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 PRINTED IN U S A. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013272038 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS 
 
 IN THE <^^' h^u it.-y'^ 
 
 ENGLISH DRAMA 
 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS f /^"Ji 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'studies of greek poets' 'renaissance in ITALY' 
 
 'sketches in ITALY AND GREECE' ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 a. 1884 
 
 E.V, 
 
 [All rights reserved] 
 

 }\X'^S\^^ 
 
TO 
 
 MY NEPHEW 
 
 JOHN ST LOE STRACHEY 
 
 I DEDICATE THESE STUDIES 
 
 RESUMED AND CONTINUED AT HIS REQUEST 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Between the years 1862 and 1865 I undertook a 
 History of the Drama in England during the reigns of 
 EHzabeth, James I., and Charles I. With this object 
 in view I composed a series of essays, embracing the 
 chief points in that history, and discussing the leading 
 playwrights from the period of the Miracles down to 
 that of Shirley. Having so far advanced toward the 
 completion of this plan, I laid my manuscripts aside, 
 discouraged partly by ill-health, partly by a conviction 
 that the subject was beyond the scope and judgment 
 of a literary beginner. . 
 
 These early studies I have now resumed. The 
 present volume is the first instalment of a critical 
 inquiry into the conditions of the English Drama, 
 based upon work which I began some twenty years 
 ago, but which has been entirely re-handled and 
 revised. 
 
 In the space of those twenty years the origins and 
 evolution of our Drama have been amply treated and 
 diligently explored by more than one distinguished and 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 by many competent writers. Professor A. W. Ward s 
 'History of English Dramatic Literature' supplies 
 what was conspicuous by its absence from our libraries 
 in 1862, namely, a comprehensive and excellently 
 balanced survey of the works of the chief dramatists. 
 The New Shakspere Society has instituted an ori- 
 ginal method of inquiry into questions of text, chro- 
 nology, and authorship. Mr. Swinburne, Professor 
 Dowden, and Mr. Gosse have published monographs 
 of fine critical and esthetic quality. Mr. W. C. 
 Hazlitt, Mr. Churton Collins, Mr. A. H. Bullen, and 
 the late Richard Simpson — to mention only a few 
 prominent names — have enriched our stores of ac- 
 cessible documents with plays reprinted from rare 
 copies or published for the first time from MS. Pro- 
 fessor Arber and Dr. Grosart have placed at the 
 student's disposition masses of useful materials, ex- 
 tracted from sources inaccessible to the general reader, 
 and edited with unimpeachable accuracy. American 
 scholarship, meanwhile, has not been altogether idle 
 in this field ; while German criticism has been volumi- 
 nously prolific. 
 
 To mention all the men of distinction whose varied 
 labours have aided the student of Elizabethan Dramatic 
 Literature during the last twenty years, would involve 
 too long a catalogue of names and publications. 
 
 I may well feel diffidence in bringing forth my own 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Studies to the light of day, after this computation of 
 recent and still active workers on the subject. Eliza- 
 bethan Dramatic Literature is a well-defined speciality, 
 important enough to occupy a man's life-labours. I 
 cannot pretend to be a specialist in this department ; 
 nor have I sought to write for specialists. It has been 
 my intention to bring the history of the English Drama 
 within the sphere of popular treatment ; not shrinking 
 from the discussion of topics which are only too 
 familiar to special students ; combining exposition with 
 criticism ; and endeavouring to fix attention on the 
 main points of literary evolution. 
 
 I have only to add in conclusion that the present 
 volume has been produced under the disadvantageous 
 conditions of continued residence in the High Alps, at 
 a distance from all libraries except my own. But for 
 the generous and disinterested assistance rendered me 
 by Mr. A. H. Bullen, I should almost dread to print 
 a work of this nature, composed in such unfavourable 
 circumstances. To this gentleman, so well known by 
 his edition of Day's works and by his series of Old 
 Plays in course of publication, my warmest thanks are 
 due for reading each sheet as it passed through the 
 press, and for making most valuable suggestions and 
 corrections, which give me confidence in the compara- 
 tive accuracy of my statements. 
 
 Davos Pi.atz : Nov. 9, 1883. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Method of Inquiry — Chronological Limits — Unity of the Subject. 
 — II. Three Stages in Evolution of the Drama — Stage of Pre- 
 paration and Formation — Closed by Marlowe — Stage of perfectly 
 developed Type — Character of Shakspere's Art — Jonson and 
 Fletcher — Stage of Gradual Decline. — III. The Law of Artistic 
 Evolution — Illustrations from Gothic Architecture, Greek Drama, 
 Italian Painting. — IV. The Problem for Criticism — In Biography 
 — In History — Shakspere personifies English Genius in his Cen- 
 tury — Criticism has to demonstrate this. — V. Chronology is 
 scarcely helpful — Complexity of the Subject — Imperfection of 
 our Drama as a Work of Art — Abundance of Materials for Study- 
 ing all Three Stages — Unique Richness of our Dramatic Litera- 
 ture. — VI. Shakspere's Relation to his Age — To his Predeces- 
 sors — To his Successors. — VII. Double Direction of English 
 Literary Art — Jonson, Milton, Dryden, Pope — Spirit of the Eliza- 
 bethan Epoch. — VIII. The Elizabethan Inspiration is exhausted 
 in the Reign of Charles I. — Dramatists of the Restoration — Rise 
 of the Novel — Place of Novelists in the Victorian Age . i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NATION AND THE DRAMA. 
 
 I. The Function of a Great Drama— To be both National and Uni- 
 versal—How that of England fulfilled this— England and the 
 Renaissance— Fifty Years of Mental Activity.— II. Transitional 
 Character of that Age in England.— III. Youthfulness— Turbu- 
 lence — Marked Personality. — IV. The Italians of the Renaissance 
 —Cellini. — V. Distinguishing Characteristics of the English — 
 Superior Moral Qualities— Travelling— Rudeness of Society — 
 The Medley of the Age.— VI. How the Drama represented 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Society— Determination of the Romantic Species— Its Specific 
 Quality— Materials of Plays— Heywood's Boast— VII. Imperfec- 
 tions of the Romantic Style.— VIII. Treatment of Character- 
 Violent Changes— Types of Evil— Fantastic Horrors.— IX. In- 
 sanity.— X. Meditations upon Death.— XI. Sombre Philosophy 
 of Life— Melancholy— Religious Feeling.— XI I. Blending of Gay 
 with Grave— Types of Female Character— Boy-Actors.— XIII. 
 Comedy of Life and of Imagination — Shaksperian Comedy — 
 Fletcher's Romantic Comedy and Comedy of Intrigue — 
 Hybrids between Pastoral and Allegory — Farce — Comedy of 
 Manners — Jonson. — XIV. Questions for Criticism. — XV. Three 
 Main Points relating to English Drama. — XVI. National 
 Public — England compared with Italy, France, Spain. — XVII. 
 English Poetry — Mr. M. Arnold on Literatures of Genius and 
 Intelligence — The Inheritors of Elizabethan Poetry. — XVIII. 
 Unimpeded Freedom of Development — Absence of Academies — 
 No Interference from Government — The Dramatic Art considered 
 as a Trade and a Tradition.— XIX. Dramatic Clairvoyance 
 — Insight into Human Nature — Insight into Dramatic Method. 
 — XX. The Morality of the Elizabethan Drama. — XXI. Its 
 Importance in Educating the People — In Stimulating Patriotism 
 — Contrast with the Drama of the Restoration. — XXII. Im- 
 provement of the Language — Variety of Styles — Creation of 
 Blank Verse. — XXI 11. History of Opinion on the Drama — De 
 Quincey's Panegyric 23 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 I. Emergence of the Drama from the Mystery — Ecclesiastical 
 Condemnation of Theatres and Players — Obscure Survival of 
 Mimes from Pagan Times — Their Place in Medieval Society. 
 — II. Hroswitha — Liturgical Drama. — III. Transition to the 
 Mystery or Miracle Play — Ludi — Italian Sacre Rappresentazioni 
 — Spanish Auto — French Mystire — English Miracle. — IV. Pas- 
 sage of the Miracle from the Clergy to the People — From Latin 
 to the Vulgar Tongue — Gradual Emergence of Secular Drama. 
 — V. Three English Cycles — Origin of the Chester Plays— Of 
 the Coventry Plays— Differences between the Three Sets — Other 
 Places famous for Sacred Plays.— VI. Methods of Representa- 
 tion—Pageant—Procession—Italian, French, and Spanish Pecu- 
 liarities—The Guilds— Cost of the Show— Concourse of People- 
 Stage Effects and Propertie^— VII. Relation of the Miracle to 
 Medieval Art— Materialistic Realism— Place in the Cathedral- 
 Effect upon the Audience.— VIII. Dramatic Elements in the 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Miracles — Tragedy — Pathos — Melodrama — Herod and the Devil 
 — IX. Realistic Comedy — Joseph — Noah's Wife — The Nativity 
 — Pastoral Interludes. — X. Transcripts from Common Life — 
 Satire — The Woman Taken in Adultery— Mixture of the Sacred 
 and the Grotesque. — XI. The Art of the Miracles and the Art 
 of ItaUan Sacri Monti 93 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MORAL PLAYS. 
 
 I. Development of Minor Religious Plays from the CycUcal 
 Miracle — Intermediate Forms between Miracle and Drama — 
 Allegory and Personification. — II. Allegories in the Miracle — 
 Detached from the Miracle — Medieval Contrasti, Dialogi, and 
 Disputationes — Emergence of the Morality — Its essentially 
 Transitional Character. — III. Stock Personages in Moral Plays 
 — Devil and Vice — The Vice and the Clown. — IV. Stock Argu- 
 ment^Protestant and Catholic — >■ Mundus et Infans.' — V. The 
 ' Castle of Perseverance ' — ' Lusty Juventus ' — ' Youth.' — ^VI. 
 'Hick Scomer' — A real Person introduced — 'New Custom' — 
 'Trial of Treasure ' — 'Like will to Like.' — VII. 'Everyman' — 
 The Allegorical Importance of this Piece. — VIII. Moral Plays 
 with an Attempt at Plot — ' Marriage of Wit and Wisdom ' — 
 ' Marriage of Wit and Science ' — ' The Four Elements ' — ' Micro- 
 cosmus.' — IX. Advance in Dramatic Quality — ' The Nice Wanton' 
 — ' The Disobedient Child.'— X. How Moral Plays were Acted — 
 Passage from the old Play of ' Sir Thomas More.' — XL Hybrids 
 between Moral Plays and Drama — ' King Johan ' — Mixture of 
 History and Allegory — The Vice in ' Appius and Virginia ' — In 
 'Cambyses' 144 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE RISE OF COMEDY. 
 
 Specific Nature of the Interlude— John Heywood— The Farce 
 of 'Johan the Husband' — 'The Pardoner and the Friar.'— II. 
 Heywood's Life and Character. — III. Analysis of ' The Four P's' 
 — Chaucerian Qualities of Heywood's Talent. — IV. Nicholas 
 Udall and ' Ralph Roister Doister' — Its Debt to Latin Comedy. 
 — ^V. John Still— Was He the Author of ' Gammer Gur ton's 
 Needle ' ? — Farcical Character of this Piece — Diccon the Bedlam. 
 — VI. Reasons for the Early Development of Comedy . . . 184 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE RISE OF TRAGEDY. 
 
 p 
 
 I. Classical Influence in England — The Revival of Learning — Eng- 
 lish Humanism — Ascham's ' Schoolmaster ' — Italian Examples. — 
 II. The Italian Drama — Paramount Authority of Seneca— Cha- 
 racter of Seneca's Plays. — III. English Translations of Seneca — 
 English Translations of Italian Plays. — IV. English Adaptations 
 of the Latin Tragedy — Lord Brooke — Samuel Daniel — ^Trans- 
 lations from the French — Latin Tragedies — False Dramatic 
 Theory. — V. 'Gorboduc' — Sir Philip Sidney's Eulogy of it — Lives 
 of Sackville and Norton — General Character of this Tragedy — 
 Its Argument — Distribution of Material — Chorus — Dumb Show — 
 The Actors— Use of Blank Verse.— VI. ' The Misfortunes of 
 Arthur' — Thomas Hughes and Francis Bacon— The Plot — Its 
 Adaptation to the Grseco-Roman Style ai Tragedy — Part of 
 Guenevora — The Ghost — Advance on ' Gorboduc ' in Dramatic 
 Force and Versification. — VII. Failure of this Pseudo-Classical 
 Attempt— What it effected for English Tragedy . . 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TRIUMPH OF THE ROMANTIC DRAMA. 
 
 I. Fifty-two Plays at Court— Analysis of their Subjects— The 
 Court follows the Taste of the People— The ' Damon and Pithias ' 
 of Edwards—' Romeo and Juliet '— ' Tancred ' and ' Gismunda '— 
 'Promos and Cassandra.'— II. Contemporary Criticisms of the 
 Romantic Style— Gosson —Whetstone— Sidney. — III. Descrip- 
 tion of the English Popular Play— The Florentine Farsa— 
 Destinies of this Form in England 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THEATRES, PLAYWRIGHTS, ACTORS, AND PLAYGOERS. 
 
 Servants of the Nobility become Players— Statutes of Edward VI. 
 and Mary— Statutes of Elizabeth— Licences.— II. Elizabeth's and 
 Leicester's Patronage of the Stage— Royal Patent of 1574— Master 
 of the Revels— Contest between the Corporation of London and 
 the Privy Council.— III. The Prosecution of this Contest— Plays 
 Forbidden within the City— Establishment of Theatres in the 
 Suburbs— Hostility of the Clergy.— IV. Acting becomes a Pro- 
 fession—Theatres are Multiplied— Building of the Globe and 
 
 !46 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I^AGE 
 
 Fortune — Internal Arrangements of Playhouses— Interest of the 
 Court in Encouragement of Acting Companies. —V. Public and 
 Private Theatres — Entrance Prices— Habits of the Audience. — VI. 
 Absence of Scenery — Simplicity of Stage — Wardrobe— Library 
 of Theatres. — VII. Prices given for Plays — ^Henslowe — Benefit 
 Nights — Collaboration and Manufacture of Plays. — VIII. Boy- 
 Actors — Northbrooke on Plays at School — The Choristers of 
 Chapel Royal, Windsor, Paul's — Popularity of the Boys at 
 Blackfriars — Female Parts — The Education of Actors. — IX. Pay- 
 ment to various Classes of Actors — Sharers — Apprentices — Re- 
 ceipts from Court Performances — Service of Nobility — Strolling 
 Companies — Comparative Dishonour of the Profession. — X. 
 Taverns — Bad Company at Theatres — Gosson and Stubbes upon 
 the Manners of Playgoers — Women of the Town — Cranley's 
 'Amanda.' — XI. 'The Young Gallant's Whirligig '—^Jonson's 
 Fitzdottrel at the Play. — XII. Comparison of the London and 
 the Attic Theatres. . . . . . 265 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MASQUES AT COURT. 
 
 I. Definition of the Masque — Its Courtly Character — Its Partial 
 Influence over the Regular Drama. — II. Its Italian Origin. — III. 
 Masques at Rome in 1474 — AtFerrarain 1502 — ^Morris Dances — 
 At Urbino in 1513 — Triumphal Cars. — IV. Florentine Trionfi — 
 Machinery and Engines — The Marriage Festivals of Florence in 
 1565 — Play and Masques of Cupid and Psyche — The Masque of 
 Dreams — Marriage Festival of Bianca Capello in 1579. — V. 
 Reception of Henri III. at Venice in 1574 — His Passage from 
 Murano to San Niccolo on Lido. — VI. The Masque transported 
 to England — At the Court of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth — 
 Development in the Reign of James I. — Specific Character of 
 the English Masque — The Share of Poetry in its Success. — VII. 
 Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones — Italian and English Artists — The 
 Cost of Masques. — VIII. ProseDescriptions of Masques — Jonson's 
 Libretti — His Quarrels with Jones — Architect versus Poet — IX. 
 Royal Performers — Professionals in the Anti-Masque. — X. Variety 
 of Jonson's Masques — Their Names — Their Subjects — Their 
 Lyric Poetry. — XI. Feeling for Pastoral Beauty — Pan's Anni- 
 versary. — XII. The Masque of Beauty — ^Prince Henry's Barriers 
 — Masque of Oberon. — XIII. Royal and Noble Actors — Lady 
 Arabella Stuart — Prince Henry — Duke Charles — The Earl and 
 Countess of Essex — Tragic Irony and Pathos of the Masques at 
 Court. — XIV. Effect of Masques upon the Drama — Use of them 
 by Shakspere and Fletcher — By Marston and Tourneur — Their 
 great Popularity — Milton's Partiality for Masques— The ' Arcades ' 
 and'Comus' 317 
 
xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Chronicle Play is a peculiarly English Form — Its Difference 
 from other Historical Dramas — Supplies the Place of the Epic — 
 Treatment of National Annals, by the Playwrights. — II. Shak- 
 spere's Chronicles — Four Groups of non-Shaksperian Plays on 
 English History. — III. Legendary Subjects — 'Locrine' — 'The 
 History of King Leir.' — IV. Shakspere's Doubtful Plays — Prin- 
 ciples of Criticism — ' The Birth of Merlin.' — V. Chronicle-Plays 
 Proper — ' Troublesome Reign of King John ' — ' True Tragedy ot 
 Richard III.' — ' Famous Victories of Henry V.' — 'Contention of 
 the Two Famous Houses.'— VI. 'Edward III.'— The Problem of 
 its Authorship — Based on a Novella and on History — The Superior 
 Development of Situations. — VII. Marlowe's 'Edward II.' — Peele's 
 ' Edward I.' — Heywood's 'Edward IV.' — Rowley's Play on Henry 
 VIII. — VIII. The Ground covered by the Chronicle Plays — Their 
 Utility — Heywood's 'Apology ' quoted. — IX. Biographies of Poli- 
 tical Persons and Popular Heroes—' Sir Thomas More ' — ' Lord 
 Cromwell ' — ' Sir John Oldcastle'— Schlegel's Opinion criticised 
 — ' Sir Thomas Wyatt '—Ford's ' Perkin Warbeck '—Last Plays of 
 this Species.— X. English Adventurers—' Fair Maid of the West ' 
 —'The Shirley Brothers'— ' Sir Thomas Stukeley'— His Life 
 
 — Dramatised in ' The Famous History,' &c.— 'Battle of Alcazar.' 
 
 XI. Apocryphal Heroes— 'Fair Em'— 'Blind Beggar of Bethnal 
 Green'— Two Plays on the Robin Hood Legend — English Par- 
 tiality for Outlaws— Life in Sherwood—' George a Greene ' Jon- 
 son's 'Sad Shepherd' — Popularity in England of Princes who 
 have shared the People's Sports and Pastimes. . . 363 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DOMESTIC TRAGEDY. 
 
 I. Induction to ' A Warning for Fair Women ' — Peculiar Qualities of 
 the Domestic Tragedy— Its Realism— Its Early Popularity- 
 List of Plays of this Description— Their Sources.— II. Five Plays 
 selected for Examination— Questions of disputed Authorship— 
 Shakspere's suggested part in Three of these— The different 
 Aspects of Realism in them.— 1 11. • A Warning for Fair Women ' 
 —The Story— Use of Dumb Show— Bye-Scenes— Handlingof the 
 Prose-Tale— Critique of the Style and Character-Drawing of this 
 Play— Its deliberate Moral Intention.— IV. 'A Yorkshire Tragedy' 
 —The Crime of Walter Calveriey— His Character in the Drama 
 — Demoniacal Possession.— V. ' Arden of Feversham '— Diffi 
 culty of dealing with it— Its Unmitigated Horror— Fidelity to 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Holinshed's Chronicle— Intense Nature of its Imaginative Realism 
 — Character of Arden — Character of Mosbie— A Gallery of 
 Scoundrels — ^Two Types t)f Murderers — Michael's Terror — Alice 
 Arden — Her Relation to some Women of Shakspere — Develop- 
 ment of her Murderous Intention — Quarrel with Mosbie — The 
 Crescendo of her Passion — Redeeming Points in her Character — 
 Incidents and Episodes. — VI. 'A Woman Killed with Kindness' 
 — The Gentleness of this Tragedy — The Plot — Italian Underplot 
 adapted to English Life — Character of Mr. Frankford — The Scene 
 in the Bed-chamber — Character of Mrs. Frankford — Wendoll — 
 Question regarding the Moral Tone of the Last Act — Religious 
 Sentiment. — VII. 'Witch of Edmonton' — Its Joint-Authorship — 
 The Story — Female Parts — Two Plays patched together — Mother 
 Sawyer — The Realistic Picture of an English Witch — Humane 
 Treatment of Witchcraft in this Play 412 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 TRAGEDY OF BLOOD. 
 
 I. The Tough Fibres of a London Audience — Craving for Strong 
 Sensation— Specific Note of English Melodrama— Its Lyrical and 
 Pathetic Relief. — II. Thomas Kyd— ' Hieronymo ' and 'The 
 Spanish Tragedy' — Analysis of the Story — Stock-Ingredients of 
 a Tragedy of Blood— The Ghost — The Villain— The Romantic 
 Lovers — Suicide, Murder, Insanity. — III. 'SolimanandPerseda' — 
 The Induction to this Play—' The Tragedy of Hoffmann.'— IV. 
 Marlowe's Use of this Form— 'The Jew of Maha'— 'Titus An- 
 dronicus' — 'Lust's Dominion' — Points of Resemblance between 
 ' Hamlet ' and ' The Spanish Tragedy '—Use made by Marston, 
 Webster, and Toumeur of the Species.— V. The Additions to ' The 
 Spanish Tragedy' — Did Jonson make them?— Quotation from 
 the Scene of Hieronymo in the Garden . . -485 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 JOHN LYLY. 
 
 I. The Publication of ' Euphues '— Its Two Parts— Outline of the 
 Story.— II. It forms a Series of Short Treatises— Love— Conduct 
 —Education— A Book for Women. III. Its Popularity— The 
 Spread of Euphuism— What we Mean by that Word.— IV. Qua- 
 lities of Medieval Taste— Allegory— Symbolism— The Bestiaries 
 —Qualities of Early Humanism— Scholastic Subtleties - Petrar- 
 chistic Diction— Bad Taste in Italy— Influence of Italian Litera- 
 ture—The Affectation of the Sixteenth Century— Definition of 
 Euphuism— Illustrations.— V. Lyly becomes a Courtier— His 
 Want of Success— The Simplicity of his Dramatic Prose— The 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Beauty of the Lyrics— The Novelty of his Court-Comedies.— 
 VI. Eight Pieces ascribed to Lyly— Six Played before Elizabeth— 
 The Allegories of their Classic Fables—' Endimion '—Its Critique. 
 —VII. ' Midas'— Political Allusions—' Sapho and Phao'— ' Eliza- 
 beth and Leicester'— Details of this Comedy.— VIII. 'Alexander 
 and Campaspe '—Touch upon Greek Story— Diogenes— A Dia- 
 logue on Love— The Lyrics.— IX. ' Gallathea'— Its Relation to 
 'As You Like It '— ' Love's Metamorphosis'— Its Relation to Jon- 
 son— ' Mother Bombie '— ' The Woman in the Moon.'— X. Lyly 
 as a Master of his Age— Influence on Shakspere— His Inven- 
 tions 499 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GREENE, PEELE, NASH, AND LODGE. 
 
 I. Playwrights in Possession of the Stage before Shakspere — The 
 Scholar-Poets— J onson's Comparison of Shakspere with his Peers 
 — The Meaning of those Lines— Analysis of the Six Scholar-Poets. 
 —II. Men of Fair Birth and Good Education— The Four Subjects 
 of this Study. — III. The Romance of Robert Greene's Life — His 
 Autobiographical Novels— His Miserable Death — The Criticism 
 of his Character — His Associates. — IV. Greene's Quarrel with 
 Shakspere and the Playing Companies — His Vicissitudes as a 
 Playwright — His Jealousy. — V. Greene's transient Popularity — 
 Euphuistic Novels — Specimens of his Lyrics — Facility of Lyric 
 Verse in England. — VI. Greene's Plays betray the Novelist — 
 None survive from the Periodbefore Marlowe — 'James IV. of Scot- 
 land' — Its Induction — The Character of Ida — ' Friar Bacon and 
 Friar Bungay ' — Florid Pedantry a Mark of Greene's Style. — 
 VII. Peele — Campbell's Criticism — His Place among Contem- 
 poraries — ' Edward I.' — ' Battle of Alcazar ' — ' Old Wives' Tales' 
 — Milton's ' Comus ' — ' The Arraignment of Paris ' — ' David and 
 Bethsabe ' — Non-Dramatic Pieces by Peele.^VI 1 1. Thomas Nash 
 — The Satirist — His Quarrel with Harvey — His Description of a 
 Bohemian Poet's Difficulties — The Isle of Dogs — His Part in 
 ' Dido, Queen of Carthage' — ' Will Summer's Testament' — Nash's 
 Songs. — IX. Thomas Lodge — His Life — His Miscellaneous Writ- 
 ings — ' Wounds of Civil War.' — X. The Relative Value of these 
 Four Authors . 534 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MARLOWE. 
 
 I. The Life of Marlowe— Catalogue of his Works.— II. The Father 
 of English Dramatic Poetry— He Fixes the Romantic Type — 
 Adopts the Popular Dramatic Form, the Blank Verse Metre of 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 the Scholars — He Transfigures both Form and Metre — His 
 Consciousness of His Vocation. — III. The History of Blank Verse 
 in England — Italian Precedent — Marlowe's Predecessors — 
 Modern and Classical Metrical Systems — Quantity and Accent 
 — The Licentiate Iambic — Gascoigne's Critique — Marlowe's 
 Innovations in Blank Verse — Pause — Emphasis — Rhetoric a Key" 
 to good Blank Verse — The Variety of Marlowe's Metre. — IV. 
 His Transfiguration of Tragedy — The Immediate Effect of his 
 Improvements — He marks an Epoch in the Drama. — V. Colos- 
 sal Scale of Marlowe's Works — Dramatisation of Ideals — Defect 
 of Humour — No Female Characters. — VI. Marlowe's Leading 
 Motive — The Impossible Amour — The Love of the Impossible 
 portrayed in the Guise — In Tamburlaine — In Faustus — In 
 Mortimer — Impossible Beauty — What would Marlowe have made 
 of ' Tannhauser ' ? — Barabas — The Apotheosis of Avarice. — VII. 
 The Poet and Dramatist inseparable in Marlowe — Character of 
 Tamburlaine. — VIII. The German Faustiad — Its Northern Cha- 
 racter — Psychological Analysis in ' Doctor Faustus' — The Teu- 
 tonic Sceptic — Forbidden Knowledge and Power — Grim Justice 
 —Faustus and Mephistophilis — The Last Hour of Faustus — 
 Autobiographical Elements in ' Doctor Faustus.' — IX. ' The Jew 
 of Malta ' — Shylock — Spanish Source of the Story — An Episode 
 of Spanish Humour — Acting Qualities of Marlowe's Plays.— X. 
 'Edward II.'— Shakspere and Marlowe in the Chronicle Play — 
 Variety of Characters — Dialogue — The Opening of this Play — 
 Gaveston— Edward's Last Hours.— XI. ' The Massacre at Paris' 
 —Its Unfinished or Mangled Text— Tragedy of ' Dido '—Hyper- 
 bolical Ornament— Romantic and Classic Art.— XII. Marlowe 
 greater as a Poet than a Dramatist— His Reputation with Con- 
 temporaries . . . ... ... 581 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 I. Method of Inquiry — Chronological Limits — Unity of the Subject. — 
 II. Three Stages in Evolution of the Drama — Stage of Preparation 
 and Formation — Closed by Marlowe — Stage of perfectly developed 
 Type — Character of Shakspere's Art — Jonson and Fletcher — Stage of 
 Gradual Decline. — III. The Law of Artistic Evolution — Illustrations 
 from Gothic Architecture, Greek Drama, Italian Painting. — IV. The 
 Problem for Criticism — In Biography — In History — Shakspere 
 personifies English Genius in his Century — Criticism has to demon- 
 strate this. — V. Chronology is scarcely helpful — Complexity of the 
 Subject — Imperfection of our Drama as a Work of Art — Abundance 
 of Materials for Studying all Three Stages — Unique Richness of our 
 Dramatic Literature. — VI. Shakspere's Relation to his Age — To 
 his Predecessors — To his Successors.— VII. Double Direction of 
 English Literary Art — Jonson, Milton, Dryden, Pope — Spirit of the 
 Elizabethan Epoch. — VIII. The EHzabethan Inspiration is ex- 
 hausted in the Reign of Charles I. — Dramatists of the Restoration 
 — Rise of the Novel — Place of Novelists in the Victorian Age. 
 
 I. 
 
 In attempting a survey of one of the great periods 
 of literary history, the critic is met with a problem, 
 upon his conception and solution of which will depend 
 both method and distribution of material. This initial 
 difficulty may be stated in the form of questions. 
 What central point of view can be adopted ? How 
 
 B 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 shall the order of inquiry be determined ? Do the 
 phenomena to be considered suggest some natural 
 classification ; or must the semblance of a system be 
 introduced by means of artificial manipulation ? 
 
 This difficulty makes itself fully felt in dealing 
 with what we call Elizabethan Drama. The subject 
 is at once one of the largest and the narrowest, of the 
 most simple and the most complex. It ranks among 
 the largest, because it involves a wide and varied 
 survey of human experience ; among the narrowest, 
 because it is confined to a brief space of time and to a 
 single nation ; among the most simple, because the 
 nation which produced that Drama was insulated and 
 independent of foreign interference ; among the most 
 complex, because the English people at that epoch 
 exhibited the whole of its exuberant life together with 
 an important stage of European culture in its theatre. 
 
 Confined within the strictest chronological limits 
 ( 1 580-1 630), the period embraced by such a study 
 does not exceed fifty years. Very little therefore of 
 assistance to the critical method can be expected from 
 the mere observation of development in time. Yet the 
 ruling instinct of the present century demands, and in 
 my opinion demands rightly, some demonstration of 
 a process in the facts collected and presented by a 
 student to the public. It is both unphilosophical and 
 uninteresting to bind up notices, reviews, and criti- 
 cisms of a score or two of dramatists ; as though these 
 writers had sprung, each unaided by the other, into the 
 pale light, of history ; as though they did not acknow- 
 ledge one law, controlling the noblest no less than the 
 meanest ; as though their work, surveyed in its entirety, 
 
METHOD OF INQUIRY. 
 
 were not obedient to some spirit, regulating and deter- 
 mining each portion of the whole. 
 
 We are bound to discover links of connection be- 
 tween man and man, ruling principles by which all 
 were governed, common qualities of national character 
 conspicuous throughout the series, before we have the 
 right to style the result of our studies anything better 
 than a bundle of literary essays. It is even incumbent 
 upon us to do more than this. In spite of narrow 
 chronological limitations, it is our duty to show that 
 the subject we have undertaken has a beginning, a 
 middle,. and_an^ ending _in the category of time, and 
 that the completion of the process was inherent in its 
 earliest, embryohic stages. ~" 
 
 II. 
 
 In the history of the English Drama during the 
 reigns of Elizabeth and James, the conditions which 
 render a well-ordered inquiry possible were suffi- 
 cienriy realised. Whatever method the critic may 
 decide on, this at least he must both recognise and 
 bear in view. He has to deal with a growth of poetry, 
 shooting complete in stem and foliage and blossom, 
 with extraordinary force and exuberant fertility, in a 
 space of time almost unparalleled for brevity. The 
 unity of his subject, the organic interdependence of 
 its several parts, is what he has to keep befor-e his 
 mind. 
 
 Three stages may be marked in the short but 
 vigorous evolution of our dramatic literature. The 
 first and longest is the stage of preparation and of ten- 
 
 B 2 
 
SIiAKSPjSR£'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 tative endeavour. In the second maturity is reached ; 
 the type is fixed by one great master, perfected and 
 presented to the world in unapproachable magnificence 
 by one immeasurably greater. The third is a stage of 
 decadence and dissipation ; the type, brought previously 
 to perfection, suffers from attempts to vary or refine 
 upon it. 
 
 In the first stage we trace the efforts of our 
 national genius to form for itself, instinctively, almost 
 unconsciously, its own peculiar language of expression. 
 Various influences are brought to bear upon the people 
 at this epoch — through the religious conflicts of the 
 Reformation, through the revival of classical learning, 
 in the definition of English nationality against the 
 powers of Spain and Rome, in the contact with Italian 
 culture. England had not fashioned her own forms of 
 art before the literatures of other and widely different 
 races were held up for emulative admiration to our 
 students. There was a danger lest invention should 
 be crushed by imitation at the outset. Pedantic rules, 
 borrowed from Aristotelian commentators and the 
 apes of Seneca, were imposed by learned critics on 
 the playwright. And no sooner had this peril been 
 avoided, than another threatened. It seemed for a 
 moment as though our theatre might be prostituted to 
 purposes of political satire, diverted from its proper 
 function of artistic presentation, and finally suppressed 
 as a seditious engine. Meanwhile, a powerful body in 
 the State, headed by the Puritans, but recruited from 
 all classes of order-loving citizens, regarded the theatre 
 with suspicion and dislike. 
 
 The native genius of the English people, though 
 
THREE STAGES IN THE DRAMA. 
 
 menaced by these divers dangers, was so vigorous, the 
 race itself was so isolated and so full of a robust tem- 
 pestuous vitality, the language was so copious and vivid 
 in its spoken strength, the poetic impiilse was so power- 
 ful, that all efforts to domesticate alien styles, all induce- 
 ments to degrade or scurrilise the theatre, all factious 
 opposition to the will and pleasure of the people, ended 
 in the assimilation of congenial and the rejection of 
 repugnant elements. The style of England, the ex- 
 pression of our race in a specific form of art, grew 
 steadily, instinctively, spontaneously, by evolution from 
 within. 
 
 From this first period, which embraces the Miracles, 
 Moralities, and Interludes, the earliest comedies of com- 
 mon manners, the classical experiments of Sackville and 
 Norton, Hughes, Gascoigne, Edwards, and their satel- 
 lites, the euphuistic phantasies of Lyly, the melodramas 
 of Kyd, Greene, and Peele, together with the first rude 
 history-plays and realistic tragedies of daily life, emerges 
 Marlowe. Marlowe is the dramatist under whose hand 
 the type, as it is destined to endure and triumph, takes 
 form, becomes a thing of power and beauty. Marlowe 
 closes the first, inaugurates the second period. 
 
 Over the second period Shakspere reigns paramount ; 
 perhaps we ought to say, he reigns alone ; although a 
 Titan so robust as Jonson stands at his right hand, 
 with claims to sovereignty, and large scope in the 
 future for the proclamation of his title. We, however, 
 who regard the evolution of the Drama from the 
 vantage-ground of time, see that in Shakspere the art 
 of sixteenth-century England was completed and ac- 
 complished. It had imbibed all elements it needed 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 for its growth ; comic humour, lyrical loveliness, the 
 tragic earnestness and intense reality of English 
 imagination, classical story and Italian romance, the 
 phantasmagoric brilliancy of shows at Court, the gust 
 of fresh life breathed into the spirit of a haughty and 
 heroic nation by the conflicts and the triumphs of a 
 recent past. The point about Shakspere's art is that 
 it is Art, mature, self-conscious, working upon given 
 methods to a single aim. Those methods, the external 
 forms, of Shakspere's drama had been determined for 
 him by his predecessors. That aim, the one aim of true 
 dramatic art, the aim which he alone triumphantly 
 achieved, was the presentation of human character in 
 action. To this artistic end all elements, however 
 various, however wonderfully blent, however used and 
 scattered with the profuse prodigality of an unrivalled 
 genius, are impartially subordinated. In order to illus- 
 trate the single-hearted sincerity of Shakspere as an 
 artist, it is only needful to observe the exclusion of reli- 
 gious comment, of marked political intention, of delibe- 
 rate moralising, from works so full of opportunities for 
 their display, and in an age when the very foundations of 
 opinion had been stirred, when Europe was convulsed 
 with wars and schisms, when speculative philosophy 
 was essaying fresh Icarian flights over the whole range 
 of human experience. True to his vocation, Shakspere 
 never permitted these ferments of the time to distract 
 him from the poet's task, although he found in them a 
 source of intellectual stimulus and moral insight, an 
 atmosphere of mental energy, which makes his plays 
 the school of human nature for all time. 
 
 Shakspere realised the previous efforts of the 
 
THREE STAGES IN THE DRAMA. 
 
 English genius to form a Drama, and perfected the 
 type in his imperishable masterpieces. With him, in 
 the second period, but after a wide interval, we have 
 to rank Ben Jonson, who adapted the classical bias of 
 the earlier stage to England's now developed art, and 
 Fletcher, through whom the romantic motives borrowed 
 from Italian and Spanish sources found new and lumi- 
 nous expression. In the third period we meet a host of 
 valiant playwrights, led by Webster, Ford, Massinger, 
 Shirley: none of them mean men. Yet these are 
 influenced and circumscribed by their commanding pre- 
 decessors ; limited in their resources by the exhaustion 
 of more salient subjects ; incapable of reforming the 
 type upon a different conception of dramatic art ; 
 forced to affect novelty and to stimulate the jaded 
 sensibilities of a sated audience by means of ingenious 
 extravagances, by the invention of strained incidents, 
 by curious combinations, far-sought fables, monstro- 
 sities, and tangled plots. After them the type dies 
 down into inanities and laboured incoherent imitations. 
 
 III. 
 
