100, I02n, 124, 127-128, 130. Milton, John, i68n. Minturno, A. S., 2n. Minutes of the Revels at Court, 76, 83. Miseries of Enforced Marriage, The, 98. Mistakes, The, 179. Molina, Tirso de, 52. Monk's Tale, The, i7n. Monthly Review, The, 203n. Momus Triumphans, i87n. Morel-Fatio, A., 48n, 4gn, son, 52n, i7on. Motteux, Peter Anthony de, i8on. 242 Mountfort, William, 1780. Mucedorus, 84, 151. Much Ado, 8s, 86, 157. Munday, Anthony, 74n. Munon, Sancho de, 46n. Nao d'amores, 46x1. Nash, Thomas, 73n, Ssn, 93, 94. Nature of the Four Elements, The, 68. Neale, Thomas, 143. Neuer too Late, 82n. New World of English Words, The, iS6n. Newcastle, Margaret, Duchess of, i6in. New-Market-Fayre, 153. Nice Valor, The, 123. Nichols, J., I78n. Nicomkde, 181, i87n. Nisieli, Udeno. See Fioretti, Bene- detto. Noble Choice, The, i3in. Noble Ingratitude, The, 154. Noble Tryal, The, I42n, Nobleman, The, 109. Nouvelle tragicomigue. La, ssn. Observations sur le Cid, 59n. CEdipus, 5, 51. Ogier, Frangois, 6, 57-58. Old Fortunatus, i6n, 65, 84. Ondedei, G., 33n. Orbecche, 2gn. Orestes, 4, 29. Origin of the English Drama, The, 20411. Orlando Furioso (of Ariosto), 40, 54 ; (of Greene), 79, 81. Ormasdes, 160, 161. Oroonoko, 198, 199. Orrery, Earl of, 163, i64n, 165. Painter's Palace of Pleasure, 73, 124. Palamon and Arcyte, 63n, 75. Pandosto, 82n. Pantagruel, 52n, logn. Papillon, Marc de, ssn. Parallel of Poetry and Painting, A, 174- Paris and Vienna, 76. Parliament of Love, The, 132. Partial Law, The, Ssn. Pasajero, El, son. Passionate Lovers, The, 140. Pastor Fido, xi, 10, 33-45, 103, 104, 105, 108, i9on. Patient Grissel, 97. Paulilli, Anello, 27n. Peele, George, 87. Pembroke, Countess of, 72n, 89. Penn, John, iggn, 201. Pepys, Samuel, 108, i6on, i62n, I76n. Percius and Anthomiris, 76. Percy, Bishop, 204n. Percy, William, 103. Perymedes, 8 in, Pescara, La, 27-28. Pescetti, Orlando, 43. Petrarch, 40, 41. Philaster, x, xiii, xiv, 111-113, 114, IIS, 116, 118, 123, 142, IS7, 179, 180, 189, 199; (alteration by Duke of Buckingham?), 180, 199; (alteration by Settle), 180; (alteration by Colman), 189, 193, 19911. Philemon and Philecia, 76. Philenso and Hippolita, I3in. Philicinus, Petrus, 24n. Phillips, Edward, i68n. Phillyda and Choryn, 76. Phlyacographia, sn, ion. Phoenix, The, 100. Photius, gn. Pickering, John, 68. Picture, The, 131, 133, 134. Piety and Valor, i83n. Pilgrimage to Parnassus, The, gin. Pixerecourt, Rene de, 2osn, 243 Planetomachia, 8 in. Plato, 10. Platonic Lovers, The, 140. Plautus, 4, 5, 6-8, 9, 19, 20, 22, 23, 2S, 28, 3on, 3 in, 35, 36, 37, 40, 4in, 45, 50, 71, I97n, 204. Playes Confuted in fine Actions, 75. Play-house scuffle. The, 19 in. Plaza universal de todas ciencias, son. Pocula Castalia, I56n. Poeticarum Institutionum, 4n, sn, 7n, 204n. Poetices, 4n, sn, 6n. Poetics of Aristotle, The, 3, 3in, 39> 40. Poggi, Beltramo, 27n. Politician, The, 137. Pomponius Laetus, i8. Poor-Man's Comfort, The, 129. Pope, Alexander, 188. Pordage, Samuel, 166. Porphyry, ix n, 8n. Porphyry the Philosopher to His Wife Marcella, ix n. Porter, Thomas, i6in. Portia