 This evolution of our Drama through three broadly 
 marked stages follows the law of growth which may be 
 traced in all continuous products of the human spirit. 
 A close parallel is afforded by the familiar periods of 
 medieval architecture ; which in all countries of Europe 
 emerged from Romanesque into Pointed Gothic, the 
 latter style passing through stages of early purity, 
 decorative richness, and efflorescent decadence. Greek 
 dramatic art, obeying the same rule of triple progres- 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 sion, took its origin in religious mysteries and rites 
 of Dionysus ; assumed shape at the hands of Thespis 
 and Susarion, Phrynichus and Gratinus ; received ac- 
 GompHshed form in the master-works of yEschylus, 
 Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes ; broke up into 
 the tragedy of Agathon, Chaeremon, Moschion, the 
 middle Comedy of Plato and Antiphanes, the new 
 Comedy of Menander and Philemon. In dealing with 
 the later stages of the Attic Drama, it is, however, 
 more proper to speak of divergences from the primi- 
 tive stock than of absolute decadence. While we have 
 good reason to believe that Tragedy declined after the 
 age of Agathon, owing to the same cause which led to 
 its decline in England — inability to alter or to vary an 
 established type ; the Comedy of Menander indicated 
 no such exhaustion of the soil, no diminution of creative 
 vigour. It was a new form, corresponding to altered 
 conditions of Greek life ; and in this respect it might 
 be compared to our own Comedy of the Restoration. 
 
 To multiply instances would be superfluous. Yet 
 I am loth to omit the illustration of this law of artistic 
 development, which is furnished by Italian painting. 
 Emerging from Byzantine or Romanesque tradi- 
 tion, painting traverses the stage of Giotto and the 
 Giottesque schools ; produces almost simultaneously 
 in several provinces of Italy the intermediate art of 
 Ghirlandajo and Bellini, of Mantegna and Signorelli, 
 of Lippi and Perugino ; concentrates its force in 
 Raphael, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Correggio, Titian ; 
 then, as though its inner source of life had been ex- 
 hausted, breaks off into extravagance, debility, and 
 facile formalism in the works of Giulio Romano, Perino 
 
LAW OF ARTISTIC EVOLUTION. 
 
 del Vaga, Giorgio Vasari, Pietro da Cortona, the 
 younger Caliari and Robust!, and countless hosts of 
 academical revivalists and imitators. The slovenly and 
 empty performance of those epigoni to the true heroes 
 of Italian painting, in which, however, the tradition 
 of a mighty style yet lingers, may not inaptly be 
 paralleled by the loose and hasty plays of men like 
 Davenant and Crowne, by their dislocated plots and 
 conventional characters, by their blurred and sketchy 
 treatment of old motives, and by the break-down of 
 dramatic blank verse into a chaos of rhythmic in- 
 coherences. 
 
 Reverting once more to Gothic architecture, we 
 notice precisely the same enervation and extravagance, 
 the same facility of execution combined with the same 
 formalism and fatuity, the same straining after novelty 
 through an exhausted method, effects of over-ripeness 
 and irresistible decay, in the flamboyance of French 
 window-traceries, the sprawling casements and splayed 
 ogees of expiring Perpendicular in England. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The critic, whether he be dealing with the English 
 or the Attic Drama, with Gothic Architecture or Italian 
 Painting, has to aim at seizing the essential nature of 
 the product laid before him, at fixing on the culminating 
 point in the development he traces, observing the gra- 
 dual approaches toward maturity, and explaining the 
 inevitable decadence by causes sought for in the matter 
 of his theme. With this in view, the analogy between 
 history and biography, between national genius in one 
 
10 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 of its decisive epochs and individual genius in one of 
 the world's heroes, is not to be contemned, provided 
 we apply it with the freedom of a metaphor. There is 
 nothing good, beautiful, or strong upon our planet, no 
 religion and no empire, no phase of polity or form of 
 art, however the idea of it may survive inviolable in 
 the memory of ages, however its essential truth and 
 spirit may abide beyond the reach of change and time, 
 but in its actual historic manifestation is subject, like a 
 human being, to birth, development, decay, and dis- 
 solution. 
 
 All the flowers of the spring 
 
 Meet to perfume our burying : 
 
 These have but their growing prime ; 
 
 And man does flourish but his time : 
 
 Survey our progress from our birth ; 
 
 We are set, we grow, we turn to earth. 
 
 Such reflections seem trite enough. But they have 
 a point which either the carelessness of the observer or 
 the pride of man is apt to overlook. Why, it is often 
 asked, should such a process of the arts as that displayed 
 in Italy not have continued through further phases and 
 a richer growth ? Why should a State like Venice have 
 decayed ? Why should Ford and Massinger have only 
 led to Davenant and Crowne ? The answer is that each 
 particular polity, each specific form of art, has, like a 
 plant or like a man, its destined evolution from a germ, 
 its given stock of energy, its limited supply of vital 
 force. To unfold and to exhibit its potential faculties, 
 is all that each can do. Granted favouring circumstances 
 and no thwarting influence, it will pass through the 
 phases of adolescence, maturity, and old age. But it 
 cannot alter its type. It has no power at a certain 
 
THE PROBLEM FOR CRITICISM. 
 
 moment of its growth to turn aside and make itself a 
 different thing. It cannot prolong existence on an 
 altered track, or attain to perpetuity by successive 
 metamorphoses. 
 
 Criticism seeks the individuality imprisoned in the 
 germ, exhibited in the growth, exhausted in the season 
 of decline. Critical biography sets itself to find the 
 man himself, what made him operative, what hampered 
 him in action, what, after all the injuries of chance and 
 age, survives of him imperishable in the world of 
 thoughts and things. Critical history seeks the potency 
 of an epoch, of a nation, of an empire, of a faith ; dis- 
 criminates adventitious circumstance ; allows for re- 
 tardation, accident, and partial failure ; discerns efficient 
 factors ; concentrates attention on specific qualities ; 
 traces the germ, the growth, the efflorescence, and the 
 dwindling of a complex organism through the lives which 
 worked instinctively in sympathy for its effectuation. 
 
 What differentiates biography and history in the 
 sphere of criticism is, that the former deals with indi- 
 viduality manifested in a person, the latter with indi- 
 viduality, no less complete although more complicated, 
 in a series and a company of persons. The former 
 aims at demonstrating the unity of one man's work, 
 subject to influences which make or mar it ; the latter 
 exhibits the unity of a work composed of the works of 
 many men, subject to influences wider and more in- 
 tricate which make or mar it. In the one case, criticism 
 has to answer how the man did what he lived to do ; 
 in the other, how those many men contributed to what 
 remains for survey as the single product of their several 
 co-operative lives. 
 
12 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Applying these considerations to the subject of our 
 study, it is not difficult to see that in Shakspere we 
 have the culmination of dramatic art in England. To 
 explain how Shakspere became possible, to show how 
 he articulated what the nation struggled to express, to 
 demonstrate how he necessitated a decline, is the 
 critic's task. The individuality of the Elizabethan 
 Drama is personified in Shakspere ; and such a study 
 as I have undertaken is a contribution toward his better 
 understanding, and through that to a perception of the 
 age and race which he expounded to the world. 
 
 V. 
 
 The succession in time of the stages I have tried 
 to indicate must not be insisted on too harshly. These 
 stages are observable at a distance better than on close 
 inspection. The works by which' we mark them, over- 
 lap and interpenetrate. Phenomena present themselves, 
 defying the strictest systematic treatment, and seeming 
 to contradict well-grounded generalisations. We are 
 dealing with an organism compact of many organisms ; 
 and just as in the intellectual development of a person 
 it often happens that thoughts of middle life precede 
 maturity, while youthful fancies blossom on the verge 
 of age, so here we find a poet of the prime surviving 
 in the decadence, and verses written in the morning of 
 the art anticipating its late afternoon. The rapidity 
 with which the changes in our drama were accom- 
 plished introduces some confusion. We are sometimes 
 at a loss whether to maintain the chronological or the 
 ideal sequence, whether to treat our subject according 
 
THE INTELLECTUAL MILIEU. 13 
 
 to the order of time or according to the laws of artistic 
 structure. Some authors stretch far out beyond their 
 temporal limit toward the coming group ; others lag 
 behind, and by their style perpetuate the past. Another 
 sort seem to stand alone, perplexing classification, re- 
 fusing to take their place in any one of the groups 
 which criticism studies to compose. 
 
 Lastly, like every other product of the modern 
 world, there is nothing simple in the subject. Various 
 forces combined to start the Drama in London. Various 
 influences determined its development. For the English 
 people it embodied a whole European phase of thought 
 and feeling.' It was for them the mirror of the six- 
 teenth century, the compendium of all that the Renais- 
 sance had brought to light. It meant for England the 
 recovery of Greek and Latin culture, the emancipation 
 of the mind from medieval bondage, the emergence of 
 the human spirit in its freedom. It meant newly dis- 
 covered heavens, a larger earth, sail-swept oceans, 
 awakened continents beyond Atlantic seas. It meant 
 the pulse of now ascendant and puissant heart-blood 
 through a people conscious of their unity and strength, 
 the puberty and adolescence of a race which in its 
 manhood was destined to give social freedom to the 
 world. For England the Drama supplied a form com- 
 " mensurate with the great interests and mighty stirrings 
 of that age. Into all these things it poured the spirit of 
 that art which only was our own — the soul of poetry. 
 Sculpture and painting we had none. Music lay yet 
 in the cradle, awaiting the touch of Italy upon her 
 strings, the touch of Germany upon her keys. But 
 poetry, the metaphysic of all arts, was ours. And 
 
14 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 poetry, using the drama for a vehicle, conveyed to 
 EngHsh minds what Italy, great mother of renascent 
 Europe, had with all her arts, with all her industries 
 and sciences, made manifest. On man, as on the proper 
 appanage of English thought, our poets, like a flight of 
 eagles, swooped. Man was their quarry ; and in the 
 sphere of man's mixed nature there is nothing, save its 
 baser parts, its carrion, unportrayed by them. 
 
 Reviewing this unique achievement of our literary 
 genius, the critic is puzzled not only by its complexity, 
 but also by its incompleteness as a work of art. The 
 Drama in England has no Attic purity of outline, no 
 "statuesque definition of form, no unimpeachable per- 
 fection of detail. The total effect of those accumulated 
 plays might be compared to that of a painted window 
 or a piece of tapestry, where the colour and assembled 
 forms convey an ineffaceable impression, but which, 
 when we examine the whole work more closely, seems 
 to consist of hues laid side by side without a har- 
 monising medium. The greatness of the material 
 presented to our study lies less in the parts than in the 
 mass, less in particular achievements than in the spirit 
 which sustains and animates the whole. It is the 
 volume and variety of this dramatic literature, poured 
 forth with almost incoherent volubility by a crowd of 
 poets, jostling together in the storm and stress of an 
 instinctive impulse to express one cardinal conception 
 of their art, each striving, after his own fashion, to 
 grapple with a problem suggested by the temper of 
 their race and age : — it is the multitude of fellow- 
 workers, and the bulk of work produced in concert, 
 that impress the mind ; the unity not of a simple and 
 
rMPERFECTION OF ROMANTIC DRAMA. 15 
 
 coherent thing of beauty, but of an intricate and many- 
 
 membered organism, striving after self-accomplishment, 
 
 and reaching that accomplishment in Shakspere's art, 
 
 which enthrals attention. Our dramatists produced 
 
 very few plays which deserve the name of masterpiece. 
 
 Yet, taken altogether, their works, although so different 
 
 in quality and so uneven in execution, make up one 
 
 vast and monumental edifice. The right point of view, 
 
 therefore, for regarding them, is that from which in 
 
 music we contemplate a symphony or chorus, or in 
 
 painting judge the frescoed decoration of a hall, or in 
 
 philosophy observe the genesis of an idea evolved by 
 
 kindred and competing thinkers, or in architecture 
 
 approach some huge cathedral of the Middle Ages. 
 
 Surveyed in its totality, the Elizabethan Drama is 
 so complex in its animating motives, so imperfect 
 in its details, that it may well seem to defy analysis. 
 And yet it has the internal coherence of a real, 
 a spiritual unity. It furnishes a rare specimen of 
 literary evolution circumscribed within well-defined 
 limits of time and place, confined to the conditions of a 
 single nation at a certain moment of its growth. We 
 are furthermore fortunate in possessing copious remains 
 of its chief monuments illustrative of each successive 
 stage. In spite of the Great Fire, in spite of War- 
 burton's Cook, in spite of the indifference of two 
 succeeding centuries, our stores of plays are abundant 
 and amply representative. Through these we trace the 
 seed sown in the Miracles and Interludes. We watch 
 the root struck and the plant emerging in the fertile 
 soil of the metropolis. We analyse the several ele- 
 ments which it rejected as unnecessary to its growth, 
 
i6 SHAJfCSP£RE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 and those which it assimilated. We pluck the flower 
 and fruitage of its prime. We follow it to its decay, 
 fading, and finally cut off by frost. There is no simi- 
 lar instance of uninterrupted progress in the drama- 
 tic art. Through lack of documentary evidence, the 
 origins of the Athenian Drama are obscure. From the 
 dithyrambic and the Thespian age no remnants have 
 survived. Our knowledge of the playwrights who com- 
 peted with Sophocles is fragmentary and vague. The 
 successors of Euripides owe their shadowy fame to a 
 few dim notices, a poor collection of imperfect extracts. 
 
 VI. 
 
 It is not here the place to treat in detail of those 
 intimate connections which may be traced between the 
 many writers for our theatre. Suffice it to say that 
 Shakspere forms a focus for all the rays of light which 
 had emerged before his time, and that after him these 
 rays were once more decomposed and, scattered over a 
 wide area. Thus at least we may regard the matter 
 from our present point of survey. Yet during Shak- 
 spere's lifetime his predominance was by no means 
 so obvious. To explain the defect of intelligence in 
 Shakspere's contemporaries, to understand why they 
 chose epithets like ' mellifluous,' ' sweet,' and ' gentle,' 
 to describe the author of ' King Lear,' ' Othello,' and 
 ' Troilus and Cressida ; ' why they praised his ' right 
 happy and copious industry' instead of dwelling on 
 his interchange of tragic force and fanciful inventive- 
 ness ; why the misconception of his now acknowledged 
 place in literature extended even to Milton and to 
 
SHAKSPERE AND THE MINOR PLAYWRIGHTS. 17 
 
 Dryden, will remain perliaps for ever impossible to 
 every student of those times. But this intellectual 
 obtuseness is itself instructive, when we regard Shak- 
 spere as the creature, not as the creator, of a widely 
 diffused movement in the spirit of the nation, of which 
 all his contemporaries were dimly conscious. They 
 felt that behind him, as behind themselves, dwelt a 
 motive force superior to all of them. Instead, then, 
 of comparing him, as some have done, to the central 
 orb of a solar system, from whom the planetary 
 bodies take their light, it would be more correct 
 to say that the fire of the age which burns in him 
 so intensely, burned in them also, more dimly, but 
 independently of him. He represents the English 
 dramatic genius in its fullness. The subordinate play- 
 wrights bring into prominence minor qualities and 
 special aspects of that genius. Men like Webster and 
 Heywood, Jonson and Ford, Fletcher and Shirley, have 
 an existence in literature outside Shakspere, and 
 are only in an indirect sense satellites and vassals. 
 Could Shakspere 's works be obliterated from man's 
 memory, they would still sustain the honours of the 
 English stage with decent splendour. Still it is only 
 when Shakspere shines among them, highest, purest, 
 brightest of that brotherhood, that the real radiance 
 of his epoch is discernible — that the real value and 
 meaning of their work become apparent. 
 
 The more we study Shakspere in relation to his 
 predecessors, the more obliged are we to reverse 
 Dryden's famous dictum that he 'found not, but 
 created first the stage.' The fact is, that he found 
 dramatic form already fixed. When he began to work 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 among the London playwrights, the Romantic Drama 
 in its several species — Comedy, Italian Novella, 
 Roman History, English Chronicle, Masque, Domestic 
 Tragedy, Melodrama — had achieved its triumph over 
 the Classical Drama of the scholars. Rhyme had 
 been discarded, and blank verse adopted as the proper 
 vehicle of dramatic expression. Shakspere's greatness 
 consisted in bringing the type established by his pre- 
 decessors to artistic • ripeness, not in creating a new 
 type. It may even be doubted whether Shakspere 
 was born to be a playwright — whether it was not 
 rather circumstance which led him to assume his place 
 as coryphaeus to the choir of dramatists. The defects 
 of the Romantic form were accepted by him with easy 
 acquiescence, nor did he aim at altering that form 
 in any essential particular. He dealt with English 
 Drama as he dealt with the materials of his plays; 
 following an outline traced already, but glorifying each 
 particular of style and matter ; breathing into the clay- 
 figures of a tale his own creator's breath of life, en- 
 larging prescribed incident and vivifying suggested 
 thought with the art of an unrivalled poet-rhetorician, 
 raising the verse invented for him to its highest potency 
 and beauty with inexhaustible resource and tact in- 
 comparable in the use of language. 
 
 At the same time, the more we study Shakspere in 
 his own works, the more do we perceive that his pre- 
 decessors, no less than his successors, exist for him ; 
 that without him English dramatic art would be but 
 second rate ; that he is the keystone of the arch,, the 
 justifier and interpreter of his time's striving impulses. 
 The forms he employs are the forms he found in 
 
SHAKSPERE AND THE MINOR PLAYWRIGHTS. 19 
 
 common usage among his fellow-craftsmen. But his 
 method of employing them is so vastly superior, the 
 quality of his work is so incommensurable by any 
 standard we apply to the best of theirs, that we cannot 
 help regarding the plays of Shakspere as not exactly 
 different in kind, but diverse in inspiration. Without 
 those predecessors, Shakspere would certainly not have 
 been what he is. But having him, we might well afford 
 to lose them. Without those successors, we should still 
 miss much that lay implicit in the art of Shakspere. 
 But having him, we could well dispense with them. 
 His predecessors lead up to him, and help us to 
 explain his method. His successors supplement his 
 work, illustrating the breadth and length and depth 
 and versatility of English poetry in that prolific age. 
 
 It is this twofold point of view from which Shak- 
 spere must be studied in connection with the minor 
 dramatists, which gives them value. It appears that a 
 whole nation laboured in those fifty years' activity to 
 give the world one Shakspere ; but it is no less mani- 
 fest that Shakspere did not stand alone, without sup- 
 port and without lineage. He and his fellow play- 
 wrights are interdependent, mutually illustrative ; and 
 their aggregated performance is the expression of a 
 nation's spirit. 
 
 VII. 
 
 That the English genius for art has followed two 
 directions, appears from the revolution in literature 
 which prevailed from the Restoration to the end of 
 the eighteenth century. Shakspere represents the one 
 type, which preponderated in the reigns of Elizabeth 
 
 c 2 
 
20 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 and the first two Stuarts. Ben Jonson represents 
 the other, less popular during the golden age of the 
 Drama, but destined to assert itself after the Civil 
 Wars. Jonson was a learned, and aimed at being a 
 correct, poet. He formed a conception of poetry as the 
 proper instrument of moral education, to which he 
 gave clear utterance in his prose essays, and which 
 was afterwards advocated by Milton. He taught the 
 propriety of observing rules and precedents in art. 
 Under the dictatorships of Dryden and Pope this sub- 
 ordination of fancy to canons of prescribed taste and 
 sense was accepted as a law. The principles for which 
 Jonson waged his manful but unsuccessful warfare 
 triumphed. The men who adopted those principles 
 and insured their victory were of like calibre and 
 quality with Jonson — Tjtans, as the case has been 
 well put, rather than Olympians. 
 
 The object of these remarks is to point out that the 
 Elizabethan Drama contained within itself, in the work 
 of our second greatest playwright, the germ of a new 
 type of art, which only flourished at a later period. 
 The critic must not neglect the difference between 
 Jonson's method and that of his contemporaries, while 
 at the same time he shows to what extent Jonson sub- 
 mitted to the spirit that controlled his age. What that 
 spirit was, cannot in this place be described. Its analysis 
 may more fitly be reserved for the conclusion of these 
 studies. Yet some broad points can here be briefly 
 indicated. It was a spirit of civil and religious freedom, 
 in the interval between discomfited Romanism and 
 Puritan victory ; a spirit of nationality mature and 
 conscious, perplexed as yet by no deeply reaching 
 
SPIRIT OF ELIZABETHAh DRAMA. 
 
 political discords such as those which later on confused 
 the hierarchy of classes and imperilled the monarchical 
 principle. It was a spirit in which loyalty to the person 
 of the sovereign was at one with the sense of national 
 independence. A powerful grasp on the realities of life 
 was then compatible with romantic fancy and imagina- 
 tive fervour. The solid earth supported the poet ; but 
 while he never quitted this firm standing-ground, he 
 held a wand which at a touch transmuted things of fact 
 into the airy substance of a vision. Contempt for studied 
 purity of style and for the artificial delicacies of senti- 
 ment was combined with extraordinary vigour and 
 vividness in the use of language, running riot often in 
 extravagance and verbose eccentricity, and also with the 
 most sensitive perception of emotional gradations, the 
 most hyperbolical enthusiasms. The moral sense was 
 sound and homely ; insight into character, acute ; apti- 
 tude for observing and portraying psychological pecu- 
 liarities, unrivalled in its elasticity and ease. These 
 are some of the distinctive qualities shared in common 
 by our playwrights. It should also be added that their 
 intolerance of rules, indifference to literary fame, and 
 haste of composition exposed them all, with one or two 
 illustrious exceptions, to artistic incompleteness. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 This chapter in our literature properly closes with 
 the fall of Charles I. from power. The inspiration of 
 Marlowe and Shakspere, the true Elizabethan impulse, 
 had worn itself out. Judging by the latest products of 
 the Caroline age, I cannot resist the belief that even 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 had the Puritans not dealt a death-blow to the stage, 
 that impulse could scarcely have yielded another suc- 
 cession of really vital works. 
 
 After the Restoration, Dryden and Otway, Congreve, 
 Wycherley, Farquhar, and Vanbrugh partly refined 
 upon some comic and tragic motives, suggested by the 
 latest of their predecessors, and partly succeeded in 
 creating a novel style in sympathy with altered social 
 customs. No one will dispute the piquancy of Con- 
 greve's dialogue, the effectiveness of the domestic 
 scenes from town and country life depicted on that 
 glittering theatre. Yet this brilliant group of play- 
 wrights stands apart ; isolated by differences of thought 
 and sentiment, method and language, from their Eliza- 
 bethan predecessors ; hardly less isolated from their few 
 worthy successors of the Georgian age. 
 
 Far more significant than the vamped-up dramas 
 of the eighteenth century are the novels which now 
 take their rise, and which preserve the old dramatic 
 genius of the English in an altered form. Our time, 
 which offers so many parallels to that of Elizabeth, 
 shows its literary character in no point more dis- 
 tinctively than in its cultivation of prose romance. 
 Instead of dramas written to be acted, we have novels 
 written to be read. These are produced in such pro- 
 fusion, with such spontaneous and untutored licence, 
 so various in quality and yet upon the whole so ex- 
 cellent, that the Victorian period vindicates the survival 
 of that dramatic aptitude which glorified the period of 
 Elizabeth. 
 
I/I 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NATION AND THE DRAMA. 
 
 I. The Function of a Great Drama— To be both National and Universal 
 — How that of England fulfilled this — England and the Renaissance 
 — Fifty Years of Mental Activity. — II. Transitional Character of that 
 Age in England. — III. Youthfulness — Turbulence — Marked Person- 
 ality. —IV. The Italians of the Renaissance — Cellini. — V. Dis- 
 tinguishing Characteristics of the English— Superior Moral Qualities 
 — Travelling — Rudeness of Society — The Medley of the Age. — VI. 
 How the Drama represented Society — Determination of the Romantic 
 Species — Its Specific Quality — Materials of Plays — Heywood's Boast. 
 — VII. Imperfections of the Romantic Style. — VIII. Treatment of 
 Character — Violent Changes — Types of Evil — Fantastic Horrors. 
 — IX. Insanity. — X. Meditations upon Death. — XI. Sombre Philo- 
 sophy of Life — Melancholy — Religious Feeling. — XII. Blending of 
 Gay with Grave — Types of Female Character — Boy-Actors. — XIII. 
 Comedy of Life and of Imagination — Shaksperian Comedy — Fletcher's 
 Romantic Comedy and Comedy of Intrigue— Hybrids between 
 Pastoral and Allegory — Farce — Comedy of Manners — Jonson. — XIV. 
 Questions for Criticism. — XV. Three Main Points relating to 
 English Drama.— XVI. National Public— England compared with 
 Italy, France, Spain.— XVII. English Poetry— Mr. M. Arnold on 
 Literatures of Genius and Intelligence — The Inheritors of Elizabethan 
 Poetry.— XVIII. Unimpeded Freedom of Development— Absence 
 of Academies — No Interference from Government — The Dramatic Art 
 considered as a Trade and a Tradition.— XIX. Dramatic Clair- 
 voyance — Insight into Human Nature — Insight into Dramatic Method. 
 —XX. The Morahty of the Elizabethan Drama.— XXI. Its Import- 
 ance in Educating the People— In Stimulating Patriotism— Contrast 
 with the Drama of the Restoration.— XXII. Improvement of the 
 Language— Variety of Styles— -Creation of Blank Verse. — XXIII. 
 History of Opinion on the Drama — De Quincey's Panegyric. 
 
 I. 
 
 At all periods of history the stage has been a mirror 
 of the age and race in which it has arisen. Dramatic 
 poets more than any other artists reproduce the Hfe of 
 
24 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 men around them ; exhibiting their aims, hopes, wishes, 
 aspirations, passions, in an abstract more intensely 
 coloured than the diffuse facts of daily experience. 
 It is the function of all artistic genius to interpret 
 human nature to itself, and to leave in abiding form a 
 record of past ages to posterity ; but more especially of 
 the dramatic genius, which rules for its domain the 
 manners, actions, destinies of men. The result attained 
 by a great drama in those few ages and among those 
 rare races which can boast this highest growth of art, 
 is twofold. On the one hand it shows ' the very age 
 and body of the time his form and pressure;' it is 
 strictly local, national, true to the epoch of its origin. 
 But it is more than this ; it is on the other hand a 
 glass held up to nature, reflecting what is permanent 
 in man beneath the customs and costumes, the creeds 
 and polities, of any age or nation. 
 
 These remarks, though obvious enough, contain a 
 truth Avhich must not be neglected on the threshold of 
 our inquiry in'o the origins of the English Drama. If 
 it be granted that other theatres, the Greek, the Spanish, 
 and the French, each of which embalms for us the 
 spirit of a gre it people at one period of the world's 
 development, are at the same time by their revelation 
 of man's nature permanent and universal, this may be 
 claimed in even a stricter sense for the English. Never 
 since the birth of the dramatic art in Greece has any 
 theatre displayed a genius so local and spontaneously 
 popular, so thoroughly representative of the century in 
 which it sprang to power, so national in tone and 
 character. Yet none has been more universal by right 
 of insight into the essential qualities of human nature, 
 
FUNCTION OF THE DRAMA. 25 
 
 by right of sympathy with every phase of human feel- 
 ing, by right of meditation upon all the problems which 
 have vexed the human spirit ; none is more permanent 
 by right of artistic potency and beauty, accumulated 
 learning, manifold experience, variety of presentation, 
 commanding interest, and inexhaustible fertility of 
 motives. 
 
 We are led to ask how our Drama came to be In 
 this high sense both national and universal ; how our 
 playwrights, working for their age and race, achieved 
 the artistic triumph of presenting to the world an 
 alistract picture of humanity so complex and so per- 
 fect. Questions like these can never be completely 
 aiiswered. There remains always something inscru- 
 table in the spontaneous efforts of a nation finely 
 toi^ched to a fine issue. Yet some considerations will 
 heip us to understand, if not to explain, the problem. 
 And, in the first place, it may be repeated that the 
 intellectual movement, to which we give the name of 
 Reialssance, expressed itself in England mainly through 
 thd Drama. Other races In that era of quickened 
 actUty, when modern man regained the consciousness 
 of lis own strength and goodllness after centuries of 
 meital stagnation and social depression, threw their 
 energies into the plastic, arts and scholarship. The 
 Endlish found a similar outlet for their pent-up forces 
 in lie Drama. The arts and literature of Greece 
 and^Rome had been revealed by Italy to Europe. 
 Hunknism had placed the present once more In a 
 vital lelatlon to the past. The navies of Portugal and 
 Spainhad discovered new continents beyond the ocean ; 
 the mSrchants of Veni<:e and Genoa had explored the 
 
26 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 farthest East. Copernicus had revolutionised astro- 
 nomy, and the telescope was revealing fresh worlds 
 beyond the sun. The Bible had been rescued from 
 the mortmain of the Church ; scholars studied it in the 
 language of its authors, and the people read it in their 
 own tongue. In this rapid development of art, litera- 
 ture, science, and discovery, the English had hitherto 
 taken but little part. But they were ready to reap 
 what other men had sown. Unfatigued by the labours 
 of the pioneer, unsophisticated by the pedantries and 
 sophistries of the schools, in the freshness of their 
 youth and vigour, they surveyed the world unfolded to 
 them. For more than half a century they freely enjoyed 
 the splendour of this spectacle, until the struggle for 
 political and religious liberty replunged them in the 
 hard realities of life. During that eventful period of 
 spiritual disengagement from absorbing cares, the race 
 was fully conscious of its national importance. It had 
 shaken off the shackles of oppressive feudalism, the 
 trammels of ecclesiastical tyranny. It had not yet 
 passed under the Puritan yoke, or felt the encroach- 
 ments of despotic_monarchy. It was justly -prouc of 
 the Virgin Queen, with whose idealised personality the 
 people identified their newly acquired sense of great- 
 ness. During those fortunate years, the nation, which 
 was destined to expend its vigour in civil struggles and 
 constitutional reforms between 1642 and i68g, and 
 then to begin that strenuous career of colonisation and 
 conquest in both hemispheres, devoted its best mental 
 energy to self-expression in one field of literature. 
 The pageant of renascent humanity to which the 
 English were invited by Italians, Spaniards, and 
 
ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 27 
 
 Frenchmen, our predecessors in the arts and studies 
 of two centuries, stimulated the poets of the race to 
 their dramatic triumphs. What in those fifty years 
 they saw with the clairvoyant eyes of artists, the poets 
 wrote. And what they wrote, remains imperishable. 
 It is the portrait of their age, the portrait of an age 
 in which humanity stood self-revealed, a miracle and 
 marvel to its own admiring curiosity. 
 
 II. 
 
 England was in a state of transition when the 
 Drarna came to perfection. That was one of those 
 rare periods when the past and the future are both 
 coloured by imagination, and both shed a glory on the 
 present. The medieval order was in dissolution ; the 
 modern order was in process of formation. Yet the 
 old state of things had not faded from memory and 
 usage ; the new had not assumed despotic sway. Men 
 stood then, as it were, between two dreams — a dream 
 of the past, thronged with sinister and splendid remi- 
 niscences ; a dream of the future, bright with unlimited 
 aspirations and indefinite hopes. Neither the retreat- 
 ing forces of the Middle Ages nor the advancing forces of 
 the modern era pressed upon them with the iron weight 
 of actuality. The brutalities of feudalism had been 
 softened ; but the chivalrous sentiment remained to 
 inspire the Surreys and the Sidneys of a milder epoch 
 — its high enthusiasm and religious zeal, its devotion 
 to women, its ideal of the knightly character, its cheer- 
 ful endurance of hardship, its brave reliance on a 
 righteous cause. The Papacy, after successive revo- 
 
28 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 lutions of opinion, had become odious to the large 
 majority of the nation ; but Protestantism had not yet 
 condensed into a compact body of sectarian doctrines. 
 The best work of our dramatists, so far from reticent, 
 so comprehensive as it is, reveals no theological ortho- 
 doxy, no polemical^ antagonism to dogmatic creeds. 
 The poet, whether he sounds the depths of sceptical 
 despair or soars aloft on wings of aspiration, appeals 
 less to religious principle than to human emotion, to 
 doubts and hopes instinctive in the breast of man. It 
 is as though in this transition state of thought, humanity 
 were left alone, surveying with clear eyes the uni- 
 verse, sustained by its own adolescent fearlessness and 
 strength. The fields, again, of wealth, discovery, and 
 science, over which we plod with measured and 
 methodic footsteps, spread before those men like a 
 fairyland of palaces and groves, teeming with strange 
 adventures, offering rich harvests of heroic deeds. To 
 the New World Raleigh sailed with the courage of a 
 Paladin, the boyishness of Astolf mounted on his hip- 
 pogriff. He little dreamed what unromantic scenes of 
 modern life, what monotonous migrations of innumer- 
 able settlers, he inaugurated on the shores of El 
 Dorado. The Old World was hardly less a land of 
 wonders. When Faustus clasped Helen in a vision ; 
 when Miramont protested : 
 
 Though I can speak no Greek, I love the sound on 't ; 
 It goes so thundering as it conjured devils : 
 
 both characters expressed the spirit of an age when 
 scholarship was a romantic passion. Even the pioneers 
 of science in the seventeenth century were poets. 
 
THE RENAISSANCE. 29 
 
 Bruno compares himself upon his philosophic flight to 
 Icarus. Bacon founds the inductive method upon 
 metaphors — Idola Specus, Vindemia Inductionis. 
 Galileo, to his English contemporaries, is ' the Italian 
 star-wright' 
 
 III. 
 
 The genius of youthfulness, renascent, not new- 
 born, was dominant in that age, Adam stepped forth 
 again in Eden, gazed with bold eyes upon the earth 
 and stars, felt himself master there, plucked fruit from 
 the forbidden tree. But though still young, though 
 ' bright as at creation's day,' this now rejuvenescent 
 Adam had six thousand centuries of conscious life, 
 how many countless centuries of dim unconscious life, 
 behind him ! Not the material world alone, not 
 the world of his unquenchable self alone, not the 
 world of inscrutable futurity alone, but, in addition to 
 all this, a ruinous world of his own works awaiting 
 reconstruction lay around him. The nations moved 
 ' immersed in rich foreshadowings ' of the future, amid 
 the dust of creeds and empires, which crumbled like 
 ' the wrecks of a dissolving dream.' Refreshed with sleep, 
 the giant of the modern age rose up strong to shatter 
 and create. Thought and action were no longer to be 
 fettered. Instead of tradition and prescription, passion 
 and instinct ruled the hour. Every nerve was sensitive 
 to pleasure bordering on pain, and pain that lost itself 
 in ecstasy. Men saw and coveted and grasped at their 
 desire. If they hated, they slew. If they loved and 
 could not win, again they slew. If they climbed to 
 the height of their ambition and fell toppling down. 
 
3° SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 they died with smiles upon their lips like Marlowe's 
 Mortimer.: 
 
 Weep not for Mortimer, 
 That scorns the world, and, as a traveller. 
 Goes to discover countries yet unknown. 
 
 Turbulenqe, not the turbulence of a medieval barony, 
 but the turbulence of artists, lovers, pleasure- seekers, 
 aspirants after pomp and spiritual empire, ruffled the 
 ocean of existence. The characters of men were harshly 
 marked, and separated by abrupt distinctions. They 
 had not been rubbed down by contact and culture into 
 uniformity. Not conformity to established laws of taste, 
 but eccentricity betokening emergence of the inner self, 
 denoted breeding. To adopt foreign fashions, to cut 
 the beard into fantastic shapes, to flourish in parti- 
 coloured garments, to coin new oaths, to affect a style 
 of speech and manner at variance with one's neigh- 
 bours, passed for manliness. Everyone lived in his 
 own humour then, and openly avowed his tastes. You 
 might distinguish the inhabitants of different countries, 
 the artisans of different crafts, the professors of different 
 sciences — the lawyer, the physician, the courtier, or 
 the churchman — by their clothes, their gait, their lan- 
 guage. Instead of curbing passions or concealing 
 appetites, men gloried in their exercise. They veiled 
 nothing which savoured of virility ; and even conver- 
 sation lacked the reserve of decency which civilised 
 society throws over it. 
 
 A^y,uLu^ ^.j4a,kj^ /uUdtlL h^. IK^XU^. /— 
 
 V7 l'c ^~i^^ JUv-L, 
 
PERSONALITY TN THE RENAISSANCE. 31 
 
 IV. 
 
 Benvenuto Cellini, in his autobiography, presents 
 a graphic picture of the times ; and what we know of 
 life in other European countries at that epoch, justifies 
 us in taking that picture as fairly typical. He and the 
 Italians of his century killed their rivals in the streets 
 by day ; they girded on their daggers when they went 
 into a court of justice ; they sickened to the death with 
 disappointed vengeance or unhappy love ; they dragged 
 a faithless mistress by the hair about their rooms ; 
 they murdered an adulterous wife with their own 
 hands, and hired assassins to pursue her paramour ; 
 lying for months in prison, unaccused or uncondemned, 
 in daily dread of poison, they read the Bible and the 
 sermons of Savonarola, and made their dungeons echo 
 with psalm-singing ; they broke their fetters, dropped 
 from castle walls, swam moats and rivers, dreamed 
 that angels had been sent to rescue them ; they carved 
 Madonna and Adonis on the self-same shrine, paying 
 indiscriminate devotion to Ganymede and Aphrodite ; 
 they confused the mythology of Olympus with the 
 mysteries of Sinai and Calvary, the oracles of necro- 
 mancers with the voice of prophets, the authority of 
 pagan poets with the inspiration of Isaiah and S. 
 Paul ; they prayed in one breath for vengeance on 
 their enemies, for favour with the women whom they 
 loved, for succour in their homicidal acts, for Paradise 
 in the life to come ; they flung defiance at popes, and 
 trembled for absolution before a barefoot friar; they 
 watched salamanders playing in flames, saw aureoles 
 
32 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 of light reflected from the'r heads upon the morning 
 dew, turned dross to gold with alchemists, raised 
 spirits in the ruins of deserted amphitheatres ; they 
 passed men dying on the road, and durst not pity 
 them, because a cardinal had left them there to 
 perish ; they took the Sacrament from hands of pre- 
 lates whom they had guarded with drawn swords at 
 doors of infamy and riot. The wildest passions, the 
 grossest superstitions, the most fervent faith, the 
 coldest cynicism, the gravest learning, the darkest 
 lusts, the most delicate sense of beauty, met in the 
 same persons, and were fused into one wayward glit- 
 tering humanity. Ficino, who revealed Plato to 
 Europe, pondered on the occult virtue of amulets. 
 Cardan, a pioneer of physical science, wrote volumes 
 of predictions gathered from the buzzings of a wasp, 
 and died in order to fulfil his horoscope. Bembo, a 
 prince of the Church, warned hopeful scholars against 
 reading the Bible lest they should contaminate their 
 style. Aretino, the byeword of obscenity and im- 
 pudence, penned lives of saints, and won the praise of 
 women like Vittoria Colonna. A pope, to please the 
 Sultan, poisoned a Turkish prince, and was rewarded 
 by the present of Christ's seamless coat. A Duke of 
 Urbino poignarded a cardinal in the streets of Bologna. 
 Alexander VI. regaled his daughter in the Vatican 
 with naked ballets, and dragged the young lord of 
 Faenza, before killing him, through outrages for which 
 there is no language. Every student of Renaissance 
 Italy and France can multiply these instances. It is 
 enough to have suggested how, and with what salience 
 of unmasked appetite, the springs of life were opened 
 
ENGLISH CHARACTERISTICS. 33 
 
 in that age of splendour ; how the most heterogeneous 
 elements of character and the most incongruous motives 
 of action displayed themselves in a carnival medley of 
 intensely vivid life. 
 
 V. 
 
 What distinguished the English at this epoch from 
 the nations of the South was not refinement of manners, 
 sobriety, or self-control. On the contrary, they re- 
 tained an unenviable character for more than common 
 savagery. Cellini speaks of them as questi diavoli — 
 quelle bestie di quegli Inglesi. Erasmus describes the 
 filth of their houses, and the sicknesses engendered in 
 their cities by bad ventilation. What rendered the 
 people superior to Italians and Spaniards was the 
 firmness of their moral fibre, the sweetness of their 
 humanity, a more masculine temper, less vitiated in- 
 stincts and sophisticated intellects, a law-abiding and 
 religious conscience, contempt for treachery and base- 
 ness, intolerance of political or ecclesiastical despotism 
 combined with fervent love of home and country. 
 They were coarse, but not vicious ; pleasure-loving, 
 but not licentious ; violent, but not cruel ; luxurious, 
 but not effeminate. Machiavelli was a name of loath- 
 ing to them. Sidney, Essex, Raleigh, More, and 
 Drake were popular heroes ; and whatever may be 
 thought of these men, they certainly counted no Mar- 
 quis of Pescara, no Duke of Valentino, no Malatesta 
 Baglioni, no Cosimo de' Medici among them. The 
 Southern European type betrayed itself but faindy in 
 politicians like Richard Cromwell and Robert Dudley. 
 
 The English then, as now, were great travellers. 
 
 D 
 
34 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Young men, not merely of the noble classes, visited 
 the South and returned with the arts, accomplishments, 
 and follies of Italian capitals. A frequent theme for 
 satire was the incongruity of fashions displayed in the 
 dress of travelled dandies, their language mixed of all 
 the dialects of Europe, their aptitude for foreign dissi- 
 pations. ' We have robbed Greece of gluttony,' writes 
 Stephen Gosson, ' Italy of wantonness, Spain of pride, 
 France of deceit, and Dutchland of quaffing.' Nash 
 ascribes the notable increase of drunkenness to habits 
 contracted by the soldiers in their Flemish campaigns. 
 Ascham attributes the new-fangled lewdness of the youth 
 to their sojourn in Venice. But these affectations of 
 foreign vices were only a varnish on the surface of society. 
 The core of the nation remained sound and whole- 
 some. Nor was the culture which the English borrowed 
 from less unsophisticated nations, more than superficial. 
 The incidents of Court gossip show how savage was 
 the life beneath. Queen Elizabeth spat, in the presence 
 of her nobles, at a gentleman who had displeased her ; 
 struck Essex on the cheek ; drove Burleigh blubbering 
 from her apartment. Laws in merry England were 
 executed with uncompromising severity. ' Every town- 
 ship had its gallows ; every village its stocks, whipping- 
 post, and pillory. Here and there, heretics were burned 
 upon the market-place; and the block upon Tower 
 Hill was seldom dry. Sir Henry Sidney, sent to quell 
 the Irish rebels, ' put man, woman, and child to the 
 sword,' after reading the Queen's proclamation. His 
 officers balanced the amusements of pillage or ' having 
 some killing,' with a preference for the latter sport 
 when they felt themselves in humour for the chase. 
 
ENGLISH SOCIETY. 35 
 
 Witches and the belief in witches increased ; it was a 
 common village pastime to drown old women in the 
 ponds, or to rack and prick them till they made con- 
 fession of impossible crimes. A coarse freedom pre- 
 vailed in hock-tide festivals and rustic revels. Lords 
 of Misrule led forth their motley train; girls went 
 a-maying with their lovers to the woods at night ; 
 Feasts of Asses and of Fools profaned the sanctuaries ; 
 Christmas perpetuated rites of Woden and of Freya ; 
 harvest brought back the pagan deities of animal 
 enjoyment. Men and women who read Plato, or dis- 
 cussed the elegancies of Petrarch, suffei'ed brutal 
 practical jokes, relished the obscenities of jesters, used 
 the grossest language of the people. Carrying farms 
 and acres on their backs in the shape of costly silks 
 and laces, they lay upon rushes filthy with the vomit of 
 old banquets. Glittering in suits of gilt and jewelled 
 mail, they jostled with town- porters in the stench of 
 the bear-gardens, or the bloody bull-pit. The church 
 itself was not respected. The nave of old S. Paul's 
 became a rendezvous for thieves and prostitutes. Fine 
 gentlemen paid fees for the privilege of clanking up 
 and down its aisles in service-time. Dancers and 
 masquers, crowding from the streets outside in all their 
 frippery, would take the Sacrament and then run out 
 to recommence their revels. Men were Papists and 
 Protestants according to the time of day ; hearing mass 
 in the morning and sermon in the afternoon, and wind- 
 ing up their Sunday with a farce in some inn-yard. 
 It is difficult, even by noting an infinity of such cha- 
 racteristics, to paint the many-coloured incongruities 
 of England at that epoch. Yet in the midst of this 
 
 D 2 
 
36 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 confusion rose cavaliers like Sidney, philosophers like 
 Bacon, poets like Spenser ; men in whom all that is 
 pure, elevated, subtle, tender, strong, wise, delicate 
 and learned in our modern civilisation displayed itself. 
 And the masses of the people were still in harmony 
 with these high strains. They formed the audience 
 of Shakspere. They wept for Desdemona, adored 
 Imogen, listened with Jessica to music in the moon- 
 light at Belmont, wandered with Rosalind through 
 woodland glades of Arden. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Such was the society of which our theatre became 
 the mirror. The splendour and ideal beauty of the 
 world which it presented, in contrast with the semi- 
 barbarism from which society was then emerging, added 
 imaginative charm to scenic pageants, and raised the 
 fancy of the playwrights to the heavens of poetry. 
 This contrast converted dramatic art into a vivid 
 dream, a golden intuition, a glowing anticipation of 
 man's highest possibilities. The poets were Prosperos. 
 In the dark and unpaved streets of London visions 
 came to them of Florence or Verona, bright with 
 palaces and lucid with perpetual sunlight. The ener- 
 getic passions which they found in their own breasts 
 and everywhere among the men around them, attained 
 to tragic grandeur in their imaginations. They trans- 
 lated the crude violence, the fanciful eccentricities, the 
 wayward humours of the day, into animated types; 
 and because they kept touch with human nature, their 
 
THE ROMANTIC DRAMA. 37 
 
 transcripts from the life of their own time are in- 
 destructible. 
 
 The form assumed by the Drama in England was 
 not accidental ; nor was the triumph of the Romantic* 
 over the Classic type of art attained without a vigorous 
 struggle. Scholars at the University and purists at the 
 Court, Sidney by his precepts and Sackville by his 
 practice, the translators of Seneca and the imitators 
 of Italian poets, Ben Jonson's learning and Bacon's - 
 authority, were unable to force upon the genius of 
 the people a style alien to the spirit of the times and 
 of the race. Between the age of Pericles and the 
 sixteenth century of our era, the stream of time had 
 swept mightily and gathered volume, bearing down 
 upon its tide the full development of Greek philo- 
 sophy and Roman law, the rise and fall of Greek and 
 Roman Empires, the birth and progress of Chris- 
 tianity and Islam, the irruption of Teutonic tribes into 
 the community of civilised races, the growth of modern 
 nationalities and modern tongues, the formation and 
 decay of feudalism, the theology of Alexandria, Byzan- 
 tium, and Paris, the theocratic despotism of the Papal 
 See, the intellectual stagnation of the Dark Ages, the 
 mental ferment of the Middle Ages, the revival of 
 scholarship, philosophy, and art in Southern Europe, 
 and, last of all, the revolution which shook Papal Rome 
 and freed the energies of man. How was it possible, 
 after these vital changes in the substance, composition, 
 and direction of the human spirit, that a Drama, repre- 
 sentative of the new world, should be built upon the 
 lines of Greek or Graeco-Roman precedents ? In Italy, 
 under the oppressive weight of humanism, such a revival 
 
38 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 of the antique forms had been attempted — with what 
 feeble results all students of Italian tragedy are well 
 aware.^ The instinct of the English, who were destined 
 \o resuscitate the Drama, rejected that tame formalism. 
 They worked at first without or rule or method. Their 
 earliest efforts were mere gropings, tentative endeavours, 
 studies of untaught craftsmen seeking after style. But 
 they adhered closely to the life before their eyes ; and 
 their ill-digested scenes brought nature piecemeal on 
 the stage. The justice of this method was triumphantly 
 demonstrated by Shakspere ; as the justice of the 
 method of Pisano and Giotto was demonstrated by 
 Michelangelo and Raffaello. Neither Italian painting 
 nor English poetry can be called a silver-age revival 
 of antique art ; because in neither of these products 
 did the modern mind start from imitation, but initiated 
 and completed a new process of its own. 
 
 The Romantic Drama is of necessity deficient in 
 statuesque repose and classic unity of design. It 
 obeys specific laws of vehement activity and wayward 
 beauty ; while the discords and the imperfections of 
 the type are such as only genius of the highest order 
 can reduce to harmony. Aiming at the manifestation 
 of human life as a complex whole, with all its multi- 
 formity of elements impartially considered and pre- 
 sented, our playwrights seized on every salient motive in 
 the sphere of man's experience. They rifled the stores 
 of history and learning with indiscriminate rapacity. 
 The heterogeneous booty of their raids, the ore and 
 dross of their discovery, passed through a furnace in 
 their brains, took form from their invention. In no 
 
 ' See my Renaissance in Italy, vol. v. chap. ii. 
 
MATERIALS USED BY THE PLAYWRIGHTS. 39 
 
 sense can these men be arraigned for plagiarism or 
 for imitation, although they made free use of all that 
 had been published in the past.^ The Renaissance 
 lent them, not its pedantic humanism, but the deep 
 colouring, the pulse of energy, the pomp and pride 
 and passion of its glowing youth. From Italy they 
 drew romance and sensuous beauty — the names of 
 Venice and Amalfi and Verona — the lust of lust, the 
 concentrated malice of that Southern Circe. In Spain 
 they delved a mine of murders, treasons, duels, in- 
 trigues, persecutions, and ancestral guilt. Plutarch 
 taught them deeds of citizens, heroic lives, and civic 
 virtues. The Elegists and Ovid were for them the 
 fountain-head of mythic fables. From sagas of the 
 North and annals of Old England they borrowed the 
 substance of ' King Lear,' ' Bonduca,' ' Hamlet.' From 
 the chronicles of recent history they quarried tragedies 
 of Tudors and Plantagenets. The law-courts gave them 
 motives for domestic drama. The streets and taverns, 
 homes and houses of debauch, in London furnished 
 them with comic scenes. Nor did these materials, in 
 spite of their incongruous variety, confuse the minds 
 which they enriched. Our dramatists inspired with 
 living energy each character of myth, romance, expe- 
 rience, or story. Anachronisms, ignorance, crudulity, 
 abound upon their pages. Criticism had not yet begun 
 its reign. Legend was still mistaken for fact. The 
 
 ' As early as 1580, Stephen Gosson wrote in his Plays Confuted in 
 Five Actions : ' I may boldly say it because I have seen it, that the 
 PalMe of Pleasure, The Golden Ass, The Ethiopian History, Amadis of 
 France, The Round Table, bawdy comedies in Latin, French, Italian, and 
 Spanish, have been thoroughly ransacked to furnish the playhouses in 
 London.' (Roxburgh Library, The English Drama and Stage, p. 188.) 
 
40 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 tale of ' Cymbeline ' seemed to Shakspere almost as 
 historical as that of ' Henry V.' Yet, feeling the reality 
 of life exceedingly, grasping all shapes through which 
 they could express their knowledge of themselves and 
 of the world around them, piercing below the surface to 
 the heart which throbbed within each image of the fancy, 
 they converted all they touched to essential realism. 
 Men and women rose beneath their wand of art from 
 dusty stores of erudition, from mists of faery land and 
 fiction. Hey wood, here as elsewhere, finely conscious 
 of the playwright's function, unfolds a map before us of 
 the ground they traversed, in these lines : 
 
 To give content to this most curious age, 
 
 The gods themselves we 've brought down to the stage, 
 
 And figured them in planets ; made even Hell 
 
 Deliver up the furies, by no spell 
 
 Saving the Muse's rapture. Further we 
 
 Have trafficked by their help : no history 
 
 We 've left unrifled : our pens have been dipped. 
 
 As well in opening each hid manuscript, 
 
 As tracts more vulgar, whether read or sung 
 
 In our domestic or more foreign tongue. 
 
 Of fairy elves, nymphs of the sea and land, 
 
 The lawns and groves, no numter can be scanned 
 
 Which we 've not given feet to ; nay, 't is known 
 
 That when our chronicles have barren grown 
 
 Of story, we have all invention stretched. 
 
 Dived low as to the centre, arid then reached 
 
 Unto the Primum Mobile above, 
 
 Nor scaped things intermediate, for your love. 
 
 A noble boast; and not more nobly boasted than 
 nobly executed ; as they who have surveyed the Eng- 
 lish Drama from Lyly to Ford, will acknowledge. 
 
QUALITY OF THIS DRAMA. 41 
 
 VII. 
 
 The variety of matter handled by the playwrights 
 cannot be said to have affected their principles 
 of treatment. All themes, however diverse, were 
 subjected to the romantic style. The same exu- 
 berance of life, the same vehement passions, the 
 same sacrifice of rule and method to salience of 
 presentation, mark all the products of our stage and 
 give our drama a real unity of tone. In the delinea- 
 tion of character, we find less of feebleness than of 
 extravagance ; in the texture of plots, there is rather 
 superfluity of incident and incoherence of design than 
 languor. The art of that epoch suffered from rapidity 
 of execution, excess of fancy, inventive waywardness. 
 To represent exciting scenes by energetic action, to 
 clothe audacious ideas in vivid language, to imitate 
 the broader aspects of emotion, to quicken the dullest 
 apprehension by violent contrasts and sensational 
 effects, was the aim which authors and actors pursued 
 in common. Nor was the public so critical or so ex- 
 acting as to refine the drama by a demand for careful 
 workmanship. What the playwright hastily concocted, 
 was greedily devoured and soon forgotten. The 
 dramatists employed distinguished talents in pouring 
 forth a dozen plays instead of perfecting one master- 
 piece. The audience amused themselves with 
 
 Indicting and arraigning every day 
 Something they call a play. 
 
 Thus it was only, as it were, by accident, by some 
 
42 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS 
 
 lucky adjustment of a subject to the special ability of 
 a writer, or by the emergence of a genius whose most 
 careless work was masterly, that flawless specimens of 
 the romantic style came into existence. The theatres 
 were open at all seasons, competing with each other for 
 a public bent on novelty. These conditions of the 
 stage in London stimulated the fertility, but spoiled 
 the quality of our drama. The ceremonial festivals at 
 which the Attic poets twice a year produced their 
 studied plays before a cultivated people, encouraged the 
 production of pure monuments of meditated art. The 
 audience of courtiers and academicians for whom 
 Racine and Moliere laboured, tolerated only ripe and 
 polished handiwork. But English stage-wrights lacked 
 these incentives to elaborate performance. Many 
 dramas of their manufacture, though they have the 
 glow of life, the stuff of excellence, must be reckoned 
 among half-achievements. Many must be said to 
 justify Ben Jonson's scornful invective : ' husks, draff 
 to drink and swill ' — 'scraps, out of every dish thrown 
 forth, and raked into the common tub.' The historian 
 of English literature cannot afford, however, to neglect 
 even 'things so prostitute.' Their very multitude 
 impresses the imagination. Their mediocrity helps to 
 explain the rhythm of dramatic art from a Shakspere's 
 transcendent inspiration through the meritorious la- 
 bours of a Massinger, down to the patchwork pieces 
 of collaborating handicraftsmen. And in the sequel I 
 . shall hope to show that though the conditions of the 
 London theatre were adverse to the highest perfection 
 of art, they were helpful to its freedom. 
 
ABSENCE OF STUDIED ART. 43 
 
 VIII. 
 
 In the Romantic Drama, men of the present age are 
 struck by want of artistic modulation and gradation, 
 strangely combined with vigorous conception and 
 masterly reading of the inmost depths of nature. The 
 design of a tragedy is often almost puerile in its sim- 
 plicity. Even Othello falls into lago's trap so stupidly 
 as to refrigerate our feeling. The transitions from 
 good to bad, from vice to virtue, from hate to love, in 
 the same characters are palpably abrupt, almost to our 
 sense impossible. What Goethe calls the Motiviren of 
 a situation was neglected ; but the situation itself was 
 powerfully presented. Bellafront, in Dekker's most 
 celebrated comedy, begins as a bold and beautiful bad 
 woman. Love at first sight alters her whole temper, 
 and she becomes a modest lady. Hipolyto, the man 
 who wrought this change in her, reflecting on her love- 
 liness, turns round, and tempts the very woman whom 
 his earlier persuasions had saved from evil. Under 
 both aspects, each of these characters is drawn with 
 admirable force. They maintain their individuality,, 
 although the motives of these complex moral revolu- 
 tions receive no sufficient development at the artist's 
 hands. Probably Dekker relied upon the sympathies 
 of an audience, themselves capable of passionate con- 
 version ; probably, he felt in his own heart divisions 
 leading to like violent issues. He did not then appeal 
 to such as read his drama at the present day, to 
 scrutinising scholars and critical historians, but to men 
 and women, still more fitted for sudden spiritual trans- 
 
44 ■ SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 formation, still more trembling on the border-line of 
 good and evil, than are the folk for whom Revival 
 Meetings and Salvation Armies shout their choruses 
 and beat their drums in England now. The psycho- 
 logical excitements of to-day are but a feeble reflex 
 from the stirrings of that epoch. We have to measure 
 the operation of that drama, not by our blunted sensi- 
 bilities, but by a far more sensitive, if grosser, instru- 
 ment of taste. The final significance of the whole 
 problem of Elizabethan literature lies in one point ; the 
 people, at that fortunate epoch, vibrated to Shakspere's 
 delicacy, no less than to the rougher touch of men who 
 had in them the crudest substance of Shaksperian art 
 Instead of making the allowances of our ' world- wearied 
 flesh ' and thought-tormented minds for them, we must 
 confess that they threw open souls more fresh to 
 simpler influences. 
 
 Nothing is more common in the plays of Massin- 
 ger and Fletcher than for tyrants to be softened by the 
 beauty of intended victims, for the tenderest strains 
 of chivalrous aflection to flow from lips which utter 
 curses and revilings, for passionate love to take the 
 place of implacable vengeance or brutal cruelty. Are 
 we to say that these reversions from one temper to 
 its opposite are unnatural ? They are unnatural now. 
 Were they unnatural then ? Probably not. The critic 
 therefore must defer to nature as it then existed, nor 
 let his sense of truth be governed by the evidence 
 of nature as it now is moulded, for a moment haply, 
 into forms more firmly set. 
 
 The dramatists were well acquainted with fixed 
 types of character, and used these with a crudity which 
 
CONCEPTION OF CHARACTER. • 45 
 
 seems no less to shock our apprehension of reahty. 
 No sooner have we excused them for sudden and un- 
 explained conversions, than we find ourselves compelled 
 to meet the contrary charge, and defend them from the 
 crime of well-nigh diabolical consistency. They show 
 us bad men stubborn in perversity, whom innocence 
 and beauty and eloquence have no power to charm. 
 Such are Heywood's Tarquin, Fletcher's Rollo. The 
 Flamineo and Bosola of Webster are villains of yet 
 darker dye, ruffians whom only Italy could breed, 
 courtiers refined in arts of wickedness, scholars per- 
 verted by their studies to defiant atheism, high-livers 
 tainted with the basest vices, who, broken in repute, 
 deprived of occupation, sell themselves to great men 
 to subserve their pleasures and accomplish their re- 
 venge. In such men, the very refuse of humanity, 
 there is no faith, no hope, no charity. Some fiend 
 seems to have sat for their portraits. They are help- 
 less in the chains of crime ; their ill-deeds binding 
 them to the bad masters whom they serve, and their 
 seared consciences allowing them to execute with 
 coldness devilish designs. 
 
 In order to explain such personages and to realise 
 their action, it was necessary to exhibit horrors incredi- 
 bly fantastic. Beaumont and Fletcher twice brought 
 the agonies of death by poison on the stage. Webster 
 paints a prince murdered by means of an envenomed 
 helmet, a duchess strangled in her chamber, a sovereign 
 lady poisoned by the kisses given to her husband's 
 portrait. Ford adds the terror of incestuous passion 
 to the death-scene of a sister murdered by a brother's 
 hand. In Massinger's ' Virgin Martyr ' a maiden is 
 
46 SHAKSPERE'S'^PREDECESSORS. 
 
 insulted in her honour and driven to the stake, Mar- 
 ston's Antonio stabs an innocent boy who trusts and 
 loves him. Hoffmann places on his victim's head a 
 crown of red-hot iron. A human sacrifice, a father who 
 kills his son and mutilates himself, a girl whose hands 
 and tongue have been cut off, together with a score or 
 so of murders, are exhibited upon the theatre in ' Titus 
 Andronicus.' It is needless to multiply such details. The 
 grossness of passion in that age, whether displayed in 
 brutal and unbridled lust, or in hate, cruelty, and torture, 
 was more than we can understand. The savagery of 
 human nature moved by spasms ; its settled barba- 
 risms, no less than its revulsions and revolts, are now 
 almost unintelligible. To harmonise and interpret 
 such humanity in a work of sublime art, taxed all the 
 powers of even Shakspere. He did this once with 
 supreme tragic beauty In ' King Lear.' But if the world 
 should rise against ' King Lear,' and cry, ' It is too terri- 
 ble ! ' — would not the world be justified ? 
 
 IX. 
 
 Insanity was a tragic motive, used frequently by 
 the romantic playwrights as an instrument for stirring 
 pity and inspiring dread. To understand it, and to 
 employ it successfully, was, however, given to few. 
 The mad humours depicted in Fletcher's ' Pilgrim ' and 
 in Webster's Masque of Lunatics are fantastic appeals 
 to the vulgar apprehension, rather than scientific studies. 
 But the interspaces between sanity and frenzy, the 
 vacillations of the mind upon a brink of horror, the 
 yieldings of the reason to the fret of passions, have 
 
INSANITY. 47 
 
 been seized with masterly correctness — by Massinger 
 in Sir Giles Overreach, by Fletcher in the love-lunes 
 of ' The Noble Gentleman,' by Ford in Palador's dejec- 
 tion, by Kyd or his coadjutor in crazy Hieronymo, by 
 Marston in Andrugio and the disguised Antonio, and 
 lastly, most effectively, by Webster in his picture of 
 the Duchess. There is nothing more impressive than 
 the consciousness of tottering reason in this lady, out- 
 raged by the company of maniacs and cut-throats. 
 She argues with herself whether she be really mad or 
 
 not : 
 
 that it were possible 
 
 To hold some t^vo days' conference with the dead ! 
 From them I should learn somewhat I am sure 
 
 1 never shall know here. I '11 tell you a miracle : 
 I am not mad yet to my cause of sorrow ; 
 
 The heavens o'er my head seem made of molten brass, 
 
 The earth of flaming sulphur ; yet I am not mad. 
 
 I am acquainted with sad misery, 
 
 As the tanned galley-slave is with his oar : 
 
 Necessity makes me suffer constantly, 
 
 And custom makes it easy. 
 
 Extravagant passions, the love of love, the hate of hate, 
 the spasms of indulged revenge, drive men to the verge 
 of delirium. This state of exaltation, when the whole 
 nature quivers beneath the weight of overpowering re- 
 pulsion or desire, was admirably rendered even by men 
 who could not seize the accent of pronounced insanity. 
 Ferdinand, in the same tragedy by Webster, kills his 
 sister from excess of jealousy and avarice. When he 
 sees her corpse, his fancy, set on flame already by the 
 fury of his hate, becomes a hell, which burns the 
 image of her calm pale forehead, fixed eyes, and 
 womanhood undone in years of beauty, on his reeling 
 
48 StfAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 brain. ' Cover her face : mine eyes dazzle : she died 
 young.' There is no place for repentance in his soul ; 
 he flies from the room a raving and incurable lunatic. 
 Milder and more pathetic forms of distraction, resulting 
 from loss, ill-treatment, slighted love, are handled no 
 less skilfully. The settled melancholy of poor Penthea 
 in Ford's ' Broken Heart' is not less touching than the 
 sorrows of Ophelia. For realistic studies of mad- 
 houses we may go to Middleton and Dekker ; for the 
 lunacy of witchcraft to Rowley ; for the ludicrous as- 
 pects of idiocy to Jonson's Troubleall. To taste the 
 sublime of terror we must turn the pages of ' King 
 Lear,' or watch Lady Macbeth in her somnambulism. 
 It is clear that all the types of mental aberration, from 
 the fixed conditions of dementia and monomania 
 through temporary delirium to crack-brained imbecility, 
 were familiar objects to our dramatists. They formed 
 common and striking ingredients in the rough life of 
 that epoch. 
 
 X. 
 
 Emerging from the Middle Ages, the men of the 
 sixteenth century carried with them a heavy burden of 
 still haunting spiritual horrors. As Queen Elizabeth's 
 Prayer Book was illustrated upon the margin with a 
 Danse Macabre, so these playwrights etched their 
 scenes with sinister imaginings of death. They gazed 
 with dread and fascination on the unfamiliar grave. 
 The other world had for them intense reality ; and 
 they invested it with terrors of various and vivid kinds. 
 Sometimes it is described as a place of solitude 
 
MEDITATIONS ON DEATH. 49 
 
 Of endless parting 
 With all we can call ours, with all our sweetness, 
 With youth, strength, pleasure, people, time, nay reason ! 
 For in the silent grave no conversation. 
 No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers. 
 No careful father's counsel ; nothing 's heard, 
 Nor nothing is, but all oblivion. 
 Dust, and an endless darkness. 
 
 Again, it is peopled with hideous shapes and fiends 
 that plagued the wicked. ' 'T is full of fearful shadows,' 
 says the king in ' Thierry and Theodoret.' Claudio, in 
 his agony, exclaims : 
 
 Ay, but to die and go we know not where ; 
 
 To lie in cold obstruction and to rot ; 
 
 This sensible warm motion to become 
 
 A kneaded clod, and the delighted spirit 
 
 To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 
 
 In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice ; 
 
 To be imprisoned in the viewless winds 
 
 And blown with restless violence about 
 
 The pendent world ; or to be worse than worst 
 
 Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts 
 
 Imagine howling : 't is too horrible ! 
 
 The weariest and most loathed worldly life 
 
 That age, ache, penury and imprisonment 
 
 Can lay on nature, is a paradise 
 
 To what we fear of death. 
 
 Hamlet, meddling with the casuistry of suicide, is still 
 more terror-striking by one simple word : 
 
 To die — to sleep ; — 
 To sleep ! perchance to dream : ay, there 's the rub ; 
 For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, 
 When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
 Must give us pause. 
 
 The medieval preoccupation with the world beyond 
 this world, surviving in the Renaissance, led these 
 
 E 
 
50 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 musicians to play upon the organ-stops of death in 
 plangent minor keys. Instead of dread, they some- 
 times use the tone of weariness : 
 
 All life is but a wandering to find home ; 
 
 When we are gone, we 're there. Happy were man, 
 
 Could here his voyage end ; he should not then 
 
 Answer, how well or ill he steered his soul 
 
 By heaven's or by hell's compass. 
 
 Milder contemplations, when death seems not merely 
 acceptable as an escape from life, but in itself desirable, 
 relieve the sternness of the picture : 
 
 'T is of all sleeps the sweetest : 
 Children begin it to us, strong men seek it. 
 And kings from height of all their painted glory 
 Fall like spent exhalations to this centre. 
 
 Why should the soul of man dread death ? 
 
 These fears 
 Feeling but once the fires of noble thought 
 Fly like the shapes of clouds we form to nothing. 
 
 What, after all, is it to die ? 
 
 'T is less than to be born ; a lasting sleep ; 
 
 A quiet resting from all jealousy ; 
 
 A thing we all pursue ; I know, besides. 
 
 It is but giving over of a game 
 
 That must be lost. 
 
 Memnon, in the ' Mad Lover's Tragedy,' reasoning 
 upon his hopeless passion for the princess, argues thus: 
 
 I do her wrong, much wrong : she 's young and blessed. 
 Sweet as the spring, and as his blossoms tender ; 
 And I a nipping north-wind, my head hung 
 With hails and frosty icicles : are the souls so too 
 When we depart hence, lame, and old, and loveless ? 
 No, sure 't is ever youth there ; time and death 
 Follow our flesh no more ; and that forced opinion 
 That spirits have no sexes, I believe not. 
 
MEDITATIONS ON DEATH. 5i 
 
 Where, asks his friend, may pure love hope for its 
 accompHshment ? 
 
 Below, Siphax, 
 Below us, in the other world, Elysium, 
 Where 's no more dying, no despairing, mourning, 
 Where all desires are full, deserts down-loaden. 
 There, Siphax, there, where loves are ever living. 
 
 In the same strain of exalted feehng, but with a 
 touch of even sweeter pathos, Caratach comforts his 
 little nephew Hengo, at the hour of death. The boy 
 is shuddering on the brink of that dark river : ' Whither 
 must we go when we are dead ? ' 
 
 Why, to the blessedest place, boy ! Ever sweetness 
 
 And happiness dwells there. 
 
 No ill men, 
 
 That live by violence and strong oppression, 
 
 Come thither. 'T is for those the gods love — good ones. 
 
 Webster, contrasting the death of those who die in 
 peace with that of tyrants and bad livers, makes a 
 prince exclaim : 
 
 O thou soft, natural death, that art joint twin 
 To sweetest slumber ! No rough-bearded comet 
 Stares on thy mild departure : the dull owl 
 Beats not against thy casement ; the hoarse wolf 
 Scents not thy carrion ; pity winds thy corse, 
 Whilst horror waits on princes. 
 
 Dekker too, in his most melodious verse, has said : 
 
 An innocent to die ; what is it less 
 
 But to add angels to heaven's happiness ? 
 
 It will be observed that the purely theological note is 
 never sounded in any of these lyrical outpourings on 
 the theme of death. The pagan tone which marks 
 them all, takes strongest pitch, where it is well in 
 
 E 2 
 
52 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 keeping with dramatic character, in the last words of 
 Petronius condemned to suicide by Nero : 
 
 It is indeed the last and end of ills ! 
 
 The gods, before they would let us taste death's joys, 
 
 Placed us i' the toil and sorrows of this world. 
 
 Because we should perceive the amends and thank them. 
 
 Death, the grim knave, but leads you to the door 
 
 Where, entered once, all curious pleasures come 
 
 To meet and welcome you. 
 
 A troop of beauteous ladies, from whose eyes 
 
 Love thousand arrows, thousand graces shoots. 
 
 Puts forth their fair hands to you and invites 
 
 To their green arbours and close-shadowed walks. 
 
 Whence banished is the roughness of our years ! 
 
 Only the west wind blows ; it 's ever spring 
 
 And ever summer. There the laden boughs 
 
 Offer their tempting burdens to your hand, 
 
 Doubtful your eye or taste inviting more. 
 
 There every man his own desires enjoys ; 
 
 Fair Lucrece lies by lusty Tarquin's side, 
 
 And woos him now again to ravish her. 
 
 Nor us, though Roman, Lais will refuse ; 
 
 To Corinth any man may go. . . . 
 
 Mingled with that fair company, shall we 
 
 On banks of violets and of hyacinths 
 
 Of loves devising sit, and gently sport ; 
 
 And all the while melodious music hear. 
 
 And poets' songs that music far exceed. 
 
 The old Anacreon crowned with smiling flowers, 
 
 And amorous Sapho on her Lesbian lute 
 
 Beauty's sweet scars and Cupid's godhead sing. 
 
 After this rapturous foretaste of Elysium, he turns to 
 his friend : 
 
 Hither you must, and leave your purchased houses, 
 Your new-made garden and your black-browed wife. 
 And of the trees thou hast so quaintly set, 
 'Not one but the displeasant cypress shall 
 Go with thee. 
 
PAGAN TONE. 53 
 
 To his mistress : 
 
 Each best day of our life at first doth go, 
 To them succeeds diseased age and woe ; 
 Now die your pleasures, and the days you pray 
 Your rhymes and loves and jests will take away. 
 Therefore, my sweet, yet thou wilt go. with me, 
 And not live here to what thou wouldst not see. 
 
 She not unnaturally shrinks from suicide. Her lover 
 
 urges : 
 
 Yet know you not that any being dead 
 Repented them, and would have lived again ? 
 They then their errors saw and foolish prayers ; 
 But you are blinded in the love of life. 
 Death is but sweet to them that do approach it. 
 To me, as one that taken with Delphic rage, 
 When the divining God his breast doth fill, 
 He sees what others cannot standing by. 
 It seems a beauteous and pleasant thing. 
 
 Nero's meditations upon death, in the same tragedy, 
 conjure up a companion picture of Tartarus : 
 
 O must I die, must now my senses close ? 
 For ever die, and ne'er return again. 
 Never more see the sun, nor heaven, nor earth ? 
 Whither go I ?. What shall I be anon ? 
 What horrid journey wanderest thou, my soul, 
 Under the earth in dark, damp, dusky vaults ? 
 
 Phlegethon and Styx toss their hoarse waves before 
 him ; the Furies shake their whips and twisted snakes : 
 
 And my own furies far more mad than they, 
 
 My mother and those troops of slaughtered friends. 
 
54 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The eternal nature of both happiness and misery, 
 the presence of heaven or hell within, the soul of man, 
 irrespective of creeds and dogmas, were pictured with 
 the force of men who felt the spiritual reality of life 
 keenly. Marlowe makes Faustus ask the devil Mephis- 
 tophilis where hell is : 
 
 Why this is hell, nor am I out of it : 
 Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God, 
 And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, 
 Am not tormented with ten thousand hells 
 In being deprived of everlasting life ? 
 
 Dreadful was the path to death for those who died 
 in sin. Webster's Flamineo cries to his murderous 
 enemies : 
 
 Oh, the way 's dark and horrid ! I cannot see. 
 Shall I have no company ? 
 
 They reply : 
 
 Yes, thy sins 
 Do run before thee, to fetch fire from hell 
 To light thee thither. 
 
 With the same ghastly energy his sister utters a like 
 thought of terror : 
 
 My soul, like to a ship in a black storm. 
 Is driven, I know not whither. 
 
 Yet the dauntless courage and strong nerves of these 
 ' glorious villains ' sustained them to the last : 
 
 We cease to grieve, cease to be fortune's slaves, 
 Yea, cease to die, by dying. 
 
MEDITATIONS ON LIFE. 55 
 
 So they speak, when the game of life has been played 
 out ; and then, like travellers, 
 
 Go to discover countries yet unknown. 
 Ask of such men, what is life ? 
 
 It is a tale told by an idiot, 
 
 Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 
 
 Ask, what are men ? 
 
 We are merely the stars' tennis balls, 
 Struck and banded which way please them. 
 
 To be man 
 Is but to be the exercise of cares 
 In several shapes ; as miseries do grow 
 They alter as men's forms ; but none know how. 
 
 ' The world's a tedious theatre,' says one. Another 
 cries : 
 
 Can man by no means creep out of himself, 
 And leave the slough of viperous grief behind? 
 
 It is a pleasure to collect these utterances on life 
 and death, so pointed and so passionate, so pregnant 
 with deep thought and poignant with heartfelt emotion. 
 It must, however, be remembered, that they are dramatic 
 sayings, put into the lips of scenic personages. To 
 take them as the outcry from their authors ' own expe- 
 rience would be uncritical. Yet the frequency of their 
 occurrence indicates one well-marked quality of our 
 drama. That is the sombre cast of Melancholy, deep 
 Teutonic meditative Melancholy, which drapes it with 
 a tragic pall. When Marston invites his audience to a 
 performance of ' Antonio's Revenge,' he not only relies 
 upon this mood in the spectators, but he paints it with 
 the exultation of one to whom it is familiar and dear. 
 