and Demorantes, 76. Potentia d'amore, zyr\, Prcelectiones Poetics, 20on, 204n. Pragmaticus, Marcurius, 1S2. Pratinas, 37, 39. Pratique du Theatre, La, 4n, 8n, 185. Predor and Lucia, 76. Preface G&n&rale de la Trag&die & des six Comedies de ce Re- cueil, xn. Preface to Four New Plays, i6sn, i68n. Preface to Theatrum Poetarum, i68n. Presbyterian Lash, The, 132. Preston, Thomas, 65, 68. Pride of Life, 6211. Princess, The, 144. Princess of Cleve, The, 177. Prisoner, The, i3in. Prisoners, The, 144. Proginnasmi Poetici, ion, 44. Promos and Cassandra, 3on, 66-67, 70, 7S- Prophetess, The, 120, 131. Pseudomagia, 14S. Puttenham, George, 6s, 72. Pye, H. J., 192, I98n, iggn, 203. Queen and Concubine, The, I47n. Queen of Aragon, The, 142. Queen of Corinth, The, iiS, 117, 128. Queen, or Excellency of Her Sex, The, 142. Queen's Arcadia, The, 103, 104-105, 106. Queens' Exchange, The, I47n. Quinault, Phillippe, 154, 181. Quinn, A. H., 97n. Quintilia, 27n. Rabelais, S2n, logn. Racine, 159. Rambler, The, 201. Rapin, Paul de, 173. Rare Triumphs of Love and For- tune, The, 7S. Rastell, John, 74. Ratto d'Helena, II, 27n. Ravenscroft, Edward, 176. Regicidium, iS2n. Reign of Hellebore, The, igon. Religious, The, i6in. Remarks on the Plays of Shakes- pear, I97n, 2oon. Renegado, The, 131, 132, 133, 135. Rennel, Gabriel, I9in. Reparatus sive Depositum, 145. Repertorium Bibl., ign. Replica (of Summo), 43. Republic, The, 10. Restauration, The, 180. Retrospective Review, The, 203n. 244 Revival of the Drama in Italy, The, 28n, 20511. Revolter, The, 18311. Rewards of Virtue, The, 139. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 202, 203. Rhinthon of Tarentum, sn, 9-10, 36, 37, 39, 40. Ricardo del Turia, 311, 511, 50-51, s8. Rider, William, 140. Rigal, E., ssn, 56- Rimas, son. Risposta (of Beni), 42 ; (of Pes- cetti), 43. Rival Ladies, The, 160, 168, 169, 170. Rivals, The, 157. Rojas, Fernando de, 45n. Romagem de Aggravados, 46n. Romeo and Juliet (alteration by J. Howard), i64n. Roscius Anglicanus, i64n, Rosenbach, A. S. W., 75n. Rossi, v., 33n, 4on, 44n. Rowe, John, 151. Rowe, Nicholas, 196-197, 198, 20on. Rowley, William, 12s, 127, 128. Roxburghe Library, The, 74a, 75n. Royal Cuckold, The, 181. Royal King and Loyal Subject, The, 124-125, 130. Royal Lovers, The, issn. Royal Master, The, 136, Royal Shepherdess, The, 159. Royal Slave, The, 143, 144. Royal Voyage, The, 183. Rutter, Joseph, 14s, 1460. Rymer, T., 173, i8on, 186, 192. St.- Patrick for Ireland, 137. Salza, Abd-El-Kader, 28n. Samson Agonistes, i68n. Sanchez, Alonso, 51. Sanscrit Drama, A Bibliography of the, X n. Sapidus, Joannes, I2n. Sapientia Solomonis, 24-25, 61, 92, 93. Savage, J., i9on. Savio, G., 6, 42. Scaliger, J. C, 4, s. Schack, A. F. Von, 46n, 48n, 49n, son, S2n. Schelandre, Jean de, S7. Schelling, F. E., xvn, i2in, i27n. Schoepper, Jacobus, 21. Schuyler, M. Jr., x n. Scottish Politick Presbyter, The, 152. Scotto, G. M., 27n. Scuderi, Georges de, S9n. Sea Voyage, The, 122, i8on. Second and third blast of retrait from, plaies and Theaters, A, 74, 93- Secret History of Lewis