 
 
S6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Listen to the muffled discords of the opening Hnes, and 
 to the emergence of the spirit-shaking melody ! 
 
 V 
 
 The rawish dank of clumsy winter ramps 
 The fluent summer's vein ; and drizzling sleet 
 Chilleth the wan bleak cheek of the numbed earth ; 
 Whilst snarling gusts nibble the juiceless leaves 
 From the naked shuddering branch, and pills the skin 
 From off the soft and delicate aspects. 
 O now, methinks, a sullen tragic scene 
 Would suit the time with pleasing congruence ! 
 
 Therefore, we proclaim, 
 If any spirit breathes within this round 
 Uncapable of weighty passion — 
 As from his birth being hugged in the arms 
 And nuzzled 'twixt the breasts of happiness — 
 Who winks and shuts his apprehension up 
 From common sense of what men were and are. 
 Who would not know what man must be — let such 
 Hurry amain from our black-visaged shows : 
 We shall affright their eyes. But if a breast 
 Nailed to the earth with grief, if any heart 
 Pierced through with anguish, pant within this ring. 
 If there be any blood whose heat is choked 
 And stifled with true sense of misery, 
 If aught of these strains fill this consort up, 
 They arrive most welcome. 
 
 ' Nothing's so dainty-sweet as lovely Melancholy,' ex- 
 claims Beaumont in the Ode which tells of: 
 
 Folded arms and fixfed eyes, 
 A sigh that piercing mortifies, 
 A look that 's fastened on the ground, 
 A tongue chained up without a sound : 
 Fountain heads and pathless groves. 
 Places which pale passion loves : 
 Moonlight walks where all the fowls 
 Are warmly housed, save bats and owls. 
 
 This habitual Melancholy assumed many shapes. Fan- 
 tastic in Vendice apostrophising his dead lady's skull : 
 
MELANCHOLY. 57 
 
 Does the silkworm expend her yellow labours 
 For thee ? For thee does she undo herself ? . . . 
 Thou mayst lie chaste now ! it were fine, methinks, 
 To have thee seen at revels, forgetful feasts. 
 And unclean brothels. 
 
 Tender in Palador's bewilderment : 
 
 Parthenophil is lost, and I would see him ! 
 For he is like to something I remember 
 A great while since, a long long time ago. 
 
 Exquisite in the Dirge for Chrysostom : 
 
 Sleep, poor youth, sleep in peace, 
 Relieved from love and mortal care ; 
 
 Whilst we, that pine in life's disease. 
 Uncertain-blessed, less happy are. 
 
 Close to this melancholy, is religion. Though rarely 
 
 touched on by our playwrights, the cardinal points of 
 
 Christian doctrine were present to their minds ; and 
 
 when they struck that chord of piety, it was with a 
 
 direct and manly hand : 
 
 The best of men 
 That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer ; 
 A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit '; 
 The first true gentleman that ever breathed. 
 
 This is no conventional portrait of the Founder of our 
 
 faith. Nor are these solemn words, in which an injured 
 
 husband absolves his penitent and dying wife, spoken 
 
 from the lips merely : 
 
 As freely from the low depths of my soul 
 
 As my kedeemer hath forgiven His death, 
 
 I pardon thee. 
 
 Even as I hope for pardon at that day 
 
 When the great Judge of heaven in scarlet sits, 
 
 So be thou pardoned 
 
58 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 XII. 
 
 If the anguish of the world was painted forcibly in 
 all its strength and ugliness by our old dramatists, the 
 beauty and the peace, the calm of quiet places, the 
 loveliness of nature and the dignity of soul which make 
 man's life worth living, were no less faithfully delineated. 
 If they doted upon the grave, spending night-hours in 
 sombre contemplations, they could throw the windows 
 of the heart wide open upon bright May mornings, 
 hear the lark's song, and feel the freshness and the joy 
 of simple things. It was the chief triumph of the 
 Romantic style to make these transitions from grave to 
 gay, from earnest to sprightly, without effort and with- 
 out discord. The multiform existence men enjoy upon 
 this planet received a full reflection in our theatre ; nor 
 was one of its many aspects neglected for another. 
 Those artists verily believed that ' the world's a stage ; ' 
 and they made their art a microcosm of the universe. 
 It was given to all of them, in greater or less degree, 
 to weave the wonder-web of human joys and pains, to 
 sound the depths and search the heights of nature, 
 modulating with unconscious felicity from key to key, 
 blending bright hues and sad in harmony upon their 
 arras-work. Shakspere's pre-eminence consists chiefly in 
 this, that he did supremely well what all were doing. 
 His touch on life was so unerringly true that the most 
 diverse objects took shape and place together naturally 
 in his atmosphere of art ; even as in the full rich sun- 
 light of a summer afternoon the many-moving crowds, 
 
FEMALE CHARACTERS. 5$ 
 
 the river, bridges, buildings, parks, and domes of a great 
 city stand distinct but harmonised. 
 
 No theatre is so rich in countless and contrasted 
 types of womanhood. Shakspere's women have passed 
 into a proverb. But I need not, nay seek not, to draw 
 illustrations from his works. It is rather my object 
 here as elsewhere, to show how the ' star-ypointing 
 pyramid ' on which the sovran poet dwells enthroned, 
 was built by lesser men of like capacity. It has been 
 said that the very names of Fletcher's ladies have 
 a charm : Aspasia, Ordella, Amoret, Evadne, Viola, 
 Euphrasia, Edith, Oriana ; and their characters answer 
 to the music of their names. They are sweet, true, 
 gentle ; enduring all things, believing all things ; patient, 
 meek, strong, innocent, unto the end. His Bonduca 
 marks another type — the Amazon, the Queen, rebellious 
 against Rome. Such women the old playwrights loved ; 
 and they often interwove a thread of virile boldness or 
 bravado with the portraiture. Marston's Sophonisba, the 
 Carthaginian bride, who meets death with a dauntless 
 countenance ; Massinger's Domitia, the Rom.an em- 
 press, wooing an actor to her love in words that savour 
 of habitual command ; Ford's Annabella, guilty in her 
 passion beyond thought or language, but sublime in her 
 endurance of disgrace and death ; Marston's Insatiate 
 Countess ; Dekker's Bellafront, are all of the same 
 stamp, masculine for good or evil, and of indomitable 
 will. The type reaches its climax in Vittoria Corom- 
 bona, whose insolence and intellectual ascendency, 
 when she stands up to defy her judges and confound 
 them with her beauty, blaze still upon us with the 
 splendour of an ominous star. That the same poets 
 
6o SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 could draw the softer lines of female character, is proved 
 by Mellida, by Dorothea, by Isabella, in whom the 
 tenderness of woman mingles with heroic constancy 
 and strength in suffering. Nor was it only from the 
 regions of romance and story that they borrowed types 
 so varied. Contemporary English life supplied them 
 with Alice Arden and Anne Frankford, with Winnifrede 
 and Susan Carter, with Lady Ager and with Mrs. Win- 
 cott — mere names, perhaps, to the majority of those who 
 meet them here ; but women with whose passionate 
 or pathetic histories I may perchance acquaint my 
 readers. 
 
 How could such characters — not to speak of Imogen 
 or Cleopatra, Constance or Katharine — have been re- 
 presented on the English stage ? During the reigns 
 of Elizabeth and James no women acted. Boys were 
 trained to take their parts ; and the youth who played 
 Lady Macbeth or the Duchess of Malfi shaved his 
 beard before he placed the coronet and curls upon his 
 head. Here is indeed a mystery. With all the 
 advantages offered to the modern dramatist by the 
 greatest actresses, it is but rarely that he moulds a 
 perfect woman for the stage. How could Shakspere 
 have committed Desdemona to a boy ? How had 
 Fletcher the heart to shadow forth those half-tones 
 and those evanescent hues in his Aspasia ? 
 
 In consequence, perhaps, of this custom, great 
 coarseness in the treatment of dramatic subjects was 
 allowed. Boys uttered speeches which the English 
 moral sense, even of that age, would scarcely have 
 tolerated in the mouths of women. Much of the 
 obscenity which defiles the comic drama may possibly 
 
BOY-ACTORS. 6i 
 
 be attributed to this practice.^ Yet it is certain that the 
 boy-actors acquired considerable skill in rendering even 
 the finer shades of character. Prince Arthur in ' King 
 John' and-Hengo in 'Bonduca' prove that some even 
 of the male parts assigned to them involved a delicate 
 perception of the subtlest sentiments. Ofter,, oo, when 
 they appeared as women, they assumed a masculine 
 disguise, and carried on a double part with innuendoes, 
 hints, and half-betrayals of their simulated sex. The 
 pages in 'Philaster' and 'The Lover's Melancholy,' 
 Viola in ' Twelfth Night,' and Jonson's ' Silent 
 Woman,' are instances of these epicene characters, 
 which our ancestors delighted to contemplate. ' What 
 an odd double confusion it must have made,' says 
 Charles Lamb, ' to see a boy play a woman playing a 
 man: we cannot disentangle the perplexity without 
 some violence to the imagination.' Yet there is no 
 violence in the presentation. When the boy who 
 played Euphrasia, under the disguise of Bellario, is 
 wounded, and breathes out these words to Philaster — 
 
 My life is not a thing 
 Worthy your noble thoughts ! 't is not a life, 
 'T is but a piece of childhood thrown away ! — 
 
 who but feels the woman speaking ? The poet heard 
 her speak ; and what he heard, he has conveyed to us. 
 
 1 The female actors of Italy and France, where comedy was certainly 
 more grossly indecent, warn us to be cautious on this point. But, taking 
 the greater soundness of English moral feeling into account, I think that 
 the attempt to introduce women into the theatrical profession would 
 probably have ended in an earlier suppression of the stage. 
 
 ^^ K-rp Ll;, ^^^.^-' 
 
62 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 While Tragedy reveals the deeper qualities of an 
 epoch — the essential passions, aspirations, intuitions of a 
 people — Comedy displays the humours, habits, foibles, 
 superficial aspects of society. It is not easy to make 
 an exhaustive classification of the many forms of 
 Comedy exhibited by our Romantic Drama. Yet 
 these may be broadly divided into two main species : 
 Comedies of Life and Comedies of Imagination. The 
 Comedies of Life subdivide into Comedies of Character, 
 exemplified in the best work of Jonson and Massinger ; 
 and Comedies of Manners, abundantly illustrated by all 
 the minor playwrights. Shakspere can hardly be said 
 to have produced a Comedy of Character, in the sense 
 in which we give this name to Jonson's ' Alchemist' or 
 Moliere's ' Tartufe ; ' for though no dramatist peopled 
 the comic stage with a greater number of finely dis- 
 criminated and perfectly realised types of character, yet 
 we cannot say that any of his so-called comedies were 
 written to exemplify a leading moral quality. Nor 
 again, with the single exception of the ' Merry Wives of 
 Windsor,' did he give the world a Comedy of Manners 
 in the strict sense of that phrase. Where Shakspere 
 ruled supreme was, in the Comedy of the Imagination. 
 This, in truth, was his invention ; as it is the rarest and 
 most characteristic flower of the Romantic Drama. 
 
 To call ' The Merchant of Venice,' ' The Tempest,' 
 ' As You Like It,' and ' Measure for Measure ' by the 
 name we give to plays of Terence, Moliere, Jonson, 
 is clearly a mistake in criticism. The Shaksperian 
 
ROMANTIC COMEDY. 63 
 
 Comedies of the Imagination carry us into a world of 
 pure Romance, where men and women move in the 
 ethereal atmosphere of fancy. They have lost none of 
 their reality as human beings. But their vices and 
 their follies exact a milder censure than in actual life ; 
 their actions and their passions have a grace and charm 
 beyond the lot of common mortals. Strictly speaking, 
 the Romantic Tragedy and the Romantic Comedy of 
 Shakspere present the same material, the same philo- 
 sophy, the same conception of existence, under different 
 lights and with a different tone of sympathy.^ How 
 Shakspere meant his Comedies to be interpreted, may 
 be gathered from the induction to ' The Taming of 
 the Shrew,' from the title of ' A Midsummer Night's 
 Dream,' from the magic of Prospero, and from the 
 woodland solitudes of Arden. In these creations he 
 avoids the ordinary ways of social life, chooses fantas- 
 tic fables, or touches tales of Italy with an enchanter's 
 wand. Lyly in his Court Comedies had preceded 
 Shakspere on this path of art, and Fletcher followed 
 him, although at a wide interval. After defining Shak- 
 spere's Comedy as the Comedy of pure Imagination and 
 Romantic incident, in which the master's unrivalled 
 character-drawing was displayed with no less strength, 
 but to less awful purpose, than in his Tragedy ; we may 
 divide the comedies of Fletcher into two main classes, 
 describing the one class by the name of Romantic 
 
 1 Mercutio, for example, in Romeo and Juliet is a comic character, 
 and Angelo in Measure for Measure is deeply tragic. The part of 
 Shylock is a tragic episode within a comedy ; the part of Imogen is hardly 
 less tragic than that of Cordelia, except in the conclusion of the plot. 
 See Professor Ward's History for some excellent critical observations 
 upon this point. 
 
64 SHAJKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Lustspiel, or Play of Fanciful Amusement, the other 
 by that of Romantic Comedy of Intrigue. In the former 
 of these species, represented by ' The Pilgrim,' ' The 
 Sea Voyage,' and ' The Island Princess,' Fletcher 
 handles romantic incident with something of Shak- 
 sperian grace. In the latter, including ' The Wild- 
 Goose Chace,' ' The Spanish Curate,' and ' The 
 Chances,' he follows the French and Spanish manner. 
 The remote scenes in which Fletcher laid the action 
 of his plays, the fluency of thought, fertility of inven- 
 tion, and exquisite poetic ease with which he wrought 
 and carried out his complicated plots, raise both types 
 of comedy above a common level, and give them the 
 right to rank at no immeasurable distance below Shak- 
 spere's. Perusing these light and airy improvisations, 
 our fancy is continually charmed and our attention 
 fascinated. But when we reflect upon their characters, 
 we are forced to regard these men and women as the 
 figures of a pantomime, the creatures of a poet's reverie, 
 who, doing right or wrong, are moved by springs of 
 wayward impulse, and who feel no moral responsibilities 
 like those of daily life. It is just here that Fletcher's 
 inferiority to Shakspere in the Comedy of the Imagina- 
 tion is most strongly felt. While his Romantic Lust- 
 spiel reveals the outward show of things, and plays 
 upon the superficies of human nature, Shakspere's un- 
 folds the very soul of man made magically perfect, and 
 his imagination freed from all impediments to its aerial 
 flight. Sir Thomas Browne has said, ' We are some- 
 what more than ourselves in our sleep ;' and these 
 words might be applied to Shakspere's comedies. 
 There we move in a land of dreams, peopled by shapes 
 
HYBRID COMEDY. 65 
 
 brighter and more beautiful than those of this gross 
 earth, lighted by larger suns that shine through softer 
 air. 
 
 Besides Comedies of Imagination and Romantic 
 Intrigue, the fancy of the minor dramatists ran riot 
 in many other hybrid species. They interwove the 
 Italian Pastoral with classic legend or with transcripts 
 from English rural life, invented graceful allegories like 
 Dekker's ' Fortunatus,' or Day's ' Parliament of Bees,' 
 and adapted motives of the Masque at Court to the 
 legitimate Drama. It would not serve a useful pur- 
 pose to pursue this analysis further. It is enough to 
 indicate how large a part Imagination and Romantic 
 Fancy played in English comic art. 
 
 What is now known as Farce was not a common 
 form of Comedy in the Elizabethan age. The custom 
 of the theatre demanded five-act pieces ; and though 
 many plots are essentially farcical, the method of con- 
 ducting them necessitated by so large a scale of treat- 
 ment, altered their dramatic quality. ' Gammer Gur- 
 ton's Needle' and Ben Jonson's 'Bartholomew Fair' 
 may be mentioned, however, as strictly farcical composi- 
 tions. The ' Silent Woman,' again, is rather a Titanic 
 Farce than a true Comedy of Character or Manners. 
 
 In plays belonging to the Comedy of Manners we 
 gain faithful studies of daily life in London. Their 
 realism makes them valuable ; but the majority are 
 coarse, and not a litde tedious to read. The stock per- 
 sonages resemble those of Latin Comedy-^a jealous 
 husband, a wilful wife, a stupid country squire, a para- 
 site, a humorous serving-man, a supple courtier, a 
 simple girl, an apish Frenchman, a whining Puritan, 
 
 F 
 
66 SHAKSPERE'S PRE:DECESS0RS. 
 
 a woman of the town, a gallant, a swaggering bully, a 
 conceited coxcomb. The playwrights, when engaged 
 upon such pieces, sought success by movement, broad 
 fun, lively dialogue, good-humoured satire, and roughly 
 outlined silhouettes of character. They threw them 
 off' rapidly, and took no care to preserve them for 
 posterity. Marston in his preface to the ' Fawne ' 
 apologises for its publication : ' If any shall wonder 
 why I print a comedy, whose life rests much in the 
 actor's voice, let such know that I cannot avoid pub- 
 lishing.' He here alludes to the booksellers' practice 
 of having plays taken down by shorthand, and so pre- 
 senting them for sale in a pirated and garbled state. 
 Marston makes a similar defence for the ' Malcontent : ' 
 ' Only one thing affects me, to think that scenes 
 invented merely to be spoken should be inforcively 
 published to be read.' So truly did ' the life of these 
 things consist in action,' that passages were often left 
 for the extempore declamation of the actors. Some- 
 times the whole conduct of the piece depended on 
 their powers of improvisation. They were then pro- 
 vided with programmes of the acts and scenes, and of 
 the entrances and exits of the several persons. These 
 programmes received the name of ' Piatt ' or chart, 
 from which we probably derive the word ' plot.' They 
 were hung up on the screen-work of the stage for 
 reference and study. In Italy such outlines of come- 
 dies were called ' Scenario.' 
 
 In reading the ordinary Comedy of Manners, all 
 these circumstances must be taken into consideration. 
 We must remember that the effect of such plays, even 
 where written, depended on the actors, who were 
 
COMEDY OF MANNERS. 67 
 
 trained more strictly to their business then than now. 
 The old custom of maintaining jesters in castles and at 
 Court bred a class of men whose profession it was to 
 entertain an audience with mimicry, ludicrous tricks, 
 and sharp sayings. Continued through centuries, the 
 skill of these jesters reached a high degree of excel- 
 lence, through the tradition of buffoonery established, 
 and through the emulation which impelled each Fool of 
 eminence to surpass his predecessors. The celebrity 
 of Tarleton, Green, Summer, Kempe, and Robert 
 Wilson, proves that the comic playwrights could rely 
 upon an able band of interpreters. It may even be 
 asserted that the popular talents of these jesters 
 proved an obstacle to the development of higher 
 Comedy in England, by accustoming the public taste 
 to jigs and merriments, solo pieces and inventions of 
 the clown, instead of encouraging a demand for 
 seriously studied art. 
 
 Dekker and Massinger, Middleton and Shirley, 
 claim notice among the minor playwrights who digni- 
 fied the Comedy of Manners by solid and thoughtful 
 workmanship. But it was from Jonson that this 
 species received the most masterly handling. His 
 comedies in their way, as truly as those of Shakspere, 
 are the productions of indubitable and peculiar genius. 
 He never wrote at random. He never sought to 
 please the populace by exhibitions of mere shallow 
 merriment ; nor did he always succeed in riveting their 
 attention by the ponderous stage-antics of his ' learned 
 sock.' Those who would not worship his Muse were 
 treated by him with contempt. He pursued his own 
 
68 SHAtiSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 designs, penning satiric dramas on his fellow-craftsmen, 
 
 and pouring scorn upon 
 
 The loathed stage 
 And the more loathsome age, 
 Where pride and impudence in faction knit 
 Usurp the chair of wit. 
 
 Jonson was a moralist and a philosopher, conveying 
 through the medium of his comedy the results of 
 mature studies and of patient inquiries into human 
 nature. The end of poetry, in his opinion, was ' to 
 inform men in the best reason of living ; ' and he wrote 
 systematically, deducing characters from fixed concep- 
 tions of specific attributes, building up plots with all 
 the massive machinery of learning and potent intel- 
 lectual materials at his command. Unlike the poets of 
 Imaginative Comedy, he adhered to scenes of common 
 human experience ; and, deviating from the traditions 
 of the school he had adopted, he portrayed unusual 
 and exaggerated eccentricities (' Volpone ' and ' The 
 Alchemist '), instead of the broader and more general 
 aspects of humanity. Therefore the name of Humour, 
 which recurs so often in his work, may be taken as the 
 keynote to his conception of character. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Criticism has to separate the transient from the 
 permanent ; to attempt at least to estimate the true 
 relations of the subject which it treats. Therefore, in 
 this preliminary survey of Elizabethan Drama, we are 
 led to ask some questions of more general import than 
 those which have as yet concerned us. What were 
 
PERMANENT VALUE OF THE DRAMA. 69 
 
 the causes of its eminent success ? Why did it sink so 
 soon into obhvion ? What formative influence has it 
 exercised over our literature and over that of other 
 nations— the modern German and the recent French, 
 for instance ? What place shall we assign to it among 
 the lastingly important products of the human genius ? 
 In other words : Were these plays, the majority of 
 which seem to most of us so dull and dead now, at 
 any time endowed with life and power over men ? Did 
 they educate the English people, and help to make 
 this nation what it is ? 
 
 These are the weightiest questions belonging to 
 the subject ; more grave than the settling of dates or 
 dubious readings ; less easy to resolve than inquiries 
 into the antiquities of theatres. To some of them I 
 gave a partial answer when I tried to show how our 
 Drama embodied the spirit of the sixteenth century in 
 England ; for if it did this, as undoubtedly it did, then 
 upon this account alone we have to place it on the list 
 of world-important products. Epics that condense suc- 
 cessive epochs for us in monumental poems. Dramas 
 that present the spirit of past periods in a series of 
 lively shadow-pictures, will always rank among the 
 most valuable and permanently interesting achieve- 
 ments of literature. But it is not enough to feel cer- 
 tain that the playwrights worked in close dependence 
 on the spirit of their age, and gave its thoughts and 
 passions utterance. It is not enough to demonstrate 
 their value for students bent on seizing points of local 
 colour, or for historians engaged in penetrating the 
 past workings of the hum.an mind. We want, further, 
 to estimate their capacity for expressing, their influence 
 
70 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 in forming, national character. In order to do this, 
 we must resume some points already partly entertained. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Three things may never be forgotten in the 
 criticism of our Drama. First, it grew up beneath 
 the patronage of the whole nation ; the public to 
 which these playwrights appealed was the English 
 people, from Elizabeth upon the throne down to the 
 lowest ragamuffin of the streets ; in the same wooden 
 theatres met lords and ladies, citizens and prentices, 
 common porters and working men, soldiers, sailors, 
 pickpockets, and country folk. Secondly, the English 
 during the period of its development exhibited no 
 aptitude in any marked degree for any other of the 
 arts. Thirdly, it was hampered in its freedom neither 
 by the scholastic pedantry of literary men, nor by the 
 political or ecclesiastical restraints of Government. 
 These points are so important that I shall enlarge 
 upon each separately. 
 
 XVI, - 
 
 The Drama, more than any other form of art, 
 requires a national public. Unless it live in sympathy 
 with the whole people at a certain moment of inten- 
 sified vitality, it cannot flourish or become more than 
 a merely literary product. That complete sympathy 
 between the playwrights and the nation which existed 
 in England, was wanting in Italy, France, and Spain. 
 Italy had no common sense of nationality, no centre of 
 
THREE MAIN POINTS. 71 
 
 national existence. Each little state worked for its 
 own interests, maintained its own traditions and its 
 own political diplomacy. Among them all, no single 
 Athens, with indubitable intellectual pre-eminence, 
 arose to make a focus for Italian arts and sciences. 
 Florence more nearly fulfilled this part than any other 
 town of the peninsula. But Florence was not an 
 imperial city, like Athens in the age of Pericles ; and 
 Florence had no power to create for Italy that public 
 which is necessary to the full perfection of the Drama. 
 A strong national spirit animated France and Spain. 
 These two countries, next to England, produced the 
 finest dramatic literatures of modern times. Yet in 
 Spain the galling fetters of Court etiquette and of 
 ecclesiastical intolerance checked the evolution of the 
 popular genius ; while in France, between the poet 
 and the people intervened academies and aristocracy. 
 It is not worth our while to speak of Germany. At 
 the close of the last century some German poets strove 
 to found a theatre. But Goethe complained bitterly 
 that the nation had no central point, no brain, no heart, 
 to which he could appeal.^ 
 
 XVII. 
 
 While the artistic energies of Italy were principally 
 employed in giving figurative form to ideas, England 
 had no native or imported art. Architecture had just 
 ceased to exist as an original growth in our island. 
 
 1 For further development of this theme, see the essay on ' Euripides ' 
 in my Studies of Greek Poets, and the chapter on ' Italian Drama' in my 
 
 T^p'nni'vvn^r^ itt TinlM. vol. V. 
 
72 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Instead of seeking plastic expression for their percep- 
 tion of the beautiful, our artists studied poetical form. 
 They laboured to present an image to the mind, and 
 knew not how to captivate the senses. Holbein, our 
 only great naturalised painter, produced little else but 
 portraits. Torrigiano, a second-rate sculptor, visited 
 these barbarous shores to make his fortune, and 
 decamped again. No foreign masters settled here 
 and founded schools ; for the fairest promise could not 
 lure a Florentine beyond Paris ; England was to men 
 of Southern race what Siberia is to us, and Paris 
 like S. Petersburg. Thus the power of the English 
 intellect was driven in upon itself for nutriment. 
 Poets had to find the world of beauty in their 
 thoughts, in the study of mankind, in dreams of the 
 imagination. This gave a human depth and rich 
 intensity to their dramatic writing. It encouraged 
 the playwrights to penetrate the deepest and the 
 subtlest labyrinths of passion, and forced them to 
 express themselves through language, for want of 
 any other medium. But it also impressed a certain 
 homeliness, a well-marked stamp of insularity, upon 
 their work. 
 
 A contemporary critic compares the ' genius ' of 
 the English race with French ' openness of mind and 
 flexibility of intelligence,' defining genius for his pur- 
 pose as ' mainly an affair of energy.' The literature of 
 the Elizabethan age, he tells us, is a ' literature of 
 genius,' complaining of the poverty of its results, and 
 pointing to the power and fecundity of the French 
 ' literature of intelligence ' in the ' great century ' of the 
 Grand Monarque. We may welcome the wholesome 
 
ADEQUACY TO THE NATION. 73 
 
 rebuke to national vanity contained in these remarks ; 
 and may note the circumspection with which Mr. M. 
 Arnold guards himself against doing obvious injustice 
 to the English type of literary excellence.^ Yet there 
 remains the stubborn fact that a ' literature of genius ' 
 is rarer and more luminous, though less imitable and 
 less adapted to average utilities, than a ' literature of 
 intelligence.' The question really is, which sort of 
 literature the world would the more willingly let die, in 
 the comfortable assurance that by industry and self- 
 control it could at any time recover it. Most men, I 
 think, would answer this question by saying that a 
 literature ' of genius,' evolved under conditions so 
 exceptional as that of England in the sixteenth 
 century, is more irrecoverable and less likely to be 
 reproduced, even though more wayward, insular, and 
 incoherent, than a literature of ' openness of mind ; ' 
 and that therefore this literature is quite incalcu- 
 lably more valuable. All nations, including even the 
 English, have recently made considerable progress 
 
 ' It seems to me a critical mistake to call genius ' mainly an affair of 
 energy.' The genius of such a poet as Shakspere implies certainly more 
 creative energy than his critics and admirers have. But we rate this genius 
 so highly as we do for far other qualities ; for finer moral and intellectual 
 penetration than is given to merely energetic personalities, for sensibility 
 to the rarest natural influences, for a diviner intelligence of secrets and a 
 more god-like openness of mind to the world's utmost loveliness than 
 fell to the lot of, for example, Voltaire. It is for these high gifts, not 
 for its energy, that we value the genius of Shakspere. And if we turn to 
 science ; is it for energy that we value Newton or Darwin ? Surely we 
 value Whewell for energy; but Newton or Darwin for exceptionally 
 potent sympathy with truths implicit in things subject to the human mind. 
 Energy, indeed, is needed to pursue these truths to their last hiding- 
 place, and to produce them for the common mind of man. But energy 
 alone is the mere muscle of genius, the thews and sinews of an organism 
 differentiated by its delicacy and its power of divination. 
 
74 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 in the acquisition of a sound prose style, in the 
 vulgarisation of philosophical thought, and in the 
 polite treatment of a variety of useful topics. But 
 which of all the nations has produced a literature of 
 genius ? 
 
 Our Drama remains the monument of peculiar 
 mental power ; eccentric and unequal ; full of poetry 
 and thought, but deficient in neatness and moderation ; 
 with more of matter than of polish, of Pan than of 
 Apollo ; rough where the French is smooth, fiery 
 where the French glitters, rude where the French is 
 elegant ; sublime, imaginative, passionate, where Gallic 
 art is graceful, prosaic, rhetorical, and superficial. 
 
 It would be difficult for an impartial critic to accuse 
 Elizabethan literature of inherent barrenness and poor 
 results. The civil wars, indeed, suspended the aesthe- 
 tical development of Englishmen. A sect averse to 
 arts and letters triumphed, and were followed by a 
 dissolute half-foreign reign. Political and religious 
 interests, more grave than those of art, consigned 
 the dramatists and poets of the sixteenth century 
 to oblivion for a time. A new taste in literature 
 succeeded, ran its course, and dwindled in a century 
 to decadence, after powerfully influencing the develop- 
 ment of English thought and style. But the spirit of 
 the Elizabethan age has revived in this age of Vidtoria. 
 The memory of those poets, like the memory of youth 
 and spring, is now an element of beauty in the mental 
 life of a people too much given to worldly interests. 
 The blossoms, too, of that spring-time of poetry, un- 
 like the pleasures of youth or the flowers of May, are 
 imperishable. 
 
FREEDOM FROM RESTRAINTS. 75 
 
 We need only peruse the Fourth Book of the 
 ' Golden Treasury,' and take mental stock of the four or 
 five great living poets of our race, in order to perceive 
 in how deep and true a sense English poetry, by far 
 the richest, most varied, sweetest, and most powerful 
 vein of poetry in modern Europe, is still sympathetic 
 to the poetry of the sixteenth century. I care to say 
 nothing here about the influence of Elizabethan Eng- 
 lish Literature over the recent Literatures of Germany, 
 France, and other nations. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The English Drama enjoyed singular advantages 
 of freedom from cramping restraints, whether imposed 
 by educated opinion or by a cautious Government. The 
 playwrights and the public were unfastidious and un- 
 critical. While the wits of Italy apologised for making 
 use of their mother tongue, absorbed their energies in 
 scholarship, bowed to the verdict of coteries, and set 
 the height of style in studied imitation of the Romans, 
 our poets wrote 'as love dictates,' consulted no authority 
 but nature, and appealed to no standard but popular 
 approbation. Literature sprang up in England when 
 the labour of restoring the classics had already been 
 achieved, and when the superstitious veneration for 
 antiquity had begun to abate. Men of learning were not 
 the national poets of England, as they were of Italy ; nor 
 did the universities give laws of taste to the people. 
 Our poets were not scholars in the strict sense of that 
 term ; or if scholars, they were renegades from Alma 
 
76 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Mater, preferring London to Oxford or Cambridge, 
 the theatre to the lecture-room, Bandello and Spanish 
 Comedies to Seneca and treatises on the Poetics. 
 There existed no tyrannous Academy, like that before 
 whose verdict Corneille had to bow, when Richelieu 
 condemned the Cid for violating rules of art. 
 
 On the other hand, the dramatists were almost 
 equally unfettered by authority. To~ write what they 
 chose so long as they did not blaspheme against 
 religion, libel the Government, or grossly corrupt public 
 morality, was the privilege secured to them by royal 
 letters patent. This liberty would have been impos- 
 sible in any one of the small jealous states of Italy. 
 It would have been impossible in any country where 
 the Holy Office held sway, or where the Church was 
 independent of the State. 
 
 It might be urged that though exemption from 
 political and ecclesiastical interference was an advan- 
 tage to our theatre, some subordination to learned 
 taste would have been salutary. This argument 
 cannot, however, be maintained in the face of what is 
 known about the influence of academies upon the 
 Drama in Italy and France. Certainly, the form of 
 English plays leaves much to be desired upon the 
 score of art and careful workmanship. But this im- 
 perfection is the defect of a quality so valuable that, 
 while we regret and censure it, we are bound to remain 
 satisfied. The lively irregularities of a Dekker or a 
 Heywood are more acceptable than the lifeless cor- 
 rectness of a Trissino or a Sperone. It was, moreover, 
 from the matrix of this untutored art that jewels like 
 'Hamlet' and 'Vittoria Corombona,' 'The Broken 
 
Technical tradition. 77 
 
 Heart,' and ' The Maid's Tragedy,' emerged in all 
 their conspicuous Justre. 
 
 Great monuments of art must be judged by their 
 own ideal, and not by that of diverse, if no less com- 
 manding, excellence. The men who supplied the 
 London theatres in that age, understood their trade. 
 The art of writing plays was not acquired in the study, 
 but fostered by the intellectual conditions of the time. 
 It grew gradually from small beginnings to great 
 results. Successive masters developed this art, each 
 taking from his predecessors what they had to teach. 
 The playwrights formed a tradition. They acquired 
 technical dexterity in their use of words and rhythms, 
 ornaments of style, and modes of exposition. They 
 learned how to handle subjects dramatically, studied 
 the modes of entrances and exits, rhe introduction of 
 underplots, the heightening of action to a climax, the 
 creation of striking situations for their leading charac- 
 ters. It may be observed that in all branches of 
 intellectual industry, -wherever technical discovery is 
 demanded as a condition of success, a school comes 
 into being. Men of the highest genius have first to 
 practise their art as a handicraft, before they breathe 
 into its forms the breath of their own spiritual life. 
 This was eminently the case with Italian painting. 
 Young artists w^ere articled to Ghirlandajo at Florence, 
 to Perugino at Perugia, to Squarcione at Padua. In 
 the workshops of those masters the pupils learned how 
 to mix colours and compose the ground for fresco, how 
 to strain canvases and prepare surfaces ; they studied 
 design, perspective, drawing from the model ; be- 
 came acquainted with conventional methods of treating 
 
78 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 secular and religious subjects. Something of the 
 same sort was true in the case of our Drama. Play- 
 wrights began life as journey-workmen, doing the odd 
 jobs of a company, or serving an employer like Hens- 
 lowe. In this apprenticeship they grew familiar with 
 the technical elements of their art, and were able to 
 employ these at a later period according to the dic- 
 tates of their own peculiar taste. Thus dramatic 
 composition in the sixteenth century was a trade, but a 
 trade which, like that of Sculpture in Athens, of Paint- 
 ing in Italy, of Music in Germany, allowed men of 
 creative genius to detach themselves from the ranks of 
 creditable handicraftsmen. Shakspere stands, where 
 Michelangelo and Pheidias stand, above all rivals ; 
 but he owed his dexterity to training. Had he been 
 a solitary worker, exploring the rules and methods of 
 dramatic art by study of classical masterpieces and re- 
 flection upon cesthetical treatises, it is inconceivable 
 that his plays would have exhibited that facility of style 
 and that unlimited command of theatrical resources 
 which left his hands at liberty to mould the stuff of 
 human nature into luminous form. Power over the 
 machinery of art and familiarity with technical pro- 
 cesses, which, unless completely mastered, are a hin- 
 drance to inventive genius ; this is what a Shakspere, a 
 Michelangelo, a Pheidias, must ever owe to the labours 
 of predecessors and contemporaries. 
 
 In estimating the Drama as a whole^ we are thus 
 bound to give its just weight to unencumbered free- 
 dom of development ; for this freedom formed, if not 
 a school of playwrights, a tradition of playwriting, 
 which was essentially natural and yet in a strict sense 
 
DRAMATIC CLAIRVO VANCE. 79 
 
 methodical. That much imperfect, crude, untutored 
 work was due to this same freedom, may be conceded ; 
 but this drawback should not be allowed to outweigh 
 so singular advantages. Perhaps the real artistic 
 excellence of that dramatic literature would be made 
 more manifest, if some impartial critic should select the 
 best plays of the period from the rubbish, and present 
 these in one series to the reader. It would then be 
 seen how admirable was the skill displayed by a large 
 number of craftsmen, how various were their sources of 
 inspiration, and yet how remarkable is the unity of 
 tone pervading works so diverse. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 We are led by these observations to consider 
 another point affecting the art of the English drama- 
 tists. During the short period in which they flourished, 
 there prevailed in our island what may be called, for 
 want of an exacter phrase, clairvoyance in dramatic 
 matters. Of all the playwrights of that time, whatever 
 were their feelings, and however they differed in degree 
 of ability, not one but had a special tact, facility and 
 force of touch upon the Drama. Weak, uncertain, and 
 affected in other branches of literature, in satire, epi- 
 gram, complimentary epistle, even narrative, these men 
 showed strength, firmness, and directness when they 
 had to write a scene. To explain this fact would be 
 more difficult than to find parallels and illustrations 
 from other nations and from other ages. The ancient 
 Greeks and the Italians of the Renaissance possessed 
 clairvoyance in the plastic arts. The present age is 
 
8o SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 clairvoyant in science and the application of science 
 to purposes of utility. At each great epoch of the 
 world's history the mind of man has penetrated more 
 deeply than at others into some particular subject, has 
 interrogated Nature in its own way, solving for one 
 period of time intuitively and with ease problems 
 which, before and after, it has been unable with pains 
 to apprehend in that same manner. 
 
 In the days of our dramatic supremacy, the nature 
 of man became in its entirety the subject of representa- 
 tive poetry ; and the apocalypse of man was more com- 
 plete than at any other moment of the world's history, 
 Shakspere and his greater contemporaries reveal human 
 passions, thoughts, aspirations, sentiments, and motives 
 of action with evidence so absolute, with so obvious 
 an absence of any intervenient medium, that the crea- 
 tions even of Sophocles, of Calderon, of Corneille, 
 when compared with these, seem to represent abstract 
 conceptions or animated forms rather than the inner 
 truths of life. 
 
 In order to estimate the force of this dramatic in- 
 sight, we might compare the stories on which our 
 dramatists founded their tragedies with the tragedies 
 themselves — ' Romeo and Juliet' or ' Othello ' with the 
 novels of Da Porto or Cinthio, ' The Duchess of Malfi ' 
 with Bandello's prose, 'Arden of Feversham' with 
 Holinshed's Chronicle. It would then be evident that, 
 taking the mere outline of a plot, they filled this in 
 with human life of poignant intensity, 'piercing' (to 
 use those words of Milton) ' dead things with in- 
 breathed sense.' The tales from which the play- 
 wrights drew their tragedies, contained incident in 
 
INSIGHT INTO HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 plenty but feeble silhouettes of character, enough of 
 rhetoric but no passion of poetry, enough moralising 
 but little of world-wisdom. The dramatists knew how 
 to use the framework, while they changed the spirit of 
 these pieces ; animating them with salient portraiture 
 of men and women studied from the life, adorning 
 them with unpremeditated song, and making them the 
 lesson-books of practical philosophy. 
 
 The clairvoyance of our playwrights enabled them 
 to understand the true nature of their art ; to separate 
 the epic, idyllic, or didactic mode of treatment from the 
 dramatic. They felt that the essential duty of the 
 drama is that it should not moralise, but that it should 
 exhibit character in action. Therefore, they made 
 action the main point ; and it was their incommuni- 
 cable gift, the gift of a great moment, that nothing 
 which they touched was failing in the attribute of active 
 energy. 
 
 Furthermore, this clairvoyance gave them insight 
 into things beyond their own experience. Shakspere 
 painted much that he had never seen ; and it was true 
 to nature. As the skilled anatomist will reconstruct 
 from scattered bones an animal long since extinct, so 
 from one trait of character he reasoned out the complex 
 of a man or woman. He made that man or woman 
 stand before us, not as the embodiment of one selected 
 quality, but as a living and incalculable organism. 
 This power, in a greater or a less degree, was shared by 
 his contemporaries. They owed it to that intuition 
 into human character which was the virtue of their age. 
 Familiar with the idea of man, they never found them- 
 selves at fault when man, the subject of their art, 
 
 G 
 
82 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 appeared before them in an antiquated or a foreign 
 mode. This explains the vivid treatment which all 
 phases of past history received from them. The 
 heroes of Greece and Rome, of the Bible and Norse 
 Sagas, of Chivalrous Romance and Southern Fiction, 
 were equally real in their eyes with men of their own 
 age and kindred ; because they neglected accidental 
 points of difference, and understood what man has 
 been and man must be. 
 
 Whatever material was presented to them for 
 manipulation, the truth at which they aimed was 
 always psychological. A Roman or an Ancient Briton, 
 a Greek or an Italian, was for them simply a man. They 
 cared not to take him upon any other terms. Thus 
 I they divested their art of frivolous preoccupations con- 
 ^Tcerning local colour, costume, upholstery, and all the 
 ^^significances which are apt to intervene between us 
 and the true truth of a past event. If they lack know- 
 ledge of special customs, geographical relations, or 
 political circumstance, their judgments on the passions, 
 aims, duties, and home-instincts of humanity are keen 
 and searching. 
 
 XX. 
 
 This brings me not unnaturally to consider a ques- 
 tion of great moment : What was the moral teaching 
 of our dramatists ? Speaking broadly, we may an- 
 swer — unexceptionable. That is to say, their tone is 
 manly and wholesome ; the moral sense is not offended 
 by doubtful hints, or debilitated by vice made inte- 
 resting — the sentimentalism of. more modern fiction. 
 
MORALITY OF THE DRAMA. 83 
 
 What is bad, is recognised as bad, and receives no 
 extenuation. It cannot, however, be denied that there 
 are exceptions to this healthiness of tone. Some of 
 Fletcher's, Ford's, and Massinger's plays are founded 
 upon subjects radically corrupt ; while the touch of 
 these latter dramatists on questions of conduct and 
 taste is often insecure and casuistical. The student 
 who peruses the whole of Beaumont and Fletcher's 
 works, will hardly recommend them for family reading, 
 and will probably be inclined to feel with Leigh Hunt 
 that he has suffered some outrage to his own sense of 
 right and wrong, of cleanliness and decency. 
 
 It is not needful to observe that almost every play 
 of that epoch contains much that is coarse in senti- 
 ment and gross in language. The comedies, especially, 
 abound in undisguised indelicacy. But, for the most 
 part, these ribald scenes and clownish jokes are ex- 
 crescences upon the piece itself; and though they are 
 justly disagreeable to a modern taste, they convey no 
 lessons of wantonness. If Spungius and Hircius, 
 Rutilio and Annabella, Bellafront and Malefort, were 
 to contend for the prize of impurity with the heroes 
 and heroines of modern French fiction, they would 
 assuredly have small chance of success. 
 
 The theatres of London were the resort of pro- 
 fligate and noisy pe;-sons, causing constant annoyance 
 to their neighbourhoods. Therefore, as will be set 
 forth in a separate essay of this volume, the Corpora- 
 tion resisted their establishment within the City bounds, 
 and reluctantly tolerated them in the suburbs. Puritan 
 divines denounced their teaching from the pulpit ; 
 while a succession of books and pamphlets taxed them 
 
 G 2 
 
SItAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 with corrupting manners. But though it was manifest 
 that playhouses encouraged loose living in the persons 
 who frequented them, and though the social influence 
 of plays upon the youth of London was at least ques- 
 tionable, neither the last Tudor nor the first Stuart 
 attempted to suppress them on this account. Besides 
 enjoying theatrical representations with keen relish 
 herself, Elizabeth seems to have understood their 
 utility as means of popular education. To institute a 
 censorship of plays, to restrain unlicensed companies 
 from acting, to forbid the exercise of this art upon 
 Sundays, to make the use of blasphemous oaths in 
 dramatic compositions penal, and to punish the publica- 
 tion of seditious or scandalous libels, were the utmost 
 measures taken by successive Governments in regulating 
 the morals of the theatre. For the rest, they trusted, 
 not without good reason, to the wholesome instincts of 
 the people, with whom the playwrights lived and wrote 
 in closest sympathy. It was only when the tone of a 
 profligate Court began to make itself felt on the public 
 stage, that a distinct tendency to deterioration became 
 evident. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Whatever view may be taken about the morality 
 of the Elizabethan Drama, one thing is certain. It 
 formed a school of popular instruction, a rallying-point 
 of patriotism. The praises of civil and religious 
 liberty, the celebration of national glories, reached all 
 ears from the theatres. Here the people learned to 
 love their Queen and to hate slavery. .They saw before 
 
PATRIOTISM. 85 
 
 their eyes the deeds of patriots and heroes vividly 
 enacted. They grew familiar with the history of 
 England. The horrors of bad government and civil 
 strife, the baneful influence of Court favourites, the cor- 
 ruptions of a priestly rule and the iniquities of des- 
 potism, were written plainly in large characters for all to 
 read. Poets, orators, and scholars poured forth learn- 
 ing, eloquence, and imagery to express to Englishmen 
 the greatness of their past, the splendour of their 
 destiny. No national epic could have been so potent 
 in the formation of a noble consciousness as those 
 dramatic scenes which reproduced the triumphs of 
 Crecy and Agincourt, the wars of York and Lancaster, 
 the struggle of the Reformation, and the Defeat of the 
 Armada. If the ballad of 'Chevy Chase' stirred Sir 
 Philip Sidney like the blast of a trumpet, how must 
 the dying words of Gaunt have thrilled an English 
 audience ? Rarely did one of our dramatists mention 
 any island without some passionate praise of England. 
 The coldest kindled at this theme : ^ 
 
 Look on England, 
 The Empress of the European isles ; 
 When did she flourish so, as when she was 
 The mistress of the ocean, her navies 
 Putting a girdle round about the world ? 
 When the Iberian quaked, her worthies named ; 
 And the fair flower de luce grew pale, set by 
 The red rose and the white ? 
 
 It was indeed no idle boast of Hey wood's, when he 
 contended that the pageantry of heroism and patriot- 
 ism, displayed before a people on the stage, bred 
 virtue and inflamed the soul to emulation. 
 
 ' Massinger's Maid of Honour. 
 
86 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that the stage exercised 
 wide-reaching influence over the development of 
 Enghsh character at a moment when the nation was 
 susceptible to such impressions. Reading the plays 
 of Marlowe, Shakspere, Jonson, Heywood, Chapman, 
 Dekker, Beaumont, we are fain to cry with Milton : 
 ' Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant 
 nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, 
 and shaking her invincible locks : methinks I see her 
 like an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling 
 her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam ; purging 
 and unsealing her long-abused sight at the fountain 
 itself of heavenly radiance : while the whole noise of 
 timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love 
 the twilight, flutter about amazed at what she means, 
 and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year 
 of sects and schisms.' 
 
 Even the Puritans may have felt grateful to the 
 playhouse when they came to exchange their character 
 of private sanctimoniousness for one of public resist- 
 ance to tyranny. Then they found in the people a 
 nobility of spirit and a deeply rooted zeal for freedom, 
 which had been brought to consciousness in no small 
 measure by the stage. These obligations remained, 
 however, unrecognised ; and perhaps it is even only 
 now that we are beginning to acknowledge them. 
 The Drama had done its work before the Civil Wars 
 began. Its vigour was exhausted ; every day it be- 
 came less pure, more subservient to the pleasures of a 
 luxurious Court. When it revived with Charles II. 
 it had changed its character. The function of the 
 theatre in England had been great and beneficial ; it 
 
INFLUENCE OVER NATIONAL CHARACTER. 87 
 
 had helped to cherish a strong sense of national 
 honour, to popularise the new ideas and liberal culture 
 which permeated Europe ; it had evolved an original 
 and stable type of art, developed the resources of our 
 language, and enriched the world with inexhaustible 
 funds of poetry. Now it was dead, and only the faint 
 shadow of its former self survived. 
 
 Strong were our sires, and as they fought they writ. 
 Conquering with force of arms and dint of wit : 
 Theirs was the giant race before the Flood ; 
 And thus, when Charles returned, our empire stood. 
 Like Janus he the stubborn soil manured. 
 With rules of husbandry the rankness cured ; 
 Tamed us to manners, when the stage was rude ; 
 And boisterous English wit with art indued. 
 Our age was cultivated thus at length ; 
 But what we gained in skill, we lost in strength : 
 Our builders were with want of genius cursed ; 
 The second temple was not like the first. 
 
 Thus wrote Dryden to Congreve on his ' Double 
 Dealer,' mingling false compliment with sound criticism. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 One point, incidentally dropped in the foregoing 
 paragraph, remains for consideration. What are the 
 obligations of the English language to the Drama ? 
 Heywood, in the Apology to which I have already 
 alluded, adduces, among other arguments in favour of 
 the stage, that through its means English had been 
 raised ' from the most rude and unpolished tongue ' to 
 ' a most perfect and composed language.' Each play- 
 wright, he adds, attempted to discover fresh beauties 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 of rhythm and expression, and to leave the dialect 
 more pliable and fertile for his successors. 
 
 During the half-century in which the Drama 
 flourished, English became a language capable of con- 
 veying exquisite, profound, and varied thought. The 
 elements of which it is composed, were fused into one 
 vital whole. And though we dare not attribute this 
 advance to the Drama alone, yet if we compare the 
 poetry of that age with contemporary prose, it will 
 be clear that, while both started nearly on a par, the 
 style of the prosaists declined in perspicuity and 
 rhythm, while that of the playwrights became versatile, 
 melodious, and dignified. Even the prose writing of 
 the stage was among the best then going. Lyly, first 
 of English authors, produced prose of scrupulous refine- 
 ments ; Nash used a prose of incomparable epigram- 
 matic pungency ; while some o£_Shakspere's prose is 
 modern in its clearness. A similar comparison between 
 the verse of the Drama and that of translations from 
 the Latin or of satire and elegy — Phaer's Virgil, 
 Marston's ' Scourge of Villany,' or Donne's epistles 
 for example — will lead to not dissimilar results. The 
 dramatic poetry of the period is superior to all but its 
 lyrics.^ 
 
 It is not difficult to understand why this should be. 
 The capabilities of the English language were exer- 
 cised in every department by dramatic composition. 
 For the purposes of conversation. It had to assume 
 epigrammatic terseness. In description of scenery, 
 
 1 These remarks must of course be taken in a general sense. It 
 would be easy to adduce Sidney's Defence of Poetry as an example of pure 
 prose, Fairfax's Tasso as a specimen of pure translation, and the Faery 
 Queen as a masterpiece of lucid narrative in verse. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH. 89 
 
 and in the eloquent outpouring of passion, it suggested 
 pictures to the mind and clothed gradations of emotion 
 with appropriate words. At one time the sustained 
 periods of oratory were needed ; at another, the swiftest 
 and most airy play of fancy had to be conveyed in 
 passages of lyric lightness. Different characters de- 
 manded different tones of diction, yet every utterance 
 conformed to uniformity of style and rhythm. Through- 
 out all changes, the writer was obliged to remain clear 
 and intelligible to his audience. 
 
 In handling the language of the theatre, each author 
 developed some specific quality. The fluent grace of 
 Heywood, the sweet sentiment of Dekker, Marston's 
 pregnant sentences, the dream -like charm of Fletcher's 
 melody, Marlowe's mighty line, Webster's sombreness 
 of pathos and heart-quaking bursts of rage, Jonson's 
 gravity, Massinger's smooth-sliding eloquence. Ford's 
 adamantine declamation, and the style of Shakspere, 
 which embraces all — as some great organ holds all 
 instruments within its many stops — these remain as 
 monuments of composition for succeeding ages. Who 
 shall estimate what benefits those men conferred upon 
 the English speech ? Our ancestors accustomed their 
 ears to that variety of music, impregnated their in- 
 tellects with all those divers modes of thought. Be- 
 sides, the vocabulary was nearly doubled. Shakspere 
 is said to have some 15,000, while the Old Testament 
 contains under 6,000 words. The dramatists collected 
 floating idioms, together with the technical phraseology 
 of trades and professions, the learned nomenclature of 
 the schools, the racy proverbs of the country, the cere- 
 monious expressions of the Court and Council-chamber, 
 
90 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 and gave them all a place in literature. Instead of 
 being satisfied with the meagre and artificial diction of 
 the Popkn age, we may now return to those ' pure wells 
 of English undefiled,' and from their inexhaustible 
 springs refresh our language when it seems to fail. 
 
 Nor must it finally be forgotten that the Drama, 
 in its effort after self-emancipation, created the great 
 pride of English poetry — blank verse. Further occa- 
 sion will be granted me for dwelling upon this point 
 in detail. It is enough here to remark that when 
 Milton used blank verse for the Epic, he received it 
 from the Drama, and that the blank verse of the present 
 century is consciously affiliated to that of the Eliza- 
 bethan age. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 To conclude a panegyric, rather than criticism, of 
 the English Drama, it would be well to give some 
 history of opinion regarding so great a treasure of our 
 literature during the past three centuries. 
 
 Not very long ago Shakspere himself was half- 
 forgotten. By degrees admirers disinterred his plays, 
 and wrote of him as though he had been born like 
 Pallas from the brain of Jupiter. Garrick reformed, 
 and acted some of his chief parts. Johnson paid surly 
 homage to his genius ; but of Shakspere's contem- 
 poraries this critic said that ' they were sought after 
 because they were scarce, and would not have been 
 scarce had they been much esteemed.' Malone and 
 Steevens, about the same time, made it known that 
 other playwrights of great merit flourished with Shak- 
 spere in the days of his pre-eminence. The book- 
 
HISTORY OF CRITICISM. 91 
 
 seller, Dodsley, published twelve volumes of old plays. 
 Gifford spent pains upon the text of some of them, and 
 Scott used their defunct reputation for a mask to 
 headings of his chapters. They became the shibboleth 
 of a coterie. Coleridge and Hazlitt lectured on them. 
 Charles Lamb made selections, which he enriched with 
 notes of purest gold of criticism. The ' Retrospective 
 Review ' printed meritorious notices of the more obscure 
 authors. After those early days, Alexander Dyce, 
 Hartley Coleridge, J. O. Halliwell, Thomas Wright, 
 and many others, began to edit the scattered works of. 
 eminent dramatists with antiquarian zeal and critical 
 ability; while J. P. Collier illustrated by his industry 
 and learning the theatrical annals of the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries. Continuing this pious tradition, a 
 host of eloquent and genial writers have risen to vindi- 
 cate the honours of that Drama in our times. I have 
 attempted in the preface to this volume to recognise 
 the luminous and solid labours of contemporary scholars 
 in this field. It cannot now be said that the English 
 Drama has not received its due meed of attention 
 from literary men. But it may still be said that it is 
 not sufficiently known to the reading public. 
 
 For the close of this exordium and prelude to more 
 detailed studies, I will borrow words from a prose 
 writer in whom the spirit of old English rhetoric lived 
 again with singular ^nd torrid splendour. De Quincey 
 writes about our Drama : ' No literature, not excepting 
 even that of Athens, has ever presented such a mul- 
 tiform theatre, such a carnival display, mask and 
 antimask, of impassioned life — breathing, moving, 
 acting, suffering, laughing : 
 
92 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Quicquid agunt homines : votum, timor, ira, voluptas, 
 Gaudia, discursus : 
 
 All this, but far more truly and more adequately than 
 was or could be effected in that field of composition 
 which the gloomy satirist contemplated, whatsoever in 
 fact our medieval ancestors exhibited in the " Dance of 
 Death," drunk with tears and laughter, may here be 
 reviewed, scenically draped, and gorgeously coloured. 
 What other national Drama can pretend to any com- 
 petition with this ? ' 
 
93 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MIRACLE PLAYS. 
 
 L Emergence of the Drama from the Mystery — Ecclesiastical Con- 
 demnation of Theatres and Players — Obscure Survival of Mimes 
 from Pagan Times — Their Place in Medieval Society. — II. 
 Hroswitha — Liturgical Drama. — III. Transition to the Mystery or 
 Miracle Play — Ludi — Italian Sacre Rappresentazioni — Spanish Auto 
 — French Afj/j^^re— English Miracle. — IV. Passage of the Miracle 
 from the Clergy to the People — From Latin to the Vulgar Tongue — 
 Gradual Emergence of Secular Drama. — V. Three English Cycles 
 — Origin of the Chester Plays— Of the Coventry Plays — Differences 
 between the Three Sets — Other Places famous for Sacred Plays. — 
 VI. Methods of Representation — Pageant — Procession — Italian, 
 French, and Spanish Peculiarities — The Guilds — Cost of the Show — 
 Concourse of People — Stage Effects and Properties. — VII. Relation 
 of the Miracle to Medieval Art — Materialistic Realism — Place in the 
 Cathedral — Effect upon the Audience. — VIII. Dramatic Elements 
 in the Miracles — Tragedy — Pathos — Melodrama — Herod and the 
 Devil. — IX. Realistic Comedy — Joseph— Noah's Wife — The Nativity 
 — Pastoral Interludes. — X. Transcripts from Common Life — Satire 
 — The Woman Taken in Adultery — Mixture of the Sacred and the 
 Grotesque. — XI. The Art of the Miracles and the Art of Italian 
 Sacri Monti. 
 
 N.B. — The text of the Widkirk or Towneley Miracles will be found 
 in the Surtees Society's Publications, 1836. That of the Coventry and 
 Chester Plays in the Old Shakespeare Society's Publications, 1841, 1843. 
 
 I. 
 
 The gradual emergence of our national Drama from 
 the Miracle, the Morality, and the Interlude has been 
 clearly defined and often described. I do not now 
 propose to attempt a learned discussion of this process. 
 That has been ably done already by Markland, Sharp, 
 Wright, Collier, and others, whose labours have been 
 
54 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 briefly condensed by Ward in his History. But, as a 
 preface to any criticism on the English Drama, some 
 notice must be taken of those medieval forms of art 
 which are no less important in their bearings upon the 
 accomplished work of Shakspere's age than are the 
 Romanesque mosaics or the sculpture of the Pisan 
 school upon the mature products of the Italian Re- 
 naissance. Art, like Nature, takes no sudden leaps, 
 nihil agit per saltum; and the connection between the 
 Miracles and Shakspere's Drama is unbroken, though 
 the aesthetic interval between them seems almost 
 infinite. 
 
 A drama on Christ's Passion, called the XpicrTo? 
 irdcrxdiv, ascribed to Gregory of Nazianzus in the 
 fourth century, is still extant. This play, as its name 
 denotes, conformed to the spirit of Greek tragedy, and 
 professed to exhibit the sufferings of Christ upon the 
 cross, as those of Prometheus upon Caucasus had been 
 displayed before an Attic audience. But it was im- 
 possible in the decadence of Greek literature, in the 
 age which witnessed the fierce strife of Arians and 
 Athanasians, and the Pagan revival attempted by Julian, 
 to treat that central fact of Christian history with 
 literary freedom. Gregory's Passion-play is a series 
 of monologues rather than a drama, a lucubration of 
 the study rather than a piece adapted to the stage. Its 
 scholastic origin is betrayed by the author's ingenuity 
 in using passages and lines extracted from Athenian 
 tragedies ; and his work at the present day owes its 
 value chiefly to the centos from Euripides which it 
 contains. Moreover, at this epoch the theatre was 
 becoming an abornination to the Church. The bloody 
 
DRAMA IN EARLY MIDDLE AGES. c,i, 
 
 shows of Rome, the shameless profligacy of Byzantium, 
 justified ecclesiastics in denouncing both amphitheatre 
 and circus as places given over to the devil. From the 
 point of view of art, again, the true spirit of dramatic 
 poetry had expired in those orgies of lust and cruelty. 
 With the decline of classic culture and the triumph 
 of dogmatic Christianity, the Drama, which had long 
 ceased to be a fine art, fell into the hands of an obscure 
 and despised class. It is impossible to believe: that 
 the race of players expired in Europe. Indeed, we 
 have sufficient evidence that during the earlier Middle 
 Ages such folk kept alive in the people a kind of natural 
 paganism, against which the Church waged ineffectual 
 war. The stigma attaching to the playwright's and 
 the actor's professions even in the golden age of the 
 Renaissance may be ascribed to monastic and eccle- 
 siastical denunciations, fulminated against strolling 
 mimes and dancers, buffoons and posture-makers, 
 ' thymelici, scurrse, et mimi,' in successive councils 
 and by several bishops. Undoubtedly, these social 
 pariahs, the degenerate continuators of a noble craft 
 by the very fact that they were excommunicated and 
 tabooed, denied the Sacraments and grudgingly con- 
 signed at death to holy ground, lapsed more and more 
 into profanity, indecency, and ribaldry. While excluded 
 from an honoured status in the commonwealth, they 
 yet were welcomed at seasons of debauch and jollity. 
 The position which they held was prominent if not 
 respectable, as the purveyors of amusement, instru- 
 ments of pleasure, and creatures of fashionable caprice. 
 Among the Northern races circumstances favoured the 
 amelioration of their lot. The bard and the skald 
 
96 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 held high rank in Teutonic society ; and it was natural 
 that a portion of this credit should fall upon the player 
 and buffoon. With the advance of time, we find 
 several species of their craft established as indispens- 
 able members of medieval society. It must, moreover, 
 be remembered that all through the Middle Ages, in 
 spite of prevalent orthodoxy and the commanding 
 power of the Church, a spirit survived from the old 
 heathen past, antagonistic to the principles of Christian 
 morality, which we may describe as naturalism or as 
 paganism according to our liking. This spirit was at 
 home in the castles of the nobles and in the companies 
 of wandering students. It invaded the monasteries, 
 and, in the person of Golias, took up its place beside 
 the Abbot's chair. The ' Carmina Vagorum ' and some 
 of the satires ascribed to Walter Mapes sufficiently 
 illustrate the genius of these pagans in the Middle 
 Ages. The. j'oculaiores, whom the Church had banned, 
 became in course of time jongleurs and jugglers. To 
 them we owe t]\e.fabliaux. Meanwhile the ministeriales, 
 or house-servants of the aristocracy, took the fairer 
 name of minstrels. Lyric poetry rose, in the new 
 dialects of the Romance nations, to a place of honour 
 through the genius of troubadours and trouveres, who 
 were recognised as lineal descendants from mimi and 
 histriones. Taillefer himself, who led the van on Senlac 
 field, tossing his sword into the air and singing Roland, 
 is thus described by Guy of Amiens in verses which 
 retain the old prejudice against the class of players : 
 
 Histrio, cor audax nimium quem nobilitabat . . . 
 Incisor-ferri mimus cognomine dictus. 
 
VARIOUS KINDS OF PLAYERS. 97 
 
 Rhapsodes, again, who recited the Chansons de Geste, 
 so popular among the Franks and Normans, laid the 
 foundations of imaginative literature in their Songs 
 of Roland and Charlemagne. Descendants from the 
 citharistce of base Latin, these left the name of jester 
 in our English speech. Thus it is hardly too much 
 to say that the despised race of players in the Middle 
 Ages helped to sow the seeds of modern lyrical and 
 epical poetry, of social and political satire, of novel 
 and romance. They contributed little, in the earlier 
 age at least, to the development of the Drama. The 
 part they played in this creation at a later period was, 
 however, of considerable moment. This will be mani- 
 fest when we come to the point at which the clergy 
 began to lose their hold upon the presentation of 
 Mysteries and Miracles. 
 
 II. 
 
 Meanwhile another species of dramatic art had 
 been attempted in the cloister during the tenth century. 
 Hroswitha, a Benedictine nun of Gandersheim, wrote 
 six comedies in Latin for the entertainment of her 
 sisterhood. Inspired with the excellent notion of not 
 letting the devil keep the good tunes to himself, 
 she took Terence for her model, and dramatised the 
 legendary history of Christian Saints and Confessors. 
 It is needful to pay this passing tribute to Hroswitha, 
 if only for the singularity of her endeavour. But it 
 would be uncritical in the highest sense of the word to 
 regard her, any more than the Greek author of the 
 XjOio-Tos Trdcrxoiv, as a founder or precursor of the modern 
 
 H 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Stage. The real origins of our drama have to be 
 sought elsewhere. 
 
 Recent investigations have thrown a flood of new 
 light on what is now known as the Liturgical Drama. 
 It has been pointed out that the Office of the Mass is 
 itself essentially dramatic, and that from very early 
 times it became a custom to supplement the liturgy 
 with scenic representations. The descent of the angel 
 Gabriel at the Feast of the Annunciation, the proces- 
 sion of the Magi at Epiphany, the birth of Christ at 
 Christmas, the Resurrection from the tomb at Easter- 
 tide, may be mentioned among the more obvious and 
 common of these shows invented by the clergy to 
 illustrate the chief events of Christian history, and to 
 enforce the principal dogmas of the faith upon an un- 
 lettered laity by means of acting. The parish priest, 
 aided by the good folk of the village, managed these 
 theatrical displays, of which the scene was usually the 
 church, and the occasion service time on festivals. This 
 appears from a somewhat ribald episode in the old 
 novel of ' Howleglas,' which narrates the pranks played 
 by the rogue upon the priest, his master for the time. 
 ' In the mean season, while Howleglas was parish 
 clerk, at Easter they should play the Resurrection of 
 our Lord : and for because the men were not learned 
 and could not read, the priest took his leman, and 
 put her in the grave for an Angel : and this seeing, 
 Howleglas took to him three of the simplest persons 
 that were in the town, that played the three Maries ; 
 and the parson played Christ, with a banner in his 
 hand.' The lives of the Saints were treated after the 
 same fashion ; and since it was needful to instruct the 
 
LITURGICAL PAGEANTS. 99 
 
 people through their senses, dramatic shows on all 
 the more important feast days formed a regular part 
 of the Divine service. From the Church this custom 
 spread by a natural transition to the chapels of religious 
 confraternities and the trade-halls of the guilds, who 
 celebrated their patron saints with scenic shows and 
 pageants. To what extent words were used on these 
 occasions, and at what date dialogue was introduced, is 
 doubtful. Yet this is a matter of purely antiquarian 
 interest. The passage from dumb show, through simple 
 recitation of such phrases as the Angel's ' Ave Maria 
 gratia plena,' to a more dramatic form of representation, 
 was inevitable ; while our copious collections of Latin 
 hymns, lauds, litanies, and Passion monologues, prove 
 that appropriate choral accompaniments were never 
 wanting. The chief point to bii borne in mind is that 
 from an early period of the Middle Ages the Church 
 accustomed men to acting in connection with her 
 services ; and that, while the clergy took care to keep 
 this adjunct to the liturgy in their control, the people 
 participated, and thus became familiarised with drama 
 as a form of art. When we reflect that the Scripture 
 and the legends of the Saints formed almost the whole 
 intellectual treasure of the laity, we shall better under- 
 stand the importance of the religious Drama which thus 
 came into existence. It was not, as it now might be, 
 a thing apart from life, reserved for pious contempla- 
 tion. It gave artistic shape to all reflections upon 
 life ; presented human destinies in their widest scope 
 and their most striking details ; incorporated medieval 
 science, ethics, history, cosmography, and politics ; 
 
 H 2 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 bringing abstractions vividly before the eyes and ears 
 of folk who could not read. 
 
 III. 
 
 The transition from the liturgical drama and the 
 ecclesiastical pageant to the Miracle or Mystery was 
 simple. Exactly at what date plays setting forth the 
 Scripture history and legends of the Saints in words 
 intended to be spoken, were first composed, we do not 
 know. But from the extant specimens of such plays in 
 the chief languages of Europe, it seems clear that they 
 were already widely diffused before the middle of the 
 thirteenth century ; and it is probable that the festival 
 of Corpus Christi, instituted in 1264 by Urban IV., 
 gave an impulse to their performance. The text was 
 written by monks, and in the first instance almost cer- 
 tainly in Latin. The common name for them was 
 Ludus. Thus we read in the Friulian Chronicles that 
 a Ludus Christi, embracing the principal events from 
 the Passion to the Second Advent, was acted at 
 Cividale in the Marches of Treviso in 1298. Our 
 Coventry Miracles are called Ludus CoventricB. As 
 early as 1 1 10 a ' Ludus de S. Katharina ' was repre- 
 sented at Dunstaple by Geoffrey, Abbot of S. Albans. 
 
 As these sacred dramas became more popular, the 
 vernacular was substituted for Latin in their composi- 
 tion, their scope was enlarged until it embraced the 
 whole of Christian history, and the artistic form assumed 
 a different shape and name in different countries. In 
 France a distinction was drawn between the Mystlre 
 and the Miracle ; the former being adapted from Scrip- 
 
GROWTH OF A RELIGIOUS DRAMA. loi 
 
 ture, the latter from the legend of a saint. One of the 
 very earliest religious dramas in a modern language is 
 the Mystere de la Resurrection, ascribed to the twelfth 
 century. In Italy the generic name for such plays in 
 the vulgar tongue was Sacra Rappresentazione ; while 
 subordinate titles like Divozione, Misterio, Miracolo, 
 Figura, Passione, Festa, and so forth, indicated the 
 specific nature of the subject in each particular case. 
 Italy, it may be said in passing, developed the religious 
 drama on a somewhat different method from the rest 
 of Europe. The part played in its creation by private 
 confraternities was more important than that of the 
 Church ; and with the exception of the Friulian Ludus 
 already mentioned, we are not aware of any very early 
 plays in Italy exactly corresponding to those of the 
 North. In Spain the name of Auto became con- 
 secrated to the sacred Drama. In England, after the 
 use of Ludus had gone out of fashion, that of Miracle 
 obtained. William Fitz-Stephen, writing about the end 
 of the twelfth century, describes the plays of London as 
 'repraesentationes miraculorum quae sancti confessores 
 operati sunt, seu repraesentationes passionum quibus 
 claruit constantia martyrum.' Matthew Paris, half a cen- 
 tury later, says that Geoffrey's ' Ludus de S. Katharina ' 
 was of the sort which ' miracula vulgariter appellamus^.' 
 Wright, in his edition of the Chester Flays, quotes 
 from a medieval Latin tale a similar phrase, ' spectacula 
 quae miracula appellare consuevimus.' This name of 
 Miracle was never lost in England. Langland in 
 ' Piers Ploughman ' speaks of Miracles, and Chaucer of 
 Plays of Miracles. 
 
 Not only did the name thus vary, while the sub- 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Stance of the thing was much the same through 
 Europe ; but the mode of treatment differed consider- 
 ably. In France, although both Mysteries and Mira- 
 cles ran to an inordinate length, counting many thou- 
 sands of lines, and requiring more than one day for 
 their presentation, they were confined to certain epi- 
 sodes and portions of the Sacred History. In Italy 
 this limitation of the subject was even more marked ; 
 while none of the Sacre Rappresentazioni exceed the 
 proportions of a moderate modern play. The distinctive 
 point about the English Miracle, as we possess it, is 
 that it incorporated into one cycle of plays the whole 
 history of the world from the Creation to the Last 
 Judgment ; successive episodes being selected to illus- 
 trate God's dealings with the human race in the Fall, 
 the Deluge, the Antitypes of Christ, our Lord's birth, 
 life, and death. His Resurrection, Ascension, and Second 
 Advent. This needs to be specially noted ; for it is a 
 characteristic of the Sacred Drama in our island. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Miracles and Mysteries remained for a long 
 while in the hands of the clergy. They were composed 
 by monks, and acted in churches, monasteries, or on 
 meadows conveniently situated near religious houses. 
 Yet we have seen already that, side by side with these 
 ecclesiastical players, there existed a class of popular 
 and profane actors ; and also that the laity were pressed 
 into the service of the Liturgical Drama. It was, 
 therefore, natural that in course of time laymen should 
 encroach upon this function of the clergy. According 
 
MIRACLES AND MYSTERIES. 103 
 
 to an uncertain tradition, it was as early as 1268 that 
 the trading companies began to play in England ; and 
 we know that in 1258 the performances of strolling 
 actors had been prohibited in monasteries. We may 
 also assume that about this date English was beginning 
 to supplant Latin and Norman French in the Miracles, 
 By the year 1398, when the Brothers of the Passion 
 founded a sort of permanent theatre in Paris for the 
 representation of their Mysteries, it is clear that the 
 religious drama had already for a long space of time 
 passed out of the hands of the clergy in France. In 
 England at the same date a similar change had cer- 
 tainly taken place. The Guilds in the great towns 
 were now performing Cyclical Miracles upon their own 
 account, employing the craftsmen of their several 
 trades, or else engaging the services of professionals, 
 called ' players of price.' ^ So much matter of a comic 
 and satirical nature, alien to the original purpose of 
 edification, had been mixed up with the performance, 
 that the Church at this epoch was rather anxious to 
 restrain than to encourage the participation of the 
 clergy. Chaucer's portrait of the Jolly Absolon — 
 
 Sometime to show his lightnesse and maistrie 
 He plaieth Herode on a skaffold hie— 
 
 gives a hint of abuses to which the ancient cus- 
 tom had become liable. After much moralising and 
 preaching against the practice, it was finally forbidden 
 
 ' The speech of the Tertius Vexillator, which closes the Prologue of 
 the Coventry Play, seems to point to a performance by strolling players, 
 as the insertion of N in lieu of the place where the Miracle was to be 
 shown indicates that it was not performed at Coventry alone. 
 
I04 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 to the clergy in the first half of the sixteenth century 
 by Wolsey and Bonner. 
 
 After this fashion, the English Miracle sprang 
 from the Liturgical Drama, substituted Norman French 
 for Latin, and English for Norman French, outgrew 
 ecclesiastical conti'ol, and engrafted on its solemn art 
 the feats of skill and humours of the strolling players. 
 Originally instituted as a means of education by the 
 clergy, it preserved the religious character impressed 
 upon it to the last ; but in its passage from the cloister 
 to the market-place, and by its substitution of the 
 mother tongue for a learned language, it became 
 emphatically popular and national. The elements of 
 independent comedy and pathos, of satire and of alle- 
 gory, the free artistic handling of historic characters, 
 the customs of the stage, and the spectacular contri- 
 vances, with which it familiarised the nation, contained 
 the germ of what was afterwards our drama. When 
 the Middle Ages melted into the Renaissance, the sub- 
 stantial fabric of the Christian Miracle fell to pieces ; 
 but those portions of the structure which had previously 
 been held for accidents and excrescences were -then 
 found adequate to the creation of a new and self- 
 sufficing art. Dogma disappeared. The mythology 
 and history of Christian faith retreated once more to 
 the church, the pulpit, and the study. Humanity was 
 liberated ; and our playwrights dealt with man as the 
 material of their emancipated art. This evolution cor- 
 responds exactly to the passage which society effected 
 from the vast and comprehensive systems of medieval 
 feudalism into the minor but more highly organised, 
 more structurally complicated, modern States. 
 
THREE ENGLISH CYCLES. 105 
 
 V. 
 