XIV of Prance, The, i8in. Secret Love, 168, 169, 170, 172. Secunda Pastorum, is. Selene, 32. Selindra, 160, 161. Seneca, 13, 19, 30, 31, 4s, 49, 89. Serpents, The Tragicocomedie of, 103. Serra da Estrella, 4611. Settle, Elkanah, 180, 190. Shadwell, Thomas, 159. Shakspere, William, x, xiii, 66, 76, 8in, 84, 85-87, 9S, 96, 100, 102, 113-114, 119, IS7, 169, 179, 180, i87n, 189, 192, 196, 197, 198, I99n, 201, 202, 203n. Sharpman, Edward, loi. Shedd, Prof., 205n. Shelley, P. B., ixn. Shepherd's Holiday, The, 145. Sherman, S. P., i42n. Shirley, James, xiii, 124, 135-139, 140, ISO, IS5, 184. Sidney, Sir Philip, 67, 71-72, 73n, 76, 90, 91, 93, 94, 146, 168. Siege, The, 141. 24:5 Siege and Surrender of Mons, The, 183. Siege of Babylon, The, 166-167. Siege of Derry, The, 183. Siege of Troy, The, 190. Siege of Urbin, The, 160, 161. Siege; or Love's Convert, The, 143. Siegert, Ed,, 16411. Silvanire, 58. Singleton, Thomas, i^Sn. Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes, 75. Sir Thomas More, 87. Six Bookes of a Commonweale, gon. Smith, Alexander, i66n. Smith, D. N., I97n, 202n. Smith, G. G., 67n, /on, 7in, 73n, 83n. Smith, Homer, I56n. Soliman and Perseda, Szn, 93, 94. Solitarie Knight, The, 76. Solon, igo. Sophocles, 5, 36, 39, 40, 51, 20Sn. Sophompaneas, 5n- Soul's Warfare, The. See Divine Comedian, The. Southern, H., 203n. Spanish Curate, . The, 122, 157, 17011. Spanish Friar, The, xiii, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 186, 187, 189, 199. Spanish Gypsy, The, 128. Spanish Lady, The, i2on. Spectator, The, igza, 197. Speroni, S., 8, 3on, 3 in, Spingam, J. E., i6sn, 16911, Stapylton, Sir Robert, 160. Steele, Richard, 192, 193. Stephanos, gn. Stepmother, The, 160. Stevens, George, iggn, 2020, Stobxus, 8n. Stoll, E. E., izgn. Strange Discovery, The, 140. Strode, William, 144. Strozzi, Giulio, 33n, Successful Strangers, The, lySn. Suckling, Sir John, 143, 164. Suidas, gn. Summo, Fanstino, 32, 33, 42, 43. Suppliants, 4. Surprizal, The, 165. Swisser, The, 143. Tobias Poeticas, so. Talpa ; sive Conjuratio Papistica, 1780. Tamburlaine, 90. Tancred and Gismunda, 75. Tasso, Torquato, 34, 103, 105. Tate, Nahum, i64n, 180, 192. Tatham, Joseph, 145. Tatler, The, igzn. Tempest, The, logn, 114, 203. Templo d' Apollo, 46n. Terence, 4, 22, 23, 45, 49. Theagenes and Clariclea, 140. Theatric Count, The, 2osn. Thomdike, A, H., 11 in, ii3n, iign. Three Lords and Three Ladies of London, The, 68. Three Systers of Mantua, 76. Tibbals, K. \V., i24n. Timoleon; or, the Revolution, lyg. Timon, 8yn. Timoneda, Juan de, 4711. Tom Tyler and His Wife, i87n. Toumeur, Cyrill, log. Tragedia, La, 3311. Tragedia di lieto fin (see, also. Tragedy of happy ending), 31, 32, 33. 