 The three Cycles of ' Miracles' which have come 
 down to us are known severally as those of Widkirk, 
 Chester, and Coventry, from the places where they 
 were performed. They are composed in English, 
 with embedded fragments of Latin and of French, 
 betraying their descent from older originals written in 
 those languages. We must in truth regard these vast 
 collections as the accretions of many previous essays in 
 religious drama, the mature form assumed by a long 
 series of literary experiments. In spite of their colos- 
 sal rudeness, they are clearly no primitive works of 
 art, but the final outcome of a slowly developed 
 evolution. Like the architectural monuments of the 
 Middle Ages, no single author claims them for his own. 
 They are the work of numberless unknown collabora- 
 tors contributing to one harmonious whole. In point 
 of style and diction, the Widkirk plays bear traces of 
 the oldest origin, and are ascribed by scholars to the 
 reign of Henry VI. Those of Chester, in their pre- 
 sent form, are certainly more recent. We learn from 
 the Banes, or proclamation which introduced them to 
 the public, that they were first exhibited during the 
 mayoralty of Sir John Arnway in 1 268. Another pro- 
 clamation, dated 24 Henry VIII., ascribes their com- 
 position to Sir Henry Frances, a monk of Chester, 
 who obtained from Pope Clement (Clement V. 
 1305-13 14 ?) one thousand days of pardon for ' every 
 person resorting in peaceable manner with good devo- 
 tion to hear and see the said plays from time to time,' 
 
io6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 A note to one of our MSS. of the Chester Miracles 
 further informs us that Ralph Higden, compiler of the 
 ' Polycronicon,' ' was thrice at Rome before he could 
 obtain leave of the Pope to have them in the English 
 tongue.' Since Higden died in 1363 or 1373, we are 
 left to suppose that for nearly a century after their 
 first production they continued to be acted in Latin, or 
 perhaps more probably in French. There were many 
 reasons why the Papal Curia should regard the use of 
 English in these popular performances with jealousy. 
 Langland, Wickliff, and the Lollards, satirists of man- 
 ners, poets eager for ecclesiastical reforms, bold demo- 
 cratic sectaries, were proving in the fourteenth cen- 
 tury that England was no passive handmaid of the 
 Church of Rome. But Higden won his point, if we 
 may trust this tradition ; and the English redaction of 
 the Miracles, upon this supposition, can be referred to 
 some time near the middle of the fourteenth century. 
 It should, however, be observed that the whole of this 
 constructive criticism rests upon the very frailest basis. 
 The Banes, published in 1600, ascribes the authorship 
 to ' one Don Rendall, monk of Chester Abbey ; ' and 
 a note appended to the proclamation of 1 5 1 5 gives it 
 to ' Randall Higgenett, a monk of Chester Abbey,' 
 naming 1327 as the date of the first version. This 
 confusion of Higden and Higgenett, Ralph and Randal, 
 excites suspicion ; and all that remains tolerably cer- 
 tain is that the plays were instituted at the end of the 
 thirteenth, and produced in English some time in the 
 fourteenth century. They continued to be regularly 
 acted at Whitsuntide until 1577, and were revived in 
 1600, which is the date of our extant version. 
 
WW KIRK, CHESTER, COVENTRY. 107 
 
 The Coventry Miracles have descended to us in a 
 MS. of 1468, entitled ' Ludus Coventrise, sive Ludus 
 Corporis Christi.' In form and style they are less 
 archaic than those of Widkirk and even of Chester, 
 while certain passages in the plays themselves enable 
 us to assign their composition, in part at all events, 
 to the reign of Henry VII. They were played at 
 the festival of Corpus Christi by the Grey Friars of 
 Coventry. 
 
 The Widkirk plays consist of thirty pieces, the 
 Chester of twenty-four, the Coventry of forty-two. 
 All of them embrace the history of man's creation, 
 fall, and redemption, stories from the Old Testament, 
 the life of Christ, the Harrowing of Hell, and the 
 Judgment of the world. The A_pocryphal Gospels as 
 well as the New Testament are largely drawn upon. 
 They dispose of the same matter in different ways, 
 use different metrical structures, and exhibit many 
 other points of divergence. For example, the Coventry 
 Miracles contain an Assumption of the Virgin, and 
 the Chester a Coming of Antichrist, which are not to 
 be found in either of the corresponding cycles. Alli- 
 terative verse is used in combination with short 
 rhyming lines, modelled upon French originals. A 
 form of stanza, imitated from Latin hymnology, gives 
 singular richness by its thrice-repeated rhymes to 
 many scenes in the Chester plays. Of this structure I 
 will here extract a specimen from the speech of Regina 
 Damnata in the Chester Doomsday : 
 
 Alas ! alas ! now am I lorn ! 
 Alas ! with teen now am I torn ! 
 Alas ! that I was woman born, 
 This bitter bale to abide ! 
 
io8 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 I made my moan even and morn, 
 
 For fear to come Jesu beforn, 
 
 That crowned for me was with thorn, 
 
 And thrust into the side. 
 Alas ! that I was woman wrought ! 
 Alas ! why God made me of naught, 
 And with His precious blood me bought, 
 
 To work against His will ? 
 Of lechery I never wrought, 
 But ever to that sin I sought. 
 That of that sin in deed and thought 
 
 Yet had I never my fill. 
 Fie on pearls ! fie on pride ! 
 Fie on gown ! fie on guyde ! ' 
 Fie on hue ! fie on hide ! ^ 
 
 These harrow me to hell. 
 Against this chance I may not chide. 
 This bitter bale I must abide. 
 With wo and teen I suffer this tide. 
 
 No living tongue may tell. 
 I that so seemly was in sight. 
 Where is my bleye ' that was so bright ? 
 Where is the baron, where is the knight, 
 
 For me to leadge ■* the law ? 
 Where in the world is any wight. 
 That for my fairness now will^fight, 
 Or from this death I am to dight * 
 
 That dare me hence to draw ? 
 
 The Coventry Plays make use of this same stanza, 
 but are more partial to quatrains of alternating rhymes 
 in verses of different lengths and measures. Speaking 
 broadly, the construction of both Cycles shows a highly 
 developed prosody, a familiarity with complicated me- 
 trical resources on the part of their compilers. The 
 Widkirk, Chester, and Coventry plays abound in local 
 references, and illustrate the dialects of their several 
 districts. 
 
 ' Guyde—} ^ Hide—skm. ' -S/ej/e— complexion. 
 
 ■* Leadge— wrest. ' BigAi—zssume. 
 
MODES OF EXHIBITION. 109 
 
 Besides these three places, we know for certain 
 that Miracles were commonly performed at Wymond- 
 ham, York, Newcastle, Manningtree, and Tewkesbury. 
 One William Melton of York in 1426 was termed ' a 
 professor of holy pageantry,' which seems to prove 
 that the actors in these dramas, and probably the 
 monkish scribes who wrote them, formed a recognised 
 class of artists. The city of Bristol exhibited a ' Ship- 
 wrights' Play,' most likely in dumb show, upon the 
 Ark of Noah, before Henry VII. Cornwall had its 
 so-called Guary Miracles, which were religious spec- 
 tacles of a like nature. There is no reason to suppose 
 that any district of England'was unprovided with the 
 means of producing them, though some towns, like 
 Coventry and Chester, took a special pride in present- 
 ing them with more than common splendour. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Miracles were exhibited on wooden scaffolds, 
 either stationary in churches, or moved about the. 
 streets on wheels. The Latin name for these erec- 
 tions was pagina, which has been correctly derived 
 from the same root as pegma, and which merged into 
 the English pageant. From the stage directions to 
 the plays it appears that in some cases the scaffold 
 contained several rooms or storeys, and this was no 
 doubt usual when the structure was set up in a church 
 or on a meadow. The movable carts on which the 
 players performed in towns like Chester consisted of 
 two rooms, a lower in which they dressed, and an 
 upper, open to the air, in which they acted. These 
 
116 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 carts were dirawn in order round the town, stopping at 
 fixed points for recitation, so that when one pageant 
 was finished, another arrived to continue the show 
 before the same group of spectators. From the pro- 
 cessional character communicated in this way to the 
 Miracle, the name processus as well as pagina was 
 sometimes given to each act in the Drama. For scenes 
 involving movement, actors in the streets were asso- 
 ciated with the actors on the stage. Messengers rode 
 up on horseback, and Herod or the Devil leapt from 
 the cart to rage about among the people. 
 
 It is interesting to compare these English customs 
 of the religious Drama with those of other countries. 
 In Italy we know that tbe Divozioni, when shown in 
 church, were performed upon a wooden scaffold raised 
 across the nave and divided into several departments, 
 with a central space for the chief action, smaller side- 
 rooms for subordinate scenes, a gallery for the celestial 
 personages, and a sunken pit for Satan and his crew. 
 The Edifizi, or movable towers, exhibited by the 
 chief guilds of Florence on S. John's Day, corresponded 
 in all essential respects to the pageants of Chester, 
 except that they were undoubtedly adorned with 
 greater richness of artistic details. This Florentine 
 procession set forth the whole of Christian history 
 from the Fall of Lucifer to the Last Judgment ; but 
 the show was strictly pantomimic, being presented 
 in tableaux without speech. In France, before the 
 establishment of a regular religious theatre in 1402, 
 Mysteries were performed, after a like fashion, either 
 processionally in the streets or on temporary scaffolds 
 erected for the purpose in a consecrated building. In 
 
IN ITALY, FRANCE, SPAIN, ENGLAND. m 
 
 Spain the exhibition of the Autos took place in 
 churches, until this practice was forbidden in 1565. 
 Yet the highly elaborated form of art developed from 
 them with such magnificence by Calderon retained the 
 nature of a sacred show. Late on into the seven- 
 teenth century the Auio was presented on an open 
 square in daylight, with accompaniment of flambeaux 
 and candles. It must have been a spectacle of sin- 
 gular and curious magnificence : the wide piazza in the 
 white glare of a Southern noontide, crowded with Court, 
 clergy, and people ; the sumptuous scene of Calderon 
 displayed ; God, saints and angels, heathen deities 
 and metaphysical abstractions, elements of nature and 
 deadly sins, brought into harmony and moulded to one 
 type of art by the artist's plastic touch. Altar candles 
 flared and guttered round the stage in the fierce heat 
 of the meridian sun, symbolising, as it were, the blend- 
 ing of diverse lights, the open life of man on earth, 
 and the dim religious mysteries of the sanctuary, the 
 night of pagan myths and the noon of Christian faith, 
 which genius had assembled and combined upon that 
 hieroglyphic of the world, the theatre. 
 
 As in Florence, so in Chester, special portions of 
 the sacred spectacle were consigned by old tradition 
 to each. guild. Thus ' the good simple water-leaders 
 and drawers of Dee ' had the superintendence of the 
 Deluge and the Ark appropriately left to them. The 
 tanners, not perhaps without ironical reference to their 
 trade, exhibited the Fall of Lucifer; and the cooks 
 set forth the Harrowing of Hell. When the time 
 drew near, proclamation in the town was made, warn- 
 ing the several companies to be ready with their 
 
112 SHAKSPERE'S PkEDECBSSORS. 
 
 pageants. At Coventry this proclamation was spoken 
 by three Vexillatores or banner-bearers in speeches 
 which described the argument of each pageant. At 
 Chester it was termed the Banes or Banns. Our copy 
 of these Banes, dated in 1600, is interesting for the 
 apologetic tone in which it comments on the Miracles 
 to be exhibited. After mentioning that they were 
 writteji by one Don Rendall, the prologue proceeds : 
 
 This monk, monk-like, in Scriptures well seen. 
 
 In stories travailed with the best sort. 
 
 In pageants set forth apparently to all een 
 
 The Old and New Testament with lively comfort. 
 
 Intermingling therewith, only to make sport. 
 
 Some things not warranted by any writ. 
 
 Which to glad the hearers he would men to take it. 
 
 It then compliments the monkish author on his good 
 digestion of the matter into twenty-four plays, and on 
 his boldness in bringing the sacred lore forth ' in a com- 
 mon English tongue,' and finally begs the audience 
 not to judge the antique style of the performance too 
 harshly : 
 
 As all that shall see them shall most welcome be. 
 So all that hear them we most humbly pray 
 Not to compare this matter or story 
 With the age or time wherein we presently stay. 
 But in the time of ignorance wherein we did stray. 
 
 And again : 
 
 Go back, I say, to the first time again ; 
 
 Then shall you find the fine wit at this day abounding. 
 
 At that day and age had very small being. 
 
 Considering that Shakspere's plays were being brought 
 upon the London stage in 1600, this recommendation 
 to the audience was hardly superfluous. 
 
THE AUDIENCE. 113 
 
 The expenses incurred by the city at these times of 
 festivity were doubtless considerable. Guild vied with 
 guild in bringing pageants forth with proper magnifi- 
 cence. It has been estimated that each show cost at 
 least 15/. In addition to the payment of the players, 
 there were various disbursements for apparel and stage 
 properties, carpentry, gilding .upholstery, and painting. 
 We read of such items as the following : 
 
 Paid to the players for rehearsal — Imprimis to God, ii^. mixd. 
 
 Item to Pilate his wife, ii^. 
 
 Paid to Fauston for cock-crowing, iii^. 
 
 Paid for mending Hell, ii^. 
 
 Item for painting of Hell-mouth, iii^. 
 
 Item for setting World on fire, yd. 
 
 Yet town and trades were amply repaid by the con- 
 course which the plays drew. Lasting several days 
 and filling the hostelries with guests from all the coun- 
 try side, each celebration served the purpose of a fair. 
 Dugdale, the antiquary, in his notice of the Coventry 
 Miracles, writes as follows : ' I have been told by 
 some old people, who in their younger days were eye- 
 witnesses of these pageants so acted, that the yearly 
 confluence of people to see that show was extraordinary 
 great, and yielded no small advantage to this city.' 
 Gentles and yeomanry filled the neighbouring country 
 houses and farmsteads with friends for the occasion. 
 Thousands of people ; the motley crowd of medieval 
 days; monks, palmers, merchants in their various 
 costumes, servants of noble families with badges on 
 their shoulders, hawkers of pardons and relics, pedlars, 
 artificers, grooms, foresters, hinds from the farm and 
 shepherds from the fells ; all known by special qualities 
 
114 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 of dress and bearing ; crowded the streets and thronged 
 the taverns. Comely women, Hke Chaucer's Wife of 
 Bath, made it their business to be present at some 
 favourable point of view. The windows and the 
 wooden galleries were hung with carpets. Girls leaned 
 from latticed casements, and old men bent upon their 
 crutches in the doorways. In these circumstances, it is 
 not to be wondered at that Whitsuntide or Easter, when 
 the Miracles were played, became a season of debauch 
 and merry-making. A preacher of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury inveighs against them in no measured words on 
 this account. ' To gather men together to buy their 
 victuals the dearer, and to stir men to gluttony and to 
 pride and boast, they play these Miracles, and to hold 
 fellowship of gluttony and lechery in such days of 
 Miracles playing, they beseen them before to more 
 greedily beguiling of their neighbours, in buying and 
 in selling ; and so this playing of Miracles nowadays 
 is very witness of hideous covetousness, that is mau- 
 metry.' ^ Similar complaints were made against the 
 Brethren of the Passion in Paris. The Hotel of 
 Burgundy, where they performed, was called 'that 
 sewer and house of Satan, whose actors, with shocking 
 abuse, term themselves the Brothers of the Passion of 
 Jesus Christ. That place is the scene of a thousand 
 scandalous assignations. It is the bane of virtue, the 
 destroyer of modesty, the ruin of poor families. Long 
 before the play begins, it is thronged with workmen, 
 who pass their time in uncouth jests, with cards and 
 dice, gormandising and drinking, from the which spring 
 many quarrels and assaults.' 
 
 ^ Reliquia Aniiguce, ii. 54, modernised. 
 
STAGE AND PROPERTIES. 115 
 
 I do not seek to describe with any minuteness the 
 stage properties and dresses used in Miracles ; yet a few- 
 details may be given, fit to place the reader at the 
 proper point of view for thinking of them. The man 
 who played God, wore a wig with gilded hair and had 
 his face gilt. Special apology is made at Chester 
 for the non-appearance of this personage on one 
 occasion ; and the reason assigned is, that this gilding 
 ' disfigured the man.' How well founded the excuse 
 was, can be gathered from a contemporary account of 
 shows at Florence, where it is briefly said that the boy 
 who played the Genius of the Golden Age, with body 
 gilded for the purpose, died after the performance. 
 Christ wore a long sheepskin, such as early frescoes 
 and mosaics assign to the Good Shepherd. The Devil 
 appeared in orthodox costume of horns and tail, with 
 a fiery red beard to signify the place of flames in which 
 he dwelt. Judas Iscariot had also a wig of this colour ; 
 and it was common among German painters — witness 
 the 'Last Supper' by Holbein at Basel — to give this 
 colour, eminently disagreeable in a Jew, to the arch- 
 traitor. How Paradise was represented, we may per- 
 haps imagine to ourselves from the elaborate accounts 
 furnished by Vasari of the Nuvole at Florence. These 
 were frames of wood and iron wires, shaped like au- 
 reoles and covered with white wool, with sconces at 
 their sides for candles. The celestial personages sat 
 enshrined within these structures. Hell-mouth was a 
 vast pair of gaping jaws, armed with fangs, like a 
 shark's open swallow. Such representations of the 
 place of torment may be seen in the ' Biblia Pauperum ' 
 and ' Speculum Humanse Salvationis ' and other books 
 
 I 3 
 
ii6 SHAKSPERE'S- PREDECESSORS. 
 
 illustrated with early woodcuts, all of which throw 
 light upon the disposition of these medieval scenes. 
 Dragons, with eyes of polished steel ; scaly whales ; 
 asses that spoke ; a serpent to tempt Eve, with female 
 face and swingeing tail ; added bizarre variety to the 
 mere commonplace crowd of kings in gorgeous rai- 
 ment, flaming Herods, mailed soldiers, and hideous 
 uncouth ministers of torture. In the Coventry Mira- 
 cles, Death once appeared upon the stage in all the 
 horror of worm-eaten flesh and snake-enwrithed ribs, 
 as is manifest from the speech upon his exit. Adam 
 and Eve before the Fall, it may be said in passing, 
 were naked ; and we have the right to assume that 
 in the Doomsday some at any rate of the dead rose 
 naked from their graves. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Reading the Miracle Plays of Widkirk, Chester, and 
 Coventry, is not much better than trying to derive some 
 notion of a great master's etchings from a volume of 
 illustrative letter-press without the plates. The Miracles 
 were shows, pageants, spectacles presented to the eye ; 
 the words written to explain their tableaux and give mo- 
 tion to their figures, were in some sense the least part 
 of them. Modern students should take this fact into 
 account. Even the dramas of the greatest poets, 
 Sophocles or Shakspere, suffer when we read them in 
 the lifeless silence of our chamber. If this be so, how 
 little can we really judge the artistic effect of a Miracle 
 from the libretto which was merely meant to illustrate 
 a grand spectacular effect ! After making due allow- 
 
ARCHITECTURAL GRANDEUR. 117 
 
 ance for this inevitable drawback, after taking the 
 rudeness of the times into account, the undeveloped 
 state of language and the playwright's simple craft, we 
 shall be rather impressed with the colossal majesty and 
 massive strength of structure in these antique plays, 
 than with their uncouth details. Each Miracle, viewed 
 in its entirety, displays the vigour and the large pro- 
 portions of a Gothic church. It is with the master 
 builder's skill that we must compare the writer's talent. 
 Judging by standards of accomplished beauty, we feel 
 that workmen and not artists in the highest sense of 
 the word carved the statues on the front of Wells 
 Cathedral and penned the dialogues of Chester. Art, 
 except in architecture, hardly existed among the na- 
 tions who produced the Mysteries and at the epoch of 
 their composition. The esthetic creations of medieval 
 ingenuity, traceries in stone and beaten metal, illumi- 
 nated windows, wrought wood-work upon canopy and 
 stall, must always be regarded as subordinate to the 
 Cathedral, not as having any independent end as works 
 of art. The same is true of those vast compositions 
 which presented sacred history in shows beneath Cathe- 
 dral arches to the Christian laity. Poetry is here the 
 handmaid of religious teaching, the submissive drudge 
 of dogma. Language in the Miracles barely clothes 
 the ideas which were meant to be conveyed by figured 
 forms; meagrely supplies the motives necessary for 
 the proper presentation of an action. Clumsy phrases, 
 quaint literalism, tedious homilies clog the dramatic 
 evolution. As in the case of medieval sculpture, so 
 here the most spontaneous and natural effects are 
 grotesque. In the treatment of sublime and solemn 
 
ii8 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 themes we may also trace a certain ponderous force, a 
 dignity analogous to that of fresco and mosaic. Sub- 
 jects which in themselves are vast, imaginative, and 
 capable of only a suggestive handling, such as the 
 Parliaments of Heaven and Hell, Creation, Judgment, 
 and the Resurrection from the dead, when conceived 
 with positive belief and represented with the crudest 
 realism, acquire a simple grandeur. Remote from the 
 conditions of our daily life, these mysteries express 
 themselves in fittest form by bare uncompromising 
 symbols. For this reason, there are not a few among 
 contemporary artists who will prefer a colossal Christ 
 in mosaic on the tribune of a Romanesque basilica to 
 a Christ by Raphael in transfigured ecstasy, a Last 
 Judgment sculptured by an unnamed artist on some 
 Gothic portal to the fleshly luxuriance of Rubens' or 
 the poised symmetry of Cornelius' design. It is rare 
 indeed to find instances of emancipated art so satis- 
 factory in such high themes as the 'Creation of Adam' 
 by Michelangelo, or the 'Christ before Pilate' of 
 Tintoretto. 
 
 The literal translation of spiritual truths into cor- 
 poreal equivalents, which distinguished the medieval 
 religious sense — that positive and materialising habit 
 of mind which developed the belief in wonder-working 
 i-elics, the Corpus Christi miracle, the sensuous God 
 of the Host — lent a certain quaint sublimity to the 
 dramatic presentment of mysteries beyond the scope 
 of plastic art. But the same qualities degenerated 
 into unconditioned grossness, when the playwright 
 had to touch such topics as the Immaculate Conception 
 of our Lord. It is with a sense of wonder bordering 
 
MIXTURE OF GROTESQUENESS. 119 
 
 Upon disgust that we read the parts assigned to the 
 Holy Ghost and to Joseph in this episode. The same 
 material coarseness of imagination mars the sesthetical 
 effect of many passages, which might, according to our 
 present canons of taste, have been more profitably left 
 to such pantomimic presentation as a purely figurative 
 art affords. But this was not the instinct of those 
 times. The sacredness of the subject-matter banished 
 all thought of profanity. The end of edification justi- 
 fied the plainest realism of presentment. What was 
 believed to have actually taken place in the scheme 
 of man's redemption, that could lawfully and with 
 all reverence, however comically and grotesquely, be 
 exhibited. 
 
 Scenery and action rendered the bare poetry of the 
 Miracle-play imposing ; and we have every reason to 
 believe that both were adequate to their purpose. For 
 we must remember that the people who performed these 
 plays were the same folk who filled the casements of 
 our churches with stained glass, hung the chapel walls 
 with tapestries, carved the statues, and gilt the shrines. 
 They knew what was needed to bring their pageants 
 into harmony with edifices, not then as now vacant and 
 whitewashed, swept by depredators of the Reformation 
 period, garnished by churchwardens of the eighteenth 
 century, scrubbed and scraped and desolated by self- 
 styled restorers ; but glowing with deep and solemn hues 
 cast from clerestory windows, enriched with frescoes, 
 furnished with the multitudinous embellishments of art 
 expended on each detail of the structure by the loving 
 prodigality of pious hands. Little indeed is left to us 
 in England of that earlier architectural magnificence, 
 
120 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 when the Cathedral or the Abbey Church was a poem 
 without speech, perfected in every part with beauty, a 
 piece of stationary music sounding from symphonious 
 instruments, a storied illustration of the spiritual life of 
 Christendom, conveying through the medium of forms 
 and colours what the mind had not yet learned to frame 
 in rhythmic words. When a Miracle was shown in 
 such a building, it completed and enlivened the whole 
 scene. The religion, which appealed from every por- 
 tion of the edifice to the intellect through the senses, 
 now found ultimate expression in dramatic action. 
 The wooden scaffold, richly gilt and painted, cur- 
 tained with embroidered arras, and occupied by actors 
 in their parti-coloured raiment, shone like a jewelled 
 casket in the midst of altar-shrines and tabernacles, 
 statues and fretted arches, mellow with subtly tinted 
 arabesques. The character of the spectacle was deter- 
 mined not by the poetic genius of the monk who wrote 
 the words of the play, but by the unison of forms 
 and colours which prevailed throughout the edifice. 
 What the whole building strove to express in stationary 
 and substantial art, started for some hours into life 
 upon the stage. 
 
 The Passion Plays of Ammergau enable us at the 
 present time to understand the effect produced by 
 Miracles upon a medieval audience. Multitudes of men 
 and women derived their liveliest conceptions of sacred 
 history from those pageants. In countless breasts 
 those scenes excited profound emotions of awe, terror, 
 sympathy, and admiration. Nor was this influence, so 
 powerful in stimulating religious sentiment, without its 
 direct bearing on the arts. Painters of church walls. 
 
RELATION TO MEDIEVAL ARTS. 
 
 stainers of choir windows, craftsmen in metal, stone, 
 and wood, received impressions which they afterwards 
 translated into form upon the Chapter House of Salis- 
 bury, the front of Lincoln, over the west porch of Reims, 
 in the choir stalls and the panels of a hundred churches. 
 The origins of art in medieval Europe reveal a common 
 impulse and a common method, which the study of 
 subsequent divergences renders doubly interesting and 
 suggestive. Between the bas-reliefs of the Pisani at 
 Oi'vieto, from which Michelangelo's frescoes of the 
 Creation descend in a direct line, and the rude work of 
 those English stone-cutters, before whom a female Eve 
 and a male Adam in the Miracles stood naked and 
 were not ashamed, we may trace a close resemblance, 
 proving how the same ideas took similar form in divers 
 nations. Plastic art and the religious drama acted and 
 reacted, each upon the other, through the period of 
 medieval incubation. Thus it is not too much to affirm 
 that the Mysteries contributed in an essential degree 
 to the development of figurative art in Europe. How 
 and in what specific details Miracles aided the evolu- 
 tion of the modern theatre in England, must now be 
 briefly investigated. 
 
 vni. 
 
 The dramatic elements of the Miracles may suffi- 
 ciently, for present purposes, be classified under the 
 following titles: Tragic, Pathetic, Melodramatic, Idyllic, 
 Comic, Realistic, and Satiric. By reviewing these 
 with due brevity we shall be able to estimate on what 
 foundations in this medieval work of art the play- 
 
122 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Wrights of the coming period built. But first it should 
 be plainly stated that the regular drama cannot be 
 regarded either as the exact successor in time, or as 
 the immediate offspring of religious plays. Those 
 plays continued to be acted until quite late in the 
 sixteenth century, at an epoch when English tragedy 
 and comedy were fully shaped ; nor is it reasonable to 
 suppose that the people would have abandoned the 
 custom of performing them except for changes in 
 religious feeling wrought by the Reformation, and for 
 changes in aesthetic taste effected by the Revival of 
 Learning. Contact with Italian culture, the study of 
 classical literature, and the larger instinct of humanity 
 developed by the Renaissance, determined both the 
 form and spirit of our drama. Still the medieval 
 Miracle bequeathed to the Elizabethan playwright 
 certain well-defined dramatic characters and situations, 
 a popular species of comedy, a plebeian type of melo- 
 drama, and, what is far more important, a widely 
 diffused intelligence of dramatic customs and con- 
 ventions in the nation. The English people had 
 been educated by their medieval pageants for the 
 modern stage. The Miracles supplied those ante- 
 cedent conditions which rendered a national theatre 
 possible, and saved it from becoming what it mostly 
 was in Italy, a plaything of the Court and study. The 
 vast dogmatic fabric of the Miracle was abandoned, 
 like so many Abbey Churches, to decay and ruin. 
 The religious spirit which had animated medieval art, 
 was superseded by a new enthusiasm for humanity 
 and nature. But the comprehensive and colossal lines 
 on which that elder ruder work of art had been de- 
 
TRAGIC AND PATHETIC ELEMENTS. 123 
 
 signed, were continued in the younger and more 
 artificial. The dramatic education of the people was 
 prolonged without intermission from the one period 
 into the other. 
 
 Of tragedy, in the highest and truest sense of the 
 word, we find but little in the Miracles. Many of the 
 situations, especially the Crucifixion and the Last 
 Judgment, are indeed eminently tragic. But the 
 writer has been content to leave them undeveloped, 
 trusting to the effect of the bare motives and their 
 presentation through the pageant. Having to deal 
 with matter of such paramount importance to every 
 Christian soul, he could hardly have used a more con- 
 sciously artistic method. In the Chester plays, how- 
 ever, the tragic opportunities of Doomsday are seized 
 upon with some skill. We are introduced to pairs of 
 representative personages standing upon either side of 
 Christ's throne and pleading at His judgment bar. 
 An emperor, a king, a queen, a pope, a judge, and a 
 merchant appear among the damned ; a pope, a king, 
 an emperor, a queen, among the saved. Devils answer 
 to angels. And over all the voice of Christ is heard, 
 arraigning the wicked for their ill deeds done on earth, 
 welcoming the good into the bliss of His society in 
 heaven. The playwright's talent is chiefly exhibited 
 in the elaborate .but clear-cut portraiture of the bad 
 folk, each of whom is made too late repentant, uttering 
 his own accusation with groans and unavailing tears. 
 We have before us such a scene as the painter of the 
 Last Judgment represented on the Campo Santo walls 
 at Pisa. 
 
 Pathos emerges into more artistic clearness, chiefly. 
 
124 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. ' 
 
 I think, because the situations whence it sprang put 
 less of strain upon the writer's religious preconcep- 
 tions. In the old Italian Divozioni no pathetic 
 motive was more tragically wrought than Mary's 
 lamentation at the foot of the Cross. ^ And this is 
 managed with considerable, though far inferior, effect 
 by the author of the Coventry Mysteries. As in the 
 Italian ' Corrotto,' Mary Magdalen brings the news : 
 
 Maria Magdalen. 
 
 I would fain tell, Lady, an I might for weeping. 
 
 For sooth, Lady, to the Jews He is sold ; 
 With cords they have Him bound and have Him in keeping, 
 
 They Him beat spiteously, and have Him fast in hold. 
 
 Maria Virgo. 
 
 Ah ! ah ! ah ! how mine heart is cold ! 
 
 Ah ! heart hard as stone, how mayst thou last ? 
 When these sorrowful tidings are thee told. 
 
 So would to God, heart, that thou mightest brast. 
 
 Ah ! Jesu ! Jesu ! Jesu ! Jesu ! 
 
 Why should ye suffer this tribulation and adversity ? 
 How may they find in their hearts you to pursue. 
 
 That never trespassed in no manner degree ? 
 
 For never thing but that was good thought ye. 
 
 Wherefore then should ye suffer this great pain ? 
 I suppose verily it is for the trespass of me. 
 
 And I wist that mine heart should cleave on twain. 
 
 The Magdalen herself is introduced, upon a pre- 
 vious occasion, for the first time to the audience before 
 the feet of Christ, uttering a prayer, which strikes me 
 in its simplicity as eminently pathetic : 
 
 1 See my Renaissance in Italy, vol. iv. p. 293, and the translation 
 of Jacopone's Corrotto in the Appendix. 
 
MARV AND THE MAGDALEN. 12^ 
 
 As a cursed creature closed all in care, 
 
 And as a wicked wretch all wrapped in woe, 
 Of bliss was never no berde ' so base. 
 
 As I myself that here now go. 
 Alas ! alas ! I shall forfare,^ 
 
 For the great sins that I have do ; 
 Less that my Lord God some deal spare, 
 And His great mercy receive me to. 
 Mary Magdalen is my name. 
 Now will I go to Christ Jesu ; 
 For He is the Lord of all virtue ; 
 And for some grace I think to sue, 
 
 For of myself I have great shame. 
 
 Ah ! mercy ! Lord ! and salve my sin ; 
 Maidens flower, thou wash me free ; 
 There was no womaji of man his kin 
 
 So full of sin in no country. 
 I have befouled be fryth ^ and fen. 
 And sought sin in many a city ; 
 But Thou me borrow,* Lord, I shall brenne,' 
 With black fiends aye bowne ^ to be. 
 Wherefore, King of Grace, 
 With this ointment that is so soot,^ 
 Let me anoint Thine holy foot. 
 And for my bales thus win some boot. 
 And mercy, Lord, for my trespass. 
 
 Later on in the same Miracle, a part of striking 
 interest is assigned to Magdalen, when she goes alone 
 to the grave of Christ, and relates her sorrows to the 
 gardener, who turns and looks upon her uttering the 
 one word ' Maria ! ' 
 
 The scene in which pathos is most highly wrought 
 with a deliberate dramatic purpose, is the sacrifice of 
 Isaac in the Chester Plays : 
 
 1 ^^r^— damsel. ^ Brenne—\>Mxrx. 
 
 " For/are— perish. * Bowne— rea.dy. 
 
 3 ErytA—vfood. ' Soot— sweet. 
 * Borrow or Borwe — ransom. 
 
126 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Isaac. 
 
 Father, tell me, or I go, 
 Whether I shall be harmed or no. 
 
 Abraham. 
 
 Ah, dear God, that me is woe ! 
 Thou breaks my heart in sunder. 
 
 Isaac. 
 
 Father, tell me of this case, 
 Why you your sword drawn has. 
 And bears it naked in this place ; 
 Thereof I have great wonder. 
 
 Abraham. 
 
 Isaac, son, peace, I thee pray ; 
 Thou breaks my heart in tway. 
 
 Isaac. 
 
 I pray you, father, lean ' nothing from me, 
 But tell me what you think. 
 
 Abraham. 
 Ah, Isaac, Isaac ! I must thee kill ! 
 
 Isaac. 
 
 Alas ! father, is that your will. 
 Your own chUd for to spill 
 Upon this hill's brink ? 
 If I have trespassed in any degree. 
 With a yard you may beat me ; 
 Put up your sword, if your will be, 
 For I am but a child. 
 
 Abraham. 
 
 O my dear son, I am sorry 
 To do to thee this great annoy. 
 God's commandment do must I ; 
 His works are ever full mild. 
 
 ' I^an — conceal. 
 
SACRIFICE OF ISAAC. 127 
 
 Isaac. 
 
 Would God my mother were here with me ! 
 She would kneel down upon her knee, 
 Praying you, father, if it may be, 
 For to save my life. 
 
 Abraham. 
 
 O, comely creature, but I thee kill, 
 I grieve my God, and that full ill. 
 
 Abraham then explains how God has commanded 
 him to slay his son ; and Isaac, when he fully com- 
 prehends, is ready for the sacrifice : 
 
 Isaac. 
 
 But yet you must do God's bidding. 
 Father, tell my mother for nothing. 
 
 Sjlere Abraham wrings his hands, and saith .■] 
 
 Abraham. 
 
 For sorrow I may my hands wring ; 
 
 Thy mother I cannot please. 
 
 Ho ! Isaac, Isaac, blessed must thou be ! 
 
 Almost my wit I lose for thee ; 
 
 The blood of thy body so free 
 
 I am full loth to shed. 
 
 \Here Isaac asking his father blessing on his knees, and saith P^ 
 
 Isaac. 
 Father, seeing you must needs do so. 
 Let it pass lightly, and over go ; 
 Kneeling on my knees two. 
 Your blessing on me spread. 
 Father, I pray you hide my een. 
 That I see not the sword so keen ; 
 Your stroke, father, would I not see, 
 Lest I against it grill. 
 
 The scene is prolonged for several speeches, Abra- 
 ham's determination being almost overcome and his 
 
128 suakspMr^'s predecessors. 
 
 will weakened by the boy's meekness. At last, Isaac 
 is bound upon the altar : 
 
 Father, greet well my brethren young, 
 And pray my mother of her blessing ; 
 I come no more under her wing ; 
 Farewell for ever and aye ! 
 But, father, I cry you mercy 
 For all that ever I have trespassed to thee, 
 Forgiven, father, that it may be 
 Until doom's day. 
 
 Then Abraham kisses his son and binds a scarf 
 about his head. Isaac kneels, and while Abraham is 
 getting his sword ready for the stroke, he says : 
 
 I pray you, father, turn down my face 
 A little, while you have space. 
 For I am full sore adread. 
 
 At this turn of the action, the Angel appears and 
 shows Abraham the ram in the thicket, while the 
 Expositor, who in the Chester Miracle comments on 
 situations involving doctrine, explains to the audience 
 how Isaac is a type of Christ. 
 
 Melodrama of a ranting and roaring type, as dis- 
 tinguished from tragedy or pathos, had a very promi- 
 nent and popular place assigned to it in the character of 
 Herod. The Shaksperian expression ' to out-Herod 
 Herod ' indicates the extravagance with which this part 
 was played, in order to please the groundlings and make 
 sport. A large sword formed part of his necessary 
 equipage, which he is ordered in the stage directions to 
 ' cast up ' and ' cast down.' He was also attended by a 
 boy wielding a bladder tied to a stick, whose duty was 
 probably to stir him up and prevent his rage from 
 flagging. In the Coventry Miracle this melodramatic 
 
MELODRAMA AND COMEDY. 129 
 
 element is elaborated with real force in the banquet 
 scene which follows the Massacre of the Innocents. 
 Herod appears throned and feasting among his knights, 
 boasting truculently of his empire, and listening to their 
 savage jests upon the slaughtered children. Then 
 Death enters unperceived except by the spectators, 
 and strikes Herod down in the midst of his riot; 
 whereupon the Devil springs upon the stage, and 
 carries off the King with two of his Knights to Hell. 
 If Herod supplied melodrama, the Devil furnished 
 abundance of low comedy and grotesque humour. His 
 first appearance as Lucifer in the Parliament of Hea- 
 ven shows him a proud rebellious Seraph. While the 
 angels are singing Sanctus to God upon His throne, he 
 suddenly starts forth and interrupts their chorus : ^ 
 
 To whose worship sing ye this song ? 
 
 To worship God or reverence me ? 
 But ye me worship, ye do me wrong ; 
 
 For I am the worthiest that ever may be. 
 
 On this note Lucifer continues, not without dignity, 
 defying God, menacing the loyal angels, and drawing 
 to his side the rebels. But when the word, expelling 
 him from heaven, is spoken, his form changes, and his 
 language takes a baser tone. His companions rush 
 grovelling and cursing one another to the mouth of 
 hell, howling, ' Out harrow ! ' and ' Ho ! Ho ! ' 2— the 
 cries with which, when devils came upon the stage, 
 they always advertised their entrance. When Satan 
 reappears, he has lost all his former state and beauty. 
 He is henceforth the hideous, deformed, and obscene 
 fiend of medieval fancy. One of his speeches may 
 
 ' Coventry Plays. ' Chester Plays. 
 
 K 
 
130 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 suffice for a specimen. After the Fall, God curses him 
 again in the shape of the serpent, and he answers : ^ 
 
 At Thy bidding, foul I fall ; 
 
 I creep home to my stinking stall ; 
 
 Hell-pit and heaven-hall 
 
 Shall do Thy bidding boon. 
 I fall down here a foul freke ; ^ 
 For this fall I gin to quake ; 
 With a fart my breech I break ; 
 
 My sorrow cometh full soon. 
 
 It was customary for the Devil to disappear thus with an 
 unclean gesture. In addition to Satan, Beelzebub and 
 Belial are personified ; and in the Widkirk Plays a sub- 
 ordinate fiend named Tutivillus, who was destined to 
 play a popular part in the Moralities, appears upon the 
 scene of Doomsday. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Another kind of comedy, less fantastically gro- 
 tesque, but far grosser to our modern apprehension, 
 arose from the relations between Joseph and his wife, 
 the Virgin Mother of our Lord. The real object of 
 those monkish playwrights was to bring the miraculous 
 and immaculate conception of Christ into clear relief 
 But they wrote as though they wanted to insist on 
 what is coarse and disagreeable in the situation. Joseph 
 is depicted as superfluously old, unwilling to wed, and 
 conscious of marital incapacity. Mary professes her 
 intention of leading a religious life in celibacy. Wed- 
 lock is thrust upon the pair by an unmistakable sign 
 from heaven that they are appointed unto matrimony, 
 
 ' Coventry Plays. ^ Freke — fellow. 
 
JOSEPH AND MARY. 131 
 
 Listen to Joseph before he is dragged forth to offer up 
 his wand : 
 
 Benedicite ! I cannot understand 
 
 What our Prince of Priests doth mean, 
 That every man should come and bring with him a wand, 
 
 Able to be married ; that is not I ; so mote I th^jj^! 
 
 I have been maiden ever, and ever more will ben ; 
 I changed not yet of all my long life ; 
 
 And now to be married, some man would wen 
 It is a strange thing an old man to take a young wife ! 
 
 Soon after the wedding, Joseph leaves his bride ; and 
 
 when he returns, he finds to his dismay that she has 
 
 conceived a child : 
 
 That seemeth evil, I am afraid, 
 
 Thy womb too high doth stand. 
 I dread me sore I am betrayed. 
 Some other man thee had in hand 
 Hence sith that I went. 
 
 Mary tells him the truth. But he can naturally not 
 
 believe her. 
 
 God's child ! Thou liest, ifay ! 
 God did never jape so with may. 
 Alas ! alas ! my name is shent ! 
 All men may me now despise, 
 And say, ' Old cuckold, thy bow is bent 
 Newly now after the French guise ! ' 
 
 Mary repeats her story of the angel. This rouses 
 
 Joseph's wrath. 
 
 An angel ! Alas, alas ! Fie for shame ! 
 
 Ye sin now in that ye do say. 
 To putten an angel in so great blame. 
 
 Alas, alas ! let be, do way ! 
 It was some boy began this game. 
 
 That clothed was clean and gay ; 
 And ye give him now an angel's name — 
 
 Alas, alas, and well away ! 
 
 After Joseph has been satisfied by the descent of 
 Gabriel from heaven confirming Mary's narrative, the 
 
132 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 situation is not dropped. It seemed necessary to the 
 monkish scribe that he should drive the doctrine of 
 the Incarnation home into the thickest skull by further 
 evidence. Therefore he devised a scene in which 
 Mary is arraigned for incontinence before the Bishop's 
 Court by two detractors or false witnesses. Of their 
 foul language and scurrilous insinuations no special 
 account need here be taken, except it be to point out 
 that they dwell on Joseph's age, and make merry with 
 the common fate of old men married to young brides. 
 The suit is decided by the ordeal of a potent drink of 
 which Mary and Joseph both partake without injury, 
 while the false witnesses, who are also obliged to taste 
 the cup, fall down astonied and distraught : 
 
 Out, out, alas ! What aileth my skull ? 
 
 Ah, mine head with fire methinketh is brent ! 
 
 Mercy, good Mary ! I do me repent 
 Of my cursed and false language. 
 
 To our notions, Noah's wife was a better butt than 
 Mary's husband for this comic badinage. And in the 
 Chester Pageant of the Deluge this personage is made 
 to furnish forth much fun. Early in the scene, she 
 declares her intention of not entering the Ark at all. 
 At any rate, nothing shall induce her to do so until she 
 has made merry with her gossips, and taken a good 
 sup of wine. Then, if she may bring them with her, 
 she will think about it. All the beasts and fowls have 
 been already packed away, when this dialogue between 
 the patriarch and his wife opens : 
 
 Nbye. 
 
 Wife, come in : why stands thou there ? 
 
 Thou art ever froward, I dare well swear. 
 
 Come in, on God's name ! Half time it were, 
 For fear lest that we drown. 
 
NOAH'S WIFE. 133 
 
 Nbye's Wife. 
 
 Yea, sir, set up your sail. 
 And row forth with evil hail. 
 For withouten fail 
 
 I will not out of this town ; 
 But I have my gossips everyone, 
 One foot further I will not gone : 
 They shall not drown, by Saint John, 
 
 An I may save their life. 
 They loven me full well, by Christ ! 
 But thou let them into thy chest, 
 Els row now where thy list, 
 
 And get thee a new wife ! 
 
 Noye. 
 
 Sem, son, lo ! thy mother is wrawe ; 
 By God, such another I do not know. 
 
 Sem. 
 
 Father, I shall fetch her in, I trow, 
 
 Withouten any fail. 
 Mother, my father after thee send. 
 And bids thee into yonder ship wend. 
 Look up and see the wind ; 
 
 For we be ready to sail. 
 
 Noye's Wife. 
 Sem, go again to him, I say ; 
 I will not come therein to-day. 
 
 Noye. 
 Come in, wife, in twenty devils' way ! 
 Or else stand there all day. 
 
 Cam. 
 Shall we all fetch her in ? 
 
 Noye. 
 Yea, sons, in Christ's blessing and mine ' 
 I would you hied you betime ; 
 For of this flood I am in doubt. 
 
134 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 The Good Gosstppes' Song. 
 
 The flood comes flitting in full fast, 
 
 On every side that spreads full far ; 
 
 For fear of drowning I am aghast ; 
 
 Good gossips, let us draw nere. 
 
 And let us drink or we depart. 
 
 For oft times we have done so ; 
 
 For at a draught thou drinks a quart. 
 
 And so will I do or I go. 
 
 Here is a pottel full of Malmsey good and strong ; 
 
 It will rejoice both heart and tongue. 
 
 Though Noye think us never so long, 
 
 Here we will drink alike. 
 
 At length, after much further beseeching on the part 
 of Noah and his sons, and bargaining upon her side, 
 Noah's wife with all her gossips is bundled into the 
 Ark, and the Deluge begins in good earnest. 
 
 The Nativity gave occasion for blending comic and 
 idyllic motives in a very graceful combination. The 
 pure and beautiful narrative of S. Luke's Gospel, with 
 its romantic suggestion of the shepherd folk awaked by 
 angels on the hills of Bethlehem to gaze upon Christ's 
 star, touched the imagination of all Christendom. It 
 brought heaven into contact with the simplest form of 
 rural industry ; invested pastoral life with sacred poetry ; 
 and dedicated the Divine Infant in His cradle of the 
 manger to the sympathy of those rude watchers on the 
 fells and uplands. Therefore we find that the Presepio 
 of Umbrian devotion, the Pifferari of Rome and Naples, 
 the musette-players of France, the Christmas music of 
 Bach and Handel, the Noels and the carols of all 
 Northern nations, have yielded a continuous succession 
 of the rarest and most quaintly touching passages in 
 Christian art. In the first rank with these productions 
 we may reckon the pastoral scenes in our religious 
 
THE NATIVITY. 135 
 
 drama. Two of these deserve especial comment. 
 The first is a celebrated episode in the Widkirk 
 Miracles, which forms a comedy of rustic life complete 
 in all its parts, and turns upon the jovial humours of 
 one shepherd Mak, who steals a sheep from his com- 
 panions, and conceals it in his cottage as the new-born 
 baby of his wife. This little piece, detached from the 
 action of the Miracle, rightly deserves the name of 
 interlude, and proves that independent comedy had a 
 very early existence in England. Still and Udall, the 
 first writers of regular comedy in our language, had 
 little more to do than to develop similar motives and 
 work upon the lines of this original. The Chester 
 Plays contain a piece of less dramatic importance, but 
 which is equally interesting for its realistic delineation 
 of rural habits. The name of the comic characters in 
 this Nativity are Harvey, Tudd, and Trowle, who 
 occupy the night, before the shining of the angel, with 
 rude jokes and vauntings of their pastoral craft. Their 
 discussion of Gabriel's message, ' Gloria in excelsis,' &c. 
 is marked by a racy sense of what such seely shepherds 
 may have gathered from an angel's song. Quoth one : 
 
 What song was this, say ye, 
 That they sang to us all three ? 
 Expounded shall it be, 
 
 Or we hence pass. 
 For I am eldest of degree, 
 And also best, as seemes me. 
 It was glore glare with a glee ; 
 
 It was neither more nor less. 
 
 Trowle, who is the comic personage par excellence, 
 
 replies : 
 
 Nay, it was glori, glory, glorious ! 
 Methought that note ran over the house. 
 
136 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 A seemly man he was and curious ; 
 But soon away he was. 
 
 Another shepherd answers Trowle : 
 
 Nay, it was glory, glory, with a glo ! 
 And much of celsis was thereto : 
 As ever I have rest or roo, 
 Much he spake of glass. 
 
 It may parenthetically be observed that the painters 
 and glaziers of Chester presented this pageant. There- 
 fore the allusion in the last line to their trade may have 
 been meant to move mirth. After bandying their conjec- 
 tures to and fro, the shepherds rise and wend their way 
 to the stable in Bethlehem, where they find Christ new- 
 born, and worship Him with various simple prayers and 
 
 offerings : 
 
 Hail, King of heaven so high ! 
 
 Born in a crib ! 
 
 Mankind unto Thee 
 
 Thou hast made fully. 
 
 Hail, King ! born in a maiden's bower ! 
 
 Prophets did tell Thou shouldst bear succour. 
 
 Thus clerks doth say. 
 
 Lo, I bring Thee a bell. 
 
 I pray Thee save me from hell. 
 
 So that I may with Thee dwell 
 
 And serve Thee for aye. 
 
 When it comes to the turn of Trowle, that incorrigible 
 jester, he has no gift to make but ' a pair of my wife's 
 old hose.' But this crude note, no sooner than struck, 
 is resolved in a really charming quartett of boys, who 
 approach the infant, each with a gift suitable to his 
 own poor estate : 
 
 The First Boy. 
 
 Now, Lord, for to give Thee have I nothing ; 
 Neither gold, silver, brooch, nor ring. 
 
PASTORAL INTERLUDES. 137 
 
 Nor no rich robes meet for a king, 
 
 That have I here in store. 
 But that it lacks a stoppel, 
 Take Thee here my fair bottle, 
 For it will hold a good pottle : 
 
 In faith I can give Thee no more. 
 
 77ie Third Boy. 
 
 O noble child of Thee ! 
 Alas, what have I for Thee 
 
 Save only my pipe ? 
 Else truely nothing. 
 Were I in the rocks or in 
 
 I could make this pipe, 
 That all the woods should ring 
 And quiver, as it were. 
 
 The Fourth Boy. 
 Now, Child, although Thou be comen from God, 
 And be God Thyself in Thy manhood. 
 Yet I know that in Thy childhood 
 
 Thou wilt for sweet meat look ; 
 To pull down apples, pears, and plums ; 
 Old Joseph shall not need to hurt his thumbs. 
 Because Thou hast not plenty of crumbs ; 
 
 I give Thee here my nut-hook. 
 
 X. 
 
 Passages of realistic delineation may be culled pretty 
 copiously from all the Miracles. The eldest, those of 
 Widkirk, for example^ introduce a dialogue between 
 Cain and his Gargon, curiously illustrative of vulgar 
 boorish life. An episode of dicers in the Crucifixion of 
 the same series forms a short interlude detached from 
 the chief action. In the Chester Plays the dishonest 
 alewife, who abides with the Devils, after Hell has been 
 harrowed and Michael has sung Te Deum, and who is 
 
138 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 welcomed with effusion by Satan and his crew, supplies 
 the motive of what is practically a brief comic farce. 
 A more distinct satiric aim is traceable in some parts of 
 the Coventry Plays — for instance, in the monologue of 
 the ' Great Duke of Hell,' who comes upon the stage in 
 the fashionable costume of a Court gallant, and reads a 
 homily upon the modern modes of sinning ;^ also in the 
 curious interpolated pageant of the Assumption, which 
 abounds in allusions to reformers and heretics, and is 
 written in a harsh, coarse, controversial style, combined 
 with much vulgarity of abuse. The introduction to 
 the 14th Pageant of the Coventry series is a satire, 
 the point of which has, I think, been missed by both 
 Halliwell in his edition of these plays and Collier in his 
 commentary on them. The Bishop's Court is about 
 to be opened for the trial of Mary accused of incon- 
 tinence. An usher enters, and makes proclamation : 
 
 Avoid, sirs, and let my lord the Bishop come, 
 
 And sit in the court the laws for to do ; 
 And I shall go in this place them for to summon ; 
 
 Those that be in my book, the court ye must come to. 
 
 He then reads out a list of names, obviously meant 
 to indicate parishioners over whom the Bishop's Court 
 had jurisdiction for sins of the flesh. They run in 
 pairs mostly, men and women, as thus : 
 
 Cook Crane and Davy Drydust, 
 Lucy Liar and Lettice Littletrust, 
 Miles the Miller and Colle Crakecrust, 
 Both Bett the Baker and Robin Reed. 
 
 Lastly, having summoned these evil livers, he bids 
 them put money in their purse, lest their cause fare ill 
 
 ' Pageant 25. 
 
SATIRE. 139 
 
 in the Bishop's Court — a warning similar to that we 
 find in Mapes's rhymes upon the Roman Curia : 
 
 And look ye ring well in your purse, 
 For else your cause may speed the worse. 
 
 Both HalHwell and ColHer interpret this passage to 
 mean that entrance fees were paid at exhibitions of 
 the pageants. This, however, is inconsistent with the 
 whole tenor of the proclamation, and is quite in con- 
 tradiction with the last words of the usher : 
 
 Though that ye sling God's curse 
 Even at mine head, fast come away : 
 
 where it is clear that the fellow is not inviting spectators 
 to a show, but making believe to summon unwilling 
 folk before the justice. 
 
 I shall close these remarks with yet another scene 
 of dramatic realism, chosen from the Coventry Plays. 
 It occurs in the Pageant of the Woman taken in 
 Adultery. A Scribe and a Pharisee are consulting 
 how they may entrap Christ, and bring Him to con- 
 fusion. A third person, who is styled Accusator, sug- 
 gests that they should present Him with the puzzling 
 case of a woman detected in the act of sin : 
 
 A fair young quean here by doth dwell. 
 
 Both fresh and gay upon to look ; 
 And a tall man with her doth mell : 
 
 The way into her chamber right even he took. 
 
 Let us there now go straight thither ; 
 
 The way full even I shall you lead ; 
 And we shall take them both together, 
 
 While that they do that sinful deed. 
 
 The Pharisee and Scribe assent. The Accuser leads 
 them to the house. They break open the door, and 
 
I40 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 the tall man comes rushing out, pursued by the three 
 witnesses. The stage direction runs as follows : 
 
 [Htc juvenis quidam extra currit in diploide, caligis non ligatis, et 
 braccas in manu tenens, et dicit Accusator.] 
 
 Accusator, 
 
 Stow that harlot, some earthly wight ! 
 That in advowtry here is found ! 
 
 'jfuvenis. 
 
 If any man stow me this night, 
 
 I shall him give a deadly wound. 
 If any man my way doth stop, 
 
 Or we depart dead shall I be ; 
 I shall this dagger put in his crop ; 
 
 I shall him kill or he shall me ! 
 
 Pharisee. 
 
 Great God his curse may go with thee ! 
 With such a shrew will I not mell. 
 
 y^uvenis. 
 That same blessing I give you three, 
 And queath you all to the devil of hell. 
 
 [Turning to the audience, and showing them in what a plight he standsi\ 
 
 In faith I was so sore afraid 
 
 Of yon three shrews, the sooth to say, 
 My breech be not yet well up tied, 
 
 I had such haste to run away : 
 They shall never catch me in such affray — 
 
 I am full glad that I am gone. 
 Adieu, adieu ! a twenty devils' way ! 
 
 And God his curse have ye everyone ! 
 
 What follows, when the Scribe, the Pharisee, and 
 the Accuser drag the woman forth, is too foul-mouthed 
 for quotation. It proves that the monkish author of the 
 text shrank from nothing which could make his point 
 clear, or could furnish sport to the spectators. The scene 
 
WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY. 141 
 
 acquires dignity as it proceeds. Christ writes in silence 
 with His finger on the sand, while the three witnesses 
 utter voluble invective, ply Him with citations from the 
 law of Moses, and taunt Him with inability to answer. 
 At last He lifts His head and speaks : 
 
 Look which of you that never sin wrought, 
 
 But is of life cleaner than she, 
 Cast at her stones and spare her nought. 
 
 Clean out of sin if that ye be. 
 
 [Hie Jesus iterum se inclinans scribet in terra, et omnes aeeusatores 
 quasi eonfusi separatim in tribus locis se disjungenf.] 
 
 Pharisee. 
 Alas, alas ! I am ashamed. 
 
 I am afeard that I shall die. 
 All mine sins even properly named 
 
 Yon prophet did write before mine eye. 
 If that my fellows that did espy. 
 
 They will tell it both far and wide ; 
 My sinful living if they out cry, 
 
 I wot never where mine head to hide ! 
 
 The same effect is produced on the other witnesses 
 by Christ's mystic writing in the sand. They slink 
 away, abashed or silenced, while the woman makes 
 confession and receives absolution : 
 
 When man is contrite, and hath won grace, 
 God will not keep old wrath in mind ; 
 
 But better love to them He has, 
 Very contrite when He them find. 
 
 Some reflections are forced upon the mind by the 
 mixture of comedy with sacred things in these old 
 plays, and by their gross material realism. In order to 
 comprehend what strikes a modern student as profanity, 
 we must place ourselves at the medieval point of view. 
 The Northern races who adopted Christianity, delighted 
 
t42 SHAKSPERE^S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 in grotesqueness. The broad hilarity of their Yule 
 rites and festivals added mirth to Christmas. To 
 separate the indulgence of this taste for humour from 
 religion, would have been impossible ; because religion 
 was the fullest expression of their life, absorbing all 
 their intellectual energies. The Cathedral, which em- 
 bodied the highest spiritual aspirations in a monu- 
 mental work of art, admitted grotesquery in details 
 and jflung wide its gate at certain seasons to buffoonery. 
 Grinning gargoils, monstrous Lombard centaurs, mer- 
 maids clasped with men, indecent miserere stalls, 
 festivals of Fools and Asses, burlesque Masses per- 
 formed by boy-bishops, travesties of holiest rites 
 did not offend, as it would seem, the sense of men who 
 reared the spire of Salisbury, who carved the portals 
 of Chartres, who glazed the chancel windows of Le 
 Mans, who struck the unison of arch and curve and 
 column, and could span in thought the vacant air with 
 aisles more bowery than forest glades. We, in this later 
 age of colder piety and half-extinguished art, explore 
 the relics of the past, scrutinise and ponder, classify 
 and criticise. It is hardly given to us to understand 
 the harmony of parts apparently so diverse. It shocks 
 our taste to dwell on coarseness and religion blent in 
 one consistent whole. We forget that the artists we 
 admire — our masters in design how unapproachably 
 beyond the reach of modern genius ! — lived their whole 
 lives out in what they wrought. For those folk, so 
 simple in their mental state, so positive in their belief, 
 it was both right and natural that the ludicrous and 
 even the unclean should find a place in art and in 
 religious mysteries. 
 
PARALLELS IN PLASTIC APT. 143 
 
 XI. 
 
 As a last word on the subject of Miracle Plays, 
 I may suggest that those who are curious to form an 
 adequate conception of the pageants as they were 
 performed, should pay a visit to the Sacro Monte at 
 Varallo. There, on the broad flat summit of a rocky 
 hill some thousand feet above the valley of the Sesia, 
 is a sanctuary surrounded with numberless chapels 
 embowered in chestnut woods. Each chapel contains 
 a scene from sacred history, expressed by figures of 
 life size, vividly painted, and accompanied with simple 
 scenery in fresco on the walls. The whole series sets 
 forth the life of Christ with special reference to the 
 Passion. Architecture, plastic groups and wall-paint- 
 ings date alike from a period in the middle of the 
 sixteenth century, and are the work of no mean crafts- 
 men. The great Gaudenzio Ferrari plied his brush 
 there together with painters of Luini's school. But 
 the method of treatment, particularly in episodes of 
 vehement emotion, such as the Massacre of the Inno- 
 cents, the Flagellation, and the Crucifixion, indicates 
 antique tradition. Designed for the people who crowd 
 this festival in summer time on pilgrimage from all 
 the neighbouring hill-country and cities of the plain, 
 they are no finished masterpieces of Renaissance art, 
 but simply realistic pageants bringing facts with rude 
 dramatic force before the eyes. It seems to me im- 
 possible to approach the Miracles, as they were pro- 
 bably exhibited in Coventry and Chester, more closely 
 than on this Holy Mountain, where the popular art of 
 the sixteenth century is still in close relation with the 
 religious sentiments of a rustic population. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MORAL PLAYS. 
 
 I. Development of Minor Religious Plays from the Cyclical Miracle — 
 Intermediate Forms between Miracle and Drama — Allegory and Per- 
 sonification. — II. Allegories in the Miracle — Detached from the 
 Miracle — Medieval Contrasti, Dialogi, and Disputationes — Emergence 
 of the Morality — Its essentially Transitional Character. — III. Stock 
 Personages in Moral Plays — Devil and Vice — The Vice and the 
 Clown. — IV. Stock Argument — Protestant and Catholic — ' Mundus et 
 Infans.' —V. The ' Castle of Perseverance' — ' Lusty Juventus ' — 'Youth.' 
 — VI. 'Hick Scorner' — A real Person introduced — 'New Custom' — 
 'Trial of Treasure '—' Like will to Like.'— VII. ' Everyman '—The 
 Allegorical Importance of this Piece. — VIII. Moral Plays with an 
 Attempt at Plot — ' Marriage of Wit and Wisdom ' — ' Marriage of Wit 
 and Science' — 'The Four Elements ' — ' Microcosmus.' — IX. Advance 
 in Dramatic Quality—' The Nice Wanton'— 'The Disobedient Child.' 
 — X. How Moral Plays were Acted — Passage from the old Play of 
 'Sir Thomas More.' — XI. Hybrids between Moral Plays and Drama — 
 'King Johan' — Mixture of History and Allegory — The Vice in ' Appius 
 and Virginia ' — In ' Cambyses.' 
 
 (N.B. The majority of the Plays discussed in this chapter will be 
 found in Hazlitt's Dodsley, vols. i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi.) 
 
 I. 
 
 The examples already given of humorous passages 
 occurring in the Miracles, suffice to prove that comedy 
 was ready to detach itself from the religious drama, 
 and to assert its independence. But other causes had 
 to operate, and a whole phase of evolution had to 
 be accomplished before the emancipation of tragedy, 
 that far more highly organised artistic form, could be 
 effected. In proportion as the Miracles passed more 
 
MEDIEVAL ALLEGORY. 145 
 
 and more into the hands of laymen, and characters 
 like Herod or Pilate acquired greater prominence, the 
 transition from the Cyclical Mystery to an intermediate 
 type, out of which the serious drama of History and 
 Tragedy ultimately emerged, was rendered gradually 
 possible. Sacred plays with titles like the following, 
 ' Godly Queen Esther,' ' King Darius,' ' The Conver- 
 sion of Saul,' ' Mary Magdalen,' show the tendency to 
 select some episode of Biblical history for separate 
 treatment, and while maintaining the conventional 
 structure of the Miracle, to concentrate interest on 
 some single personage. In the Cyclical Miracle, the 
 human race itself had been the protagonist, and the 
 action was commensurate with the whole scheme of 
 man's salvation. In these minor Miracles one man or 
 woman emerged into distinctness, and the dramatic 
 action was determined by the character and deeds 
 of the selected hero. 
 
 It was not possible, however, for the art to free 
 itself upon these simple lines. Instruction had been 
 the chief end of the sacred play, and to this purpose 
 the drama still clung in its passage toward liberty. 
 Allegory and personification supplied the necessary 
 intermediate form. We have only to remember what 
 a commanding part was played by Allegory through the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries all over Europe— in 
 the Divine Comedy of Dante, in Giotto's painting and 
 Orcagna's sculpture, in the French Romance of the 
 Rose, in the mysticism of the German Parzival, in 
 the Vision of our English Ploughman— in order to 
 comprehend the reasons why this step was inevitable, 
 and why the type determined by it for the drama was 
 
146 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 not then without attraction. Three centuries of mili- 
 tant and triumphant humanism, of developed art, and 
 of advancing science have rendered allegory irksome 
 to the modern mind. We recognise its essential 
 imperfection, and are hardly able to do justice to such 
 merits as it undoubtedly possessed for people not yet 
 accustomed to distinguish thought from figured modes 
 of presentation. It is our duty, if we care to under- 
 stand the last phase of medieval culture, to throw 
 ourselves back into the mental condition of men who 
 demanded that abstractions should be clothed for them 
 by art in visible shapes — men penetrated in good 
 earnest with the Realism of the Schools, and to whom 
 the genders of the Latin Grammar suggested sexes — 
 men who delighted in the ingenuity and grotesquery of 
 what to us is little better than a system of illustrated 
 conundrums ; for whom a Prudence with two faces or a 
 Charity crowned with flames seemed no less natural 
 than Gabriel kneeling with his lily at the Virgin's 
 footstool — men who naturally thought their deepest 
 thoughts out into tangibilities by means of allegorical 
 mythology. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Miracles in England had already brought 
 personifications upon the stage. In the Coventry 
 Plays, Justice, Mercy, Truth, and Peace hold con- 
 ference with the three Persons of the Trinity. 
 Death strikes Herod down among his knights. Con- 
 templation acts the part of hierophant, explaining 
 mysteries of faith. Medieval literature, moreover, 
 
PJERSONIFJED ABSTRACTIONS. 147 
 
 abounded in debates and dialogues between abstrac- 
 tions. From the Latin poems attributed to Walter 
 Mapes in England, we might quote a ' Disputatio inter 
 Corpus et Animam,' and a ' Dialogus inter Aquam et 
 Vinum.' The Italian Contrasti, some of which, like 
 the ' Commedia dell' Anima,' are undoubtedly of great 
 antiquity, bring the scheme of human destiny before 
 us under the form of personified abstractions con- 
 versing and disputing. To take a further step ; to 
 detach the element of allegory already extant in 
 the Miracles from the framework in which it was 
 embedded, and to combine this dramatic element with 
 the moral disputations of scholastic literature, was both 
 natural and easy. This step was taken at a compara- 
 tively early period. Moral plays, extant in MS., have 
 been ascribed to the reign of Henry VI. In the reign 
 of Henry VII. they were both popular and fashionable, 
 and they kept their vogue through that of his successor, 
 increasing in complexity. The artistic type which 
 resulted from this process made no unreasonable de- 
 mands upon the imagination of a laity imbued with 
 allegorical conceptions, and accustomed by the plastic 
 arts to figurative renderings of abstract notions. Yet 
 the defect adherent to all allegory in poetic art renders 
 these figures ineffective. Intended for the stage, they 
 strike us as being even more ineffective than they might 
 have been in a poem meant to be perused. This defect 
 may be plainly stated. According to the allegorical 
 method, persons are created to stand for qualities, which 
 qualities in all living human beings are blent with other 
 and modifying moral ingredients. Being qualities iso- 
 lated by a process of abstraction and incarnated by 
 
 L 2 
 
SHAKSPERE 'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 a process of reflective art, brought into aesthetical 
 existence in order to symbolise and present single facets 
 of character, they cannot delude us into taking them for 
 personalities. They fail to attain concrete reality or 
 to convey forcible lessons in human ethics. How cold 
 and lifeless, for example, are the struggles of Juven- 
 tus between Pity and Abominable Living, matched 
 with the real ^conflict of a young man trained in piety, 
 but tempted by a woman ! 
 
 It was thus that the Morality came into existence : 
 an intermediate form of dramatic art which had less 
 vogue in England than in France, and which preserves 
 at this time only a faint antiquarian interest. To touch 
 lightly upon its main features will serve the purpose of 
 a work which aims at literary criticism rather than at 
 scientific history. The chief point to be insisted on is 
 the emergence through Moralities of true dramatic 
 types of character into distinctness. The Morality 
 must, for our present purpose, be regarded as the 
 schoolmaster which brought our drama to self-con- 
 sciousness. It has the aridity and mortal dullness 
 proper to merely transitional and abortive products. 
 The growth of a brief moment in the evolution of the 
 modern mind, representing the passage from medieval- 
 ism to the Renaissance, from Catholic to humanistic 
 art, this species bore within itself the certainty of short 
 duration, and suffered all the disabilities and awkward- 
 nesses of a temporary makeshift. We might compare it 
 to one of those imperfect organisms which have long 
 since perished in the struggle for existence, but which 
 interest the physiologist both as indicating an effort 
 after development upon a line which proved to be the 
 
CHARACTERS OF THE MORALITIES. 149 
 
 weaker, and also as containing within itself evidences of 
 the structure which finally succeeded. This compari- 
 son, even though it be not scientifically correct, will 
 serve to explain the nature of the Morality, which can 
 hardly be said to lie in the direct line of evolution 
 between the Miracle and the legitimate Drama, but 
 rather to be an abortive side-effort, which was destined 
 to bear barren fruit. 
 
 III. 
 
 Let us pass the actors in a prefatory review. From 
 their names we shall learn something of the drama 
 which they constituted. Perseverance, Science, Mun- 
 dus. Wit, Free-wnll, the Five Senses reduced to one 
 spokesman, Sensual Appetite, Imagination, a Taverner, 
 Luxuria, Conscience, Innocency, Mischief, Nought, 
 Nowadays, Abominable Living, Ignorance, Irksome- 
 ness, Tutivillus, the Seven Vices, Anima, Gar9io (figur- 
 ing Young England), Humanum Genus, Pity, Every- 
 man, Honest Recreation— such are some of the strange 
 actors in these moral shows. Abstract terms are per- 
 sonified and quaintly jumbled up with more familiar 
 characters emergent from the people of the times. An 
 effort is clearly being made to realise dramatic types, 
 which after trial in this shape of metaphysical entities, 
 will take their place as men and women animated by 
 controlling humours, when the stage becomes a mirror 
 of man's actual life. For the present period the stage 
 has ceased to be the mirror of God's dealings with the 
 human race in the scheme of creation, redemption, and 
 judgment. It has not yet accustomed itself to reflect 
 true men and women as they have been, are, and will 
 
15° SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 be for all time. This intermediate dramatic form is 
 satisfied with bodying forth the figments of the mind. 
 It reflects logical generalities in the mirror of its art, 
 investing these with outward form and allegorical im- 
 personation. 
 
 Prominent among this motley company of abstract 
 characters moved the Devil, leaping upon the stage 
 dressed like a bear, and shouting 'Ho! Ho!' and 
 'Out Harrow!' His frequent but not inseparable 
 comrade was the Vice — that tricksy incarnation of the 
 wickedness which takes all shapes, and whose fantastic 
 feats secure a kind of sympathy. The Vice was un- 
 known in the English Miracles, and played no marked 
 part in the French Moralities. He appears to have 
 been a native growth, peculiar to the transitional epoch 
 of our moral interludes. By gradual deterioration or 
 amelioration, he passed at length into the Fool or 
 Clown of Shakspere's Comedy. But at the moment 
 of which we are now treating, the Vice was a more con- 
 siderable personage. He represented that element of 
 evil which is inseparable from human nature. Viewed 
 from one side he was eminently comic ; and his pranks 
 cast a gleam of merriment across the dullness of the 
 scenes through which he hovered with the lightness of 
 a Harlequin. Like Harlequin, he wore a vizor and 
 carried a lathe sword. It was part of his business to 
 belabour the Devil with this sword ; , but when the 
 piece was over, after stirring the laughter of the people 
 by his jests, and heaping mischief upon mischief in the 
 heart of man, nothing was left for the Vice but to 
 dance down to Hell upon the Devil's back. The 
 names of the Vice are as various as the characters 
 
THE VICE. IS I 
 
 which he assumed, and as the nature of the play re- 
 quired. At root he remains invariably the same — a 
 flippant and persistent elf of evil, natural to man. 
 Here are some of his titles, taken from the scenes 
 in which he figures : Iniquity, Hypocrisy, Infidelity, 
 Hardydardy, Nichol Newfangle, Inclination, Ambi- 
 dexter, Sin, Desire, Haphazard. The names, it will 
 be noticed, vary according as the play is more or 
 less allegorical, and according to the special com- 
 plexion of human frailty which the author sought to 
 represent. 
 
 The part of the Vice was by far the most original 
 feature of the Moralities, and left a lasting impression 
 upon the memory of English folk long after it had 
 disappeared from the stage. The Clown in ' Twelfth 
 Night' sings : 
 
 I am gone, sir ; 
 
 And anon, sir, 
 I '11 be with you again, 
 
 In a trice, 
 
 Like to the old Vice, 
 Your need to sustain ; 
 Who, with dagger of lath, 
 In his rage and his wrath, 
 
 Cries Ah, ha ! to the Devil : 
 Like a mad lad, 
 Pare thy nails, dad ; 
 
 Adieu, goodman drivel. 
 
 Ben Jonson, who preserved so much of old stage 
 learning and tradition in the introductions to his 
 comedies, brings Satan and the impish demon Pug, 
 together with Iniquity, into the first scene of 'The 
 Devil is an Ass.' Satan opens the play with ' Hoh, 
 hoh, hoh, hoh, hoh, hoh, hoh, hoh, hoh, hoh ! ' Pug 
 
152 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 begs to be sent up to earth to try his budding devil- 
 hood on human kind : 
 
 O chief ! 
 You do not know, dear chief ! what there is in me ! 
 Prove me but for a fortnight, for a week, 
 And lend me but a Vice, to carry with me ! 
 
 ' What Vice ? ' answers Satan. 
 
 Why, any : Fraud, 
 
 Or Covetousness, or Lady Vanity, 
 
 Or old Iniquity. 
 
 Iniquity is forthwith summoned, and comes leaping 
 on the stage in his Harlequin's costume : 
 
 What is he calls upon me, and would seem to lack a Vice ? 
 Ere his words be half spoken, I am with him in a trice ; 
 Here, there, and everywhere, as the cat is with the mice : 
 True Vetus Iniquitas. Lack'st thou cards, friend, or dice ? 
 I will teach thee to cheat, child, to cog, lie, and swagger. 
 And ever and anon to be drawing forth thy dagger. 
 
 And so forth, rattling along in a measure suited to his 
 antic dance. Satan, however, tells Pug that the Vice is 
 half a century too old : 
 
 Art thou the spirit thou seem'st ? So poor, to choose 
 This for a Vice, to advance the cause of Hell, 
 Now, as vice stands this present year ? Remember 
 What number it is, six hundred and sixteen. 
 Had it but been five hundred, though some sixty 
 Above ; that 's fifty years agone, and six. 
 When every great man had his Vice stand beside him, 
 In his long coat, shaking his wooden dagger, 
 I could consent that then this your grave choice 
 Might have done that, with his lord chief, the which 
 Most of his chamber can do now. 
 
 The Vice, in fact, is out of date, discredited, no 
 
BEN JONSON ON THE VICE. 153 
 
 better than a Court fool, fit only to play clowns' pranks 
 at sheriffs' dinners. 
 
 We must therefore aim 
 At extraordinary subtle ones now, 
 When we do send to keep us up in credit : 
 Not old Iniquities. 
 
 In the induction to ' The Staple of News ' two cronies 
 are inti-oduced as critics of the comedy. After sitting 
 through the first act, Gossip Mirth says to Gossip 
 Tattle : 
 
 But they have no fool in this play, I am afraid, gossip. 
 
 Gossip Tattle remembers the good old times of her 
 youth, when the Vice and Devil shook the stage to- 
 gether : 
 
 My husband, Timothy Tattle— God rest his poor soul ! — was wont 
 to say there was no. play without a fool and a Devil in 't; he was for 
 the Devil still, God bless him ! The Devil for his money, would he 
 say, I would fain see the Devil. 
 