36, 66n, 80. Tragedies of the Last Age, i86n. Tragedy of happy ending (see, also, Tragedia di lieto fin), 30, 32, 33, 57. Tragicocomedia de inherosolomi- tana profectione illustrissimi principis pomeriani, 20-21. Tragicomedia alegorica del paraiso y del infierno, 47n. Tragi-comedie. L' Argument pris du troisieme chapitre de Daniel, i8n, 54- 246 Tragi-Comical Reflections, igin. Tragi-Comwdia (of John Rowe), 151. Tragi-Comadia Oxoniensis, 15 in. Tragique Comedie Frangoise de I'homme iustifiS par Foy, i8n, 53-54- Traite de la disposition du podme dramatique, 58. Trapp, Joseph, 200, 204. Trappolin Creduto Principe, 146. Trionfi, 40. Triumpho do Inverno, 46n. Triumphs of Virtue, The, 179. Troilus and Cressida, 102. Troublesome Reign of King John, The, 87. True Declaration of the estate of the Colonie in Virginia, A, logn. Tryphon, i63n. Tuke, Richard, I78n. Tuke, Sir Samuel, i6on, Tupper, J. W., i62n. Twelfth Night, 85. Twins, The, 140. Two Gentlemen of Verona, The, 85, 86. Two Noble Kinsmen, The, 119, 131, 157. Two Noble Ladies, The, lagn. Tyde taryeth no Man, i6n, 65. Tyr et Sidon, 57. Unfortunate Fortunate, The, i56n. Unnatural Mother, The, i63n. Valiant Welshman, The, 87. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, sn, 55. Venice Preserved, 199. Verardi, Carlo, 19-20, 22, 25. Verato, II, sn, 36, 37, 38. Verato Secondo, II, 38, 4in. Vergerius, Paul, 181. Versio et Notae in Euripides Cy- clopem, 6. Very Woman, A, 131, 132. Vestal Virgin, The, 164. Vicente, Gil, 46, 47n. Vidal y Diaz, A., 23n. Virgin Martyr, The, 131. Virtuous Octavia, The, 89, 92. Vitruvius, 19. Volpone, 98, 104. Voltaire, 195. Vossius, G. J., 4, sn, 7n, gn, 204n. Walker, J. C, 28n, 20Sn. Waller, Edmund, i64n, 180. Walpole, Horace, 203. Wandering Lover, The, is6. Wapull, George, 6s. Warburton, Bishop, 204. Warburton, John, 109. Ward, A. W., 1510. Warde, The, 145. Warr of Grammar, The, i78n. Weakest goeth to the Wall, The, 84. Webbe, William, 83. Webster, John, 96n, 117, 129. Weston, Jo., 166. What d'ye call it? 191. Whetstone, George, 3on, 66-67, 70, 71, 7S, 76, 90, 9S, 100. White Devil, The, 96n. Whole Art of the Stage, The, ^n, 8n, i86n. Widow Ranter, The, 178, i87n. Widow's Tears, The, 100. Wife for a Month, A, 115, 117, 129, 157, igsn- Wife of Bath's Tale, The, 122. Wife With Two Husbands, The, 20Sn. Wife's Trial, The, 20511. Wilkes, T., I46n. Wilkins, George, 98. Wilmot, Robert, 7s. Wilson, Arthur, 143. Wilson, John, 177. Winter's Tale, The, xiii, 113, 114. Wisdom that is Christ, The, 16. Wise Woman of Hogsdon, The, 97. 247 Wit and Drollery, 15611. Witch, The, 128, 130. Witch of Edmonton, The, 127, 130, 194. Withy, Nathan, 19111. Wits Led by Ihe Nose, 15511. Witty Combat, A, i6in. Woman Killed with Kindness, A, 97, 98, 126. Women Pleased, 122, 189. Women's Conquest, The, 16611, 176. Wonder of a Kingdom, The, 129. Woodes, Nathaniel, 65, 70. Woodstock, The Tragedy of, 87. Young, Serj., 20511. Young Admiral, The, xiii, 136, 138. Young King, The, 178, Ziegler, Hieronymus, 21. Zimmem, Alice, ix n. Zuccolo, Lodivico, 44. THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS STUDIES IN ENGLISH Joseph Glanvill A Study in English Thought and Letters of the Seventeenth Century By Ferris Greenslet, Ph.D., Cloth, i2mo pp. xi + 235 $1.50 net The Elizabethian Lyric By John Erskine, Ph.D., Cloth, i2mo pp. xvi + 344 $i.SO net Classical Echoes in Tennyson By Wilfred P. 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