 Gossip Mirth caps these reminiscences with her own 
 recollection of a certain Devil : 
 
 As fine a gentleman of his inches as ever I saw trusted to the 
 stage, or anywhere else ; and loved the Commonwealth as well as 
 ever a patriot of them all : he would carry away the Vice on his back, 
 quick to hell, in every play where he came, and reform abuses. 
 
 These passages prove sufficiently that the salt of 
 the Moralities existed for the common folk in the 
 diabolic ■ characters, and that these characters were 
 confounded with the parts of clown and fool, sinking 
 gradually into insignificance with the advance of the 
 Drama as a work of pure art. 
 
154 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ' Lusty Juventus,' one of the best and most popular 
 of the Moralities, is styled, ' An enterlude, lively 
 describing the frailty of youth : of nature prone to 
 vice : by grace and good counsel trainable to virtue.' 
 Such, in truth, is the argument of all these plays. In 
 the delineation of man's vicious companions, the author 
 had some scope for the exhibition of coarse scenes of 
 humour and characters drawn from common life. Of 
 this opportunity he availed himself liberally. The 
 virtuous company of abstract qualities, who save the 
 hero at the close, are employed to deliver dry homilies 
 upon duty, the means of salvation, and the fundamental 
 doctrines of religion. Inasmuch as the Moralities were 
 composed during the uncertain reigns of the first three 
 Tudors, they reflect the conflict of opinion between Pro- 
 testantism and the elder faith. Some favour the Re- 
 formation, and abound in bitter satire on the Roman 
 priesthood ; others, hardly less satirical, uphold Catholic 
 tradition. The dramatic talent of the playwright is 
 shown in the greater or less ability with which he 
 transforms his allegorical beings into life-like person- 
 ages ; and, as may readily be conceived, he succeeds 
 best with the bad folk. Hypocrisy plays a fair monk's 
 part ; Sensuality and Abominable Living are women 
 of the town ; Freewill is a turbulent ruffler ; Imagina- 
 tion a giddy-pated pleasure-seeker. 
 
 One of our earliest printed Moral Plays, ' Mundus 
 et Infans,' or ' The World and the Child,' issued from 
 the press of Wynkyn de Worde in 1522. Mundus, 
 
PLOTS OF MORAL PLAYS. 155 
 
 not unlike God in the Miracles, prologises on his own 
 great power and majesty. A child comes to him naked 
 and newly born, asking for clothes and for a name. 
 Mundus calls him Wanton, and bids him return when 
 fourteen years are over. The child spends his boyhood 
 in pastime ; and having come again to Mundus, gets the 
 name of Lust and Liking. Love and pleasure fill his 
 thoughts now, and he declares himself to be ' as fresh as 
 flowers in May.' On reaching the age of twenty-one 
 he is styled Manhood, dubbed knight, and consigned 
 to the fellowship of the Seven Deadly Sins. But at 
 this period of his career. Conscience, attired apparently 
 like a monk, accosts him in the street, and begs to be 
 informed of his condition : 
 
 Conscience. 
 Why, good sir knight, what is your name ? 
 
 Manhood. 
 
 Manhood, mighty in mirth and game : 
 All power of pride have I ta'en : 
 I am as gentle as jay on tree. 
 
 Conscience. 
 
 Sir, though the world have you to manhood brought, 
 To maintain manner ye were never taught. 
 No, conscience clear ye know right nought, 
 And this longeth to a knight. 
 
 Manhood. 
 Conscience ! What the devil, man, is he ? 
 
 Conscience. 
 Sir ! a teacher of the spirituality. 
 
 Manhood. 
 Spirituality ! What the devil may that be? 
 
 Conscience. 
 Sir ! all that be leaders in to light. 
 
IS6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Then follows a long debate, in which Conscience 
 declares to Manhood that, though the Seven Sins be 
 great and puissant monarchs, holding their might from 
 Mundus, yet is it no part of Manhood's duty to consort 
 with them. Manhood is persuaded, and resolves to 
 take the good advice of Conscience. But no sooner 
 has he come to this determination, than Folly, who 
 plays the part of Vice, enters with unseemly jests, and 
 seduces Manhood. A dialogue reveals the birth and 
 haunts of Folly : 
 
 Manhood. 
 But hark, fellow, by thy faith where wast thou born ? 
 
 Folly. 
 
 By my faith, in England have I dwelt yore, 
 
 And all mine ancestors me before. 
 
 But, sir, in London is my chief dwelling. 
 
 Manhood. 
 In London ! Where, if a man thee sought ? 
 
 Folly. 
 
 Sir, in Holborn I was forth brought, 
 . And with the courtiers I am betaught. 
 
 To Westminster I used to wend. 
 
 Manhood. 
 Hark, fellow, why dost thou to Westminster draw ? 
 
 Folly. 
 
 For I am a servant of the law. 
 
 Covetous is mine own fellow. 
 
 We twain plead for the king ; 
 
 And poor men that come from upland. 
 
 We will take their matter in hand ; 
 
 Be it right or be it wrong. 
 
 Their thrift with us shall wend. 
 
 It next appears that Folly is acquainted with all the 
 
MVNDVS kf INFANS. 157 
 
 taverns and houses of ill fame ; and what is more, with 
 all the monasteries. 
 
 Manhood. 
 I pray thee yet tell me more of thine adventures. 
 
 Folly. 
 
 In faith, even straight to all the friars ; 
 And with them I dwelt many years. 
 And they crowned me king. 
 
 Manhood. 
 I pray thee, fellow, whither wendest thou though ? 
 
 Folly. 
 
 Sir, all England to and fro : 
 
 In to abbeys and in to nunneries also ; 
 
 And alway Folly doth fellows find. 
 
 Manhood. 
 Now hark, fellow, I pray thee tell me thy name. 
 
 Folly. 
 I wis I hight both Folly and Shame. 
 
 Manhood takes Folly into his service ; and living 
 riotously in this bad company, is brought at last to 
 misery. In his last state he is called Age, and repents 
 him of his evil living : 
 
 Alas ! my lewdness hath me lost. 
 
 Where is my body so proud and prest ? 
 
 I cough and rout, my body will brest, 
 
 Age doth follow me so. 
 
 I stare and stagger as I stand, 
 
 I groan glysly upon the ground. 
 
 Alas ! Death, why lettest thou me live so long ? 
 
 I wander as a wight in woe 
 
 And care, 
 
 For I have done ill. 
 
 Now wend I will 
 
 My self to spill, 
 
 I care not whither nor where. 
 
15^ SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Perseverance now appears, like a Deus ex machind, 
 and reminds Age of the good counsels he received 
 from Conscience. Age despairs, and says he has 
 deserved the name of Shame. But Perseverance 
 christens him Repentance, and cheers him with the 
 examples of Mary Magdalen, Saul the persecutor, 
 and Peter who betrayed his Lord. The play ends 
 with a well-digested diatribe upon the articles of faith 
 and means provided in the Sacraments for salvation. 
 
 It will be seen that ' Mundus et Infans ' is a dry 
 ' Rhapsody of Life's Progress,' which the modern reader 
 may enliven for himself with marginal illustrations 
 borrowed from the allegorical mosaics upon the pave- 
 ment of the Sienese Duomo. In those fresh and 
 charming studies for the Seven Ages of Man, Infantia 
 goes forth, a winged and naked Cupid, among flowers 
 to play ; Pueritia takes his walks abroad, attired in a 
 short jacket, through a pleasaunce ; Adolescentia wears 
 the habit of a gallant bent on amorous delights, treading 
 the same primrose path of pleasure ; Juventus carries a 
 hawk upon his wrist, but just in front of him the road 
 seems winding upwards to a hill ; Virilitas wears the 
 long robes of a jurist, and holds a book in his left 
 hand ; Senectus is yet hale, but shrunken in his long 
 straight skirts, and bears a staff to stay his feet ; 
 Decrepitas totters upon crutches over a bare space 
 of ground toward an open tomb. 
 
 V Lw. ^^Cv ik. kt'pH,^ r\ ik:^ J-^*^ Jl<y<^ VT 
 
LVSTV JUVENTUS. 159 
 
 V. 
 
 The ' Castle of Perseverance/ supposed to belong 
 to the reign of Henry VI., was a moral play of the 
 same type as ' Mundus et Infans.' Indeed, it may be 
 said, once and for all, that the motives of these shows 
 were few, and that the same theme passed muster 
 under several titles. This proves the antiquity of the 
 species, and gives us the right to believe that the 
 specimens we now possess in MS. and print were 
 survivals from still earlier originals. ' Lusty Juventus ' 
 goes a step farther in dramatic interest. The scene 
 opens with a pretty lyric sung by the chief actor. 
 Youth, the refrain of which is so freshly and joyously 
 repeated that we might fancy it the echo of a bird's 
 voice in spring : 
 
 In an arbour green asleep where as I lay, 
 The birds sang sweet in the midst of the day ; 
 I dreamed fast of mirth and play ; 
 
 In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure. 
 
 Methought I walked still to and fro, 
 And from her company I could not go ; 
 But when I waked, it was not so : 
 
 In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure. 
 
 Therefore my heart is surely pight 
 Of her alone to have a sight. 
 Which is my joy and heart's delight : 
 
 In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure. 
 
 Good Counsel surprises Juventus in the midst of a 
 soliloquy describing the amusements in which the 
 young gentleman delights, Juventus turns to him 
 with ; 
 
i6o SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Well met, father, well met ! 
 
 Did you hear any minstrels play. 
 
 As you came hitherward upon your way ? 
 
 An if you did, I pray you wise me thither ; 
 
 For I am going to seek them, and, in faith, I know not whither. 
 
 Good_Counsel and a third interlocutor, Knowledge, 
 who enters after a short space, find Juventus shamefully 
 ignorant of the rudiments of religious education. Is he 
 bound, he asks, as well as the clergy, to know and keep 
 God's law ? They take him seriously to task, quoting 
 chapter and verse from Ephesians and Galatians to 
 prove their points, and having primed the youth with 
 good doctrine, leave him well disposed to walk in the 
 right path. Juventus has in truth become a model 
 Puritan, furnished with Pro testant p rinciples, and 
 imbued with a proper hatred for the Papacy. But the 
 Devil suddenly jumps up. 'Ho, ho ! ' quoth he. 
 ' This will not do ! The old folk were loyal in my 
 service ; but these young people who are growing up, 
 scorn tradition and rule their lives as " Scripture 
 teacheth them." ' So he calls Hypocrisy, his dear son, 
 who has been busy manufacturing relics, beads, copes, 
 creeds, crowns, and pardons for the Pope. Hypocrisy 
 undertakes to mould Juventus after the Devil's own 
 wish. Accordingly he gets hinLintroduced to Abomin- 
 able Living, a loose serving woman, who plays'^e 
 wanton while her masters are at morning sermon. 
 Juventus takes kindly to her company, swears like a 
 trooper, and proyesjiis^manhood on her lips. A song 
 appropriate to this situation is introduced : 
 
 Why should not youth fulfil his own mind, 
 As the course of nature doth him bind ? 
 Is not everything ordained to do his kind ? 
 Report me to you, report me to you. 
 
YOUTH AND ABOMINABLE LIVING. i6i 
 
 Do not the flowers spring fresh and gay, 
 Pleasant and sweet in the month of May ? 
 But when their time cometh, they fade away. 
 Report me to you, report me to you 
 
 Be not the trees in winter bare ? 
 Like unto their kind, such they are ; 
 And when they spring, their fruits declare. 
 Report me to you, report me to you. 
 
 What should youth do with the fruits of age, 
 But live in pleasure in his passage ? 
 For when age cometh, his lusts will swage. 
 Report me to you, report me to you. 
 
 Why should not youth fulfil his own mind, 
 As the course of nature doth him bind ? 
 Is not everything ordained to do his kind ? 
 Report me to you, report me to you. 
 
 Juventus now goes off the stage, to pass his time in 
 mirth and solace with Abominable Living ; for whom, 
 it may be parenthetically said, he is far too charming 
 a companion. From dicing, drinking, and wenching, ^i 
 his former tutors rescue him with some pains, renew i 
 their instructions m Divinity, and bring him to remorse. 
 God's Merciful Promises appears in the form of a 
 preacher, and bids him take heart. Juventus repents, 
 reconciles himself to God, and ends the play with a 
 homily upon the duty of avoiding Satan and the Pope, 
 and clinging steadfastly to Christ's Gospel. The 
 whole piece, with the exception of its pretty lyrics, the 
 satiric part of Hypocrisy, and the realistic scenes with 
 Abominable Living, may well be styled, in the words of 
 Hawkins and the learned Dr. Percy, 'a supplement to 
 the pulpit' Before leaving it, however, I will extract 
 a part of the speech in which Hypocrisy describes to 
 his father, the Devil, the shams which he has foisted 
 
 M 
 
i62 SHAKSPER^'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 on the world in the name of religion. His list runs 
 off like Leporello's in ' Don Giovanni/ and must have 
 been effective in the mouth of a good buffo-singer : 
 
 I set up great idolatry 
 
 With all kind of filthy sodometry, 
 
 To give mankind a fall ; 
 And I brought up such superstition, 
 Under the name of holiness and religion, 
 
 That deceived almost all : 
 As holy cardinals, holy popes. 
 Holy vestments, holy copes. 
 
 Holy hermits and friars ; ♦ 
 
 Holy priests, holy bishops, 
 Holy monks, holy abbots. 
 
 Yea, and all obstinate liars : 
 Holy pardons, holy beads. 
 Holy saints, holy images, 
 
 With holy, holy blood ; 
 Holy stocks, holy stones, 
 Holy clouts, holy bones, 
 
 Yea, and holy holy wood : 
 Holy skins, holy bulls. 
 Holy rochets and cowls. 
 
 Holy crouches and staves ; 
 Holy hoods, holy caps. 
 Holy mitres, holy hats. 
 
 Ah, good holy, holy knaves : 
 Holy days, holy fastings. 
 Holy twitching, holy tastings. 
 
 Holy visions and sights ; 
 Holy wax, holy lead. 
 Holy water, holy bread. 
 
 To drive away sprights : 
 Holy fire, holy palm. 
 Holy oil, holy cream. 
 
 And holy ashes also ; 
 Holy brooches, holy rings. 
 Holy kneeling, holy censings, 
 
 And a hundred trim-trams mo ; 
 Holy crosses, holy bells, 
 Holy relics, holy jewels, 
 
 Of mine own invention ; 
 
HYPOCRISY. 163 
 
 Holy candles, holy tapers, 
 Holy parchments, holy papers- 
 Had you not a holy son ? 
 
 More delicate in literary quality, and perhaps elder 
 in date of composition, than ' Lusty Juventus,' is the 
 Interlude of 'Youth,' a Moral Play upon the same theme. 
 Charity takes the part of good genius, contending for 
 the soul of Youth with Riot the Vice, Lady Lechery 
 the Courtesan, and Pride, their boon companion. To 
 dwell upon the texture of the plot, and to show how 
 Humility helps Charity to rescue Youth from Riot, is 
 not needful, for this Interlude has little pretension to 
 dramatic development. Its charm consists in a certain 
 limpid purity of language and clear presentation of 
 simple pictures. Youth's own description of himself, 
 when he makes his first entrance, is very pretty : 
 
 Aback, fellows, and give me room ; 
 
 Or I shall make you to avoid soon ! 
 
 I am goodly of person ; 
 
 I am peerless wherever I come. 
 
 My name is Youth, I tell thee, 
 
 I flourish as the vine tree : 
 
 Who may be likened unto me, 
 
 In my youth and jollity ? 
 
 My hair is royal and bushed thick ; 
 
 My body pliant as a hazel-stick ; 
 
 Mine arms be both big and strong, 
 
 My fingers be both fair and long ; 
 
 My chest big as a tun ; 
 
 My legs' be full light for to run. 
 
 To hop and dance and make merry. 
 
 By the mass, I reck not a cherry 
 
 Whatsoever I do ! 
 
 I am the heir of all my father's land, 
 
 And it is come into my hand : 
 
 I care for no mo. 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Charity admonishes Youth for his self-complacency. 
 
 You had need to ask God mercy : 
 Why did you so praise your body ? 
 
 Youth. 
 
 Why, knave, what is that to thee ? 
 Wilt thou let me to praise my body ? 
 Why should I not praise it, an it be goodly ? 
 I will not let for thee. 
 
 Charity warns Youth that his beautiful body will 
 
 wither and go down into the grave, and he himself be 
 
 burned in hell. Were it not better to make sure of 
 
 heaven : 
 
 Where thou shalt see a glorious sight 
 Of angels singing, and saints bright. 
 Before the face of God ? 
 
 But all is to little purpose, for Youth tells Charity 
 with blunt irreverence that God is not likely to take 
 such dreary guests as he into His company : 
 
 Nay, nay, I warrant thee. 
 
 He hath no place for thee ; 
 
 Weenest thou He will have such fools 
 
 To sit on His gay stools ? 
 
 Nay, I warrant thee, nay ! 
 
 Riot is much more to Youth's mind than Charity ; 
 
 and Riot puts the old proverb about wild oats so 
 
 pithily before him as to make short work with Charity's 
 
 arguments. 
 
 Hark, Youth, for God avow. 
 He would have thee a saint now ; 
 But, Youth, I shall you tell — 
 A young saint, an old devil : 
 Therefore I hold thee a fool. 
 An thou follow his school. 
 
'HICK S CORNER.' 165 
 
 All the same, in spite of his bluster and recalcitration, 
 when the time comes for the piece to end, Youth 
 yields to Charity and suffers himself to be converted 
 by Humility without a struggle. The authors of 
 Moralities had not advanced beyond the point of per- 
 sonification and dramatic collocation. To take the 
 further step, and to display the reciprocal interaction 
 of persons, was beyond them. 
 
 VI. 
 
 In ' Hick Scorner,' a real personage, though divided 
 by the thinnest partition wall from allegory, enlivens 
 the usual exhibition of abstract qualities. The piece 
 opens with a dialogue between Pity, Contemplation, 
 and Perseverance, attired like Doctors of Divinity. 
 They discourse at length upon the low state of public 
 morality. Pity is then left alone, to bear the brunt of 
 the two comic characters, Freewill and Imagination, 
 who come upon the stage swaggering like blackguards. 
 The conversation of these good fellows brings the 
 humours of the town before us in language which, 
 if racy, hardly bears transcription. Hick Scorner, a 
 traveller from foreign parts, breaks in upon their col- 
 loquy, and is welcomed as a boon companion by the 
 jolly pair. Hick has been everywhere and seen every- 
 thing. The ship which brought him back to England, 
 bore the vices, weathering a storm in which the virtues 
 with their godly crew foundered. He scoffs at all 
 things human and divine, and, after quarrelling awhile 
 with Freewill and Imagination, makes the matter up, 
 and puts Pity in the stocks. Then he disappears. 
 
1 66 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 This is all we hear of the person who gives his name 
 to the play. Pity's two friends return, liberate him 
 from the stocks, and help him to convert Freewill and 
 Imagination ; a job which the trio carry through with 
 truly undramatic celerity. The construction of this 
 play is radically bad. It falls flat between an allegory 
 and a farce ; nor does it display that analysis of life 
 which lends a scientific interest to some of the weightier 
 Moralities. Yet, in the development of the English 
 drama, it takes a place of mark ; for all the characters 
 are well touched, with pungency of portraiture and 
 verisimilitude. Hick himself, though so occasional a 
 personage, shows the author's effort after artistic 
 emancipation. 
 
 A set of woodcuts, appended to this play in Wynkyn 
 de Worde's edition, exemplify the figures which the 
 actors cut upon the stage. Pity is a mild old man ; as fits 
 the character of God's eternal Mercy. Contemplation 
 carries a sword, to use in shrewd passes with the Evil 
 One. Hick walks delicately, waving his hands to and 
 fro, like one who jests upon the surface of the world. 
 Freewill bears a staff, and is a gallant of the town. 
 Imagination distinguishes himself from his friend and 
 master less by costume than by an airy motion of his 
 legs, betokening inconstancy and lightness. Perse- 
 verance is armed at all points in plate mail, rests his 
 right hand on a trenchant blade, and carries in his left 
 a banner, striding forth alert for action. Gazing 
 at these woodcuts, we understand what allegory was 
 for the English people, and how after two centuries 
 the ' Pilgrim's Progress ' came into existence. 
 
 ' New Custom' claims some passing notice in con- 
 
REFORMATION PLAYS. 167 
 
 nection with ' Lusty Juventus ' and ' Hick Scorner.' To 
 judge by its style, it is considerably later in date, and 
 may be ascribed perhaps to the first decade of Eliza- 
 beth's reign. In substance it is neither more nor less 
 than a tract in favour of the Reformation, furnished with 
 dramatic forms, but composed in so wooden a manner 
 that one can hardly conceive it to have been often 
 acted. The names of the persons are, however, in- 
 teresting. Perverse Doctrine and Ignorance are two 
 old Popish priests ; New Custom and Light of the 
 Gospel, two ministers of the reformed faith. Cruelty 
 and Avarice, who gloat with delight over their me- 
 mories of the Marian persecution, are described as 
 rufflers, that is bullies. Hypocrisy is an old woman. 
 There is no Vice. One sentence put into the mouth of 
 Perverse Doctrine deserves quotation : 
 
 For since these Genevan doctors came so fast into this land. 
 Since that time it was never merry with England. 
 
 'The Trial of Treasure' is another Moral Play 
 which bears the impress of the Reformation, and may 
 be attributed to the same period as ' New Custom.' 
 Its aim, however, is ethical and not religious edification ; 
 and the chief point to notice, is the quaint mixture 
 of moral saws from classic sources jumbled up with 
 sentences from the Epistles. The Vice takes a pro- 
 minent part, under the name of Inclination ; but in 
 spite of his crude horse-play with Lust, Greedy-gut, 
 and Elation, there is little to move laughter in the 
 piece. Ulpian Fulwell's ' Like will to Like ' may be 
 placed in the same class as the ' Trial of Treasure.' 
 The Vice is. called Nichol Newfangle; his companions 
 
1 68 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 are Tom Tosspot, Cuthbert Cutpurse, Ralph Roister, 
 Pierce Pickpurse, Hance a serving man, Hankin 
 Hangman, Philip Fleming, Tom Collier — names which 
 sufificiently indicate the author's endeavour to substitute 
 comedy for allegory. Indeed, the allegorical setting of 
 this piece is merely conventional, and the moralising 
 made to order. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Far more perfect in design, and very full of interest 
 to modern readers, is the ancient piece called ' Every- 
 man.' That it was not so popular as ' Lusty Juventus ' 
 or ' Hick Scorn er' can be readily conceived, because 
 its lesson is grim and dreadful. We may bring our- 
 selves into relation with the motive of this plaj' by 
 studying the woodcuts in Queen Elizabeth's Prayer 
 Book or any one of the Dances of Death ascribed to 
 Holbein. The frontispiece to ' Everyman ' recalls one 
 of those remorseless meditations on the grave. A fine 
 gentleman of the Court of Henry VII. is walking with 
 his hat upon his head and a chain around his neck 
 among the flowers of a meadow. Death, the skeleton, 
 half-clothed in a loose shroud, and holding in his arm 
 the cover of a sepulchre, beckons to this gallant from 
 a churchyard full of bones and crosses. Life is thus 
 brought into abrupt collision with the ' cold Hie jacets 
 of the dead ' and him who rules there. Collier, who 
 thinks this play may be as old as the reign of Edward 
 IV., terms it ' one of the most perfect allegories ever 
 formed ; ' nor is this praise extravagant, for the texture 
 of the plot is both simple and strong, in strict keeping 
 with its stern and serious theme. God opens the play 
 
'EVERYMAN: 169 
 
 with a monologue in which He sets forth the sacrifice 
 of Christ, and upbraids mankind for their ingratitude. 
 Worldly riches cumber them ; they pay no heed to 
 piety ; justice must be done upon them, and each soul 
 shall be reminded of his latter end. Therefore he calls 
 Death to Him : ^ 
 
 Where art thou. Death, thou mighty messenger ? 
 
 Death answers : 
 
 Almighty God, I am here at your will. 
 
 He is then sent forth to go in search of Everyman, 
 and tell him to prepare for a long pilgrimage. Death 
 finds this representative of the whole human race 
 disporting himself in careless wise, and suddenly 
 arrests him : 
 
 Everyman, stand still ! Whither art thou going 
 Thus gaily ? 
 
 When Everyman hears the message, he begs a 
 respite, and offers Death gold ; but all the favour he 
 can find is the permission to take with him such 
 friends as shall be willing to bear him company. 
 Fellowship proffers his readiness to do anything for 
 Everyman ; but when he hears of Death and that long 
 pilgrimage, he shakes his head. If you had asked me 
 to drink or dice or kill a man with you, I would have 
 done it — but this, no ! Kindred passes by, hears Every- 
 man's request, and says the same as Fellowship, but 
 with even less sympathy. Then Everyman betakes 
 him to his Goods ; but these are so close packed away 
 
 > In the Coventry Miracles, Mors says : ' I am Death, God's 
 messenger.' 
 
17° SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 in bags and boxes that they cannot stir. Far from 
 being disposed to help him, Gold only mocks at his 
 distress, rejoices in it, and chuckles at the thought of 
 staying in the world to corrupt more souls of men. 
 At length Everyman remembers his Good Deeds. 
 ' My Good Deeds, where be you ? ' She (for Good 
 Deeds is a female character) replies : 
 
 Here I lie, cold in the ground ; 
 Thy sins have me so sore bound 
 That I cannot stir. 
 
 She, however, is the only one of Everyman's ac- 
 quaintances who yields him any service. She bids 
 him have recourse to Knowledge, and Knowledge 
 introduces him to Confession. Confession shrives 
 him, and releases Good Deeds from her dungeon. 
 Then Everyman makes ready for his journey, taking 
 with him Strength, Discretion, Beauty, and Five Wits. 
 When they reach the churchyard, Everyman begins 
 to faint ; and each of these false friends forsakes him. 
 Good Deeds alone has no horror of the grave, but 
 descends with him to abide God's judgment. The 
 piece ends with an Angel's song, welcoming the soul of 
 Everyman, which has been parted from the body and 
 made fit for heaven. 
 
 The Moral Play of ' Everyman- ' has an interesting 
 parallel in William Bullein's ' Dialogue both pleasant 
 and pitiful, wherein is a goodly Regiment against the 
 Fever Pestilence.' This tract, printed in 1564, and 
 again in 1573, illustrates the influence which the 
 Drama at that early period exercised over style. It 
 is conceived in the manner of the Moralities, and its 
 descriptive passages enable us to understand how they 
 
BULLEIN'S 'DIALOGUE: jyi 
 
 affected the imaginations of their audience. The dia- 
 logue introduces a citizen, with his wife and serving- 
 man, flying from London during a visitation of the 
 plague. Death meets them on their journey. The 
 wife deserts her husband, ' for poverty and death will 
 part good fellowship.' The servant runs away, and 
 the citizen is left alone to parley with the awful appa- 
 rition. He tries to bribe Death with money, and to 
 soften him with prayers. But Death is obdurate ; the 
 man's hour has come ; he must away from wife and 
 children; no matter whether he leave his debts un- 
 paid, his business in confusion. ' For,' says Death, 
 ' I have commission to strike you with this black dart 
 called the pestilence ; my master hath so commanded 
 me : and as for gold, I take no thought of it, I love 
 it not ; no treasure can keep me back the twinkling of 
 an eye from you ; you are my subject, and I am your 
 lord.' Before executing his commission, the Angel of 
 the Lord holds discourse with his victim upon the 
 meaning of the three darts, plague, famine, and war, 
 he carries in his hand. His speech ends with a 
 solemn passage, worthy to be quoted side by side 
 with Ralegh's famous apostrophe to 'eloquent, just, 
 and mighty Death.' It runs as follows : ' I overthrow 
 the dancer, and stop the breath of the singer, and trip 
 the runner in his race. I break wedlock, and make 
 many widows. I do sit in judgment with the judge, 
 and undo the life of the prisoner, and at length kill the 
 judge also himself I do summon the great Bishops, 
 and cut them through the rochets. I utterly banish 
 the beauty of all courtiers, and end the miseries of the 
 poor. I will never leave off until all flesh be utterly 
 
1/2 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 destroyed. I am the greatest cross and scourge of 
 God.' 1 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A whole group of the Moral Plays are devoted 
 to subjects capable of more dramatic development, 
 involving the outlines of a love-plot and a regular 
 denouement Of these it may suffice to mention the 
 Marriage of Wit and Wisdom ' and the ' Marriage of 
 Wit and Science,' the latter of which exists in two 
 separate forms. Wit is the son of Severity and 
 Indulgence. The characters of the father and the 
 mother are sharply contrasted and brought into bold 
 relief by a few strong touches in the opening scene. 
 They send Wit forth to court the maiden Wisdom, 
 giving him Good Nurture for a guardian. But Idle- 
 ness, the Vice, intrudes ; and assuming many disguises, 
 leads him astray. He first lures him under the name 
 of Honest Recreation to Dame Wantonness, by whom 
 Wit is besotted and befooled. Then he causes him, 
 in the pursuit of tedious study, to be entrapped by 
 Irksomeness, who always lurks in wait for Wisdom's 
 suitors. The lady, however, rescues her knight, and 
 gives him a sword with which he puts Irksomeness to 
 flight. Wit has not yet learned by experience to walk 
 straight forward to his end. Fancy, therefore, is able 
 to decoy him into prison. Here Good Nurture dis- 
 covers and releases him ; and at last he is wedded 
 
 ' I am indebted to Mr. A. H. BuUen for the above extracts from this 
 rare ' Dialogue,' which he communicated to me while the proof-sheets of 
 this book were passing through the press. It is to be hoped that before 
 long he will edit a reprint of the whole tract. 
 
MORAL PLA YS WITH A PLOT. 173 
 
 to Wisdom, the virgin, who has waited for him all 
 this while in desert places. The allegory of this play 
 is clear; its language has some delicacy, and the 
 comic scenes are entertaining. 
 
 The plot of ' Wit and Science ' is conducted on the 
 same lines. Wit goes through similar adventures, 
 and finally weds Science. It contains a curious comic 
 scene, in which Idleness teaches the child Ignorance to 
 spell, purposely making the lesson difficult. This cor- 
 responds to a passage in the ' Marriage of Wit and 
 Wisdom,' where Idleness mocks Search by pretending 
 to follow what he says, repeating all his words after 
 him with ludicrous misinterpretations. 
 
 The ' F"our Elements ' introduces a different species 
 of allegory. Nature undertakes to instruct Humanity 
 in the physical sciences, and gives him Studious Desire 
 as a companion. Humanity takes kindly to her tedi- 
 ous homilies until the Vice, named Sensual Appetite, 
 appears upon the scene. He then plunges into a whirl 
 of vulgar dissipation with the Vice and Ignorance 
 and a Taverner, not, however, wholly intermitting his 
 studies in cosmography and such like matters. There 
 is, however, no cohesion between the several parts of 
 the action ; and we may assume, I think, that in the 
 piece, as we possess it, the mirth-making scenes, which 
 bring the Vice and his comic crew into play, have 
 overgrown the allegory to its ultimate confusion. Some 
 interest attaches still to the ' Four Elements,' because the 
 type of allegory first displayed in it held the stage all 
 through the golden period of art, in Masques and 
 learned shows. Long after the publication of Shak- 
 spere's plays in 1637, Thomas Nabbes brought out a 
 
15*4 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 ' Moral Masque ' styled ' Microcosmus,' in which Phy- 
 sander, or the natural man, is married to Bellanima, and 
 receives for his attendants the Four Complexions and 
 a Good and Evil Genius. Lured astray by the Evil 
 Genius, he forsakes his chaste wife, and takes up his 
 abode with the Five Senses in the house of Sensuality, a 
 Courtesan. Bellanima tries in vain to reclaim him, 
 until at last he is flung forth, weak, jaded, and good for 
 nothing, from the halls of Sensuality. Then Bellanima 
 and the Good Genius conduct him in sorry plight 
 to Temperance, who cures him of his sickness, while 
 Reason fortifies his soul against the attacks of Remorse 
 and Despair and the Furies, whom the Evil Genius 
 has summoned to accuse him at the bar of Conscience. 
 At the end of the piece, which is a formal play divided 
 into five acts, Bellanima and Physander ascend to 
 Elysium. 
 
 I have given this rapid sketch of 'Microcosmus' 
 in order to show how the motives of the Moral Plays 
 were combined and treated by the later Elizabethan 
 authors. In the interval between the date of the 
 ' Four Elements ' and ' Mundus et Infans ' and that of 
 ' Microcosmus,' they assumed a classical complexion, 
 and a more elaborate form. But they remained at root 
 the same. It would be easy to illustrate this point 
 
 from many subsequent products of our stage from 
 
 the ' Misogonus ' of Rychards, of which we have a 
 MS. dated 1577; from Woodes' 'Conflict of Con- 
 science,' printed in 1581 ; from the anonymous 'Con- 
 tention between Liberality and Prodigality,' printed in 
 1602 ; and from such later works of literary ingenuity 
 as Randolph's ' Muses' Looking Glass,' and Brewer's 
 
ADVANCE: TOWARD COMEDV. " fji 
 
 excellent ' Lingua.' But enough has been already said 
 to indicate the comparative vitality of the species ; and 
 it is probable that I shall have to draw particular atten- 
 tion at a later stage of these studies to some at least of 
 the works which I have named. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Already, in the early period of which I am at 
 present treating, efforts were made to disengage the 
 Moral Play from its allegorical setting, and to present 
 the pith of its motives in a form of proper Comedy. 
 The ' Nice Wanton,' for example, introduces us to a 
 family consisting of Barnabas, Delilah, and Ismael, 
 and their mother Xantippe. Xantippe spares the rod, 
 and lets her children grow up as they list. Iniquity, 
 who supports the chief action of the piece, seduces 
 Delilah to wantonness, and Ismael to roguery. Both 
 come to miserable deaths. Xantippe is on the point 
 of dying of shame, when her son Barnabas, after rating 
 his mother soundly for her weak indulgence, reminds 
 her of God's mercy, and saves her from despair. The 
 ' Disobedient Child ' presents a son, who scorns his 
 father's good advice, marries a wanton wife, spends his 
 substance in divers pleasures with her, and returns 
 home penniless. Unlike the father in the Parable of the 
 Prodigal Son, this stern parent contents himself with 
 reminding the lad that he had told him so beforehand, 
 and sends him about his business with a small dole. 
 The Devil utters a long soliloquy in the middle of the 
 play, but does not influence its action. A third piece, 
 named ' Jack Juggler,' said to be written ' for children 
 
176 SHAI^SPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 to play,' deserves mention for the curiosity of its being 
 modelled on the ' Amphitryon ' of Plaiitus, which it 
 follows longissimo sane intervallo ! It is really nothing 
 more than a merry interlude between a scape-grace 
 page called Jenkin Careaway, and Jack Juggler, which 
 latter is our old friend the Vice. The other characters 
 have slight importance. 
 
 X. 
 
 Having examined some of the Moralities in detail, 
 it will be interesting to inquire into the mode of their 
 performance. During the heyday of their popularity, 
 it appears that they were acted by roving companies 
 on holidays and at hock-tide festivals in the halls of 
 noblemen and gentry, as well as on the open squares of 
 towns. They acquired the subordinate name of Inter- 
 lude from the custom of having them exhibited in the 
 intervals of banquets or the interspace of other pas- 
 times. A Messenger announced the show in the case 
 of public representations, and explained the argument 
 in a prologue. Not unfrequently a Doctor, surviving 
 from the Expositor of the Miracles, interpreted its 
 allegory as the action proceeded. 
 
 It may also be remarked that noblemen, whose 
 households were maintained upon a princely scale, 
 kept their own companies of actors. We hear of the 
 'Players of the King's Interludes' so early as the 
 reign of Henry VII. ; and the books of the Percy 
 family contain curious information respecting payments 
 made to the Lord Northumberland's Servants. The 
 Lords Ferrers, Clinton, Oxford, and Buckingham, are 
 
HOW MORAL PLAYS WERE ACTED. 177 
 
 known to have kept private actors at the beginning 
 of the sixteenth century. In those great baronial 
 establishments, musicians, minstrels, and chapel cho- 
 risters had long formed a separate department ; and 
 when the acting of Interludes became fashionable, the 
 players were attached to this section of the household. 
 Cities also began to entertain companies for the occa- 
 sional representation of Pageants, Masques, and Plays. 
 Thus a dramatic profession was gradually formed, 
 which only waited for a favourable opportunity to 
 render itself independent of patronage, and to develop 
 a national theatre by competition and free appeal to 
 public favour. 
 
 For the further illustration of these details, we are 
 fortunate in having ready to our hand a lively episode 
 in the History Play of ' Sir Thomas More.' It may be 
 premised that the strolling companies consisted of four 
 or at the outside five persons. The leading actor 
 played the part of Vice and undertook stage manage- 
 ment. There was a boy for the female characters ; and 
 the remaining two or three divided the other parts 
 between them. Sir Thomas More, in the play in ques- 
 tion, has invited the Lord Mayor and Aldermen with 
 their respective ladies to a banquet. The feast is 
 spread ; but no further entertainment has been furnished, 
 and the guests are presently expected. At this moment 
 a Player is announced. More greets him with : 
 
 Welcome, good friend ; what is your will with me ? 
 
 Flayer. 
 
 My lord, my fellows and myself 
 
 Are come to tender you our willing service, 
 
 So please you to command us. 
 
 N 
 
1/8 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 More. 
 
 What ! for a play, you mean ? 
 Whom do ye serve ? 
 
 Player. 
 My Lord Cardinal's grace. 
 
 More. 
 
 My Lord Cardinal's players ! Now, trust me, welcome ! 
 
 You happen hither in a lucky time. 
 
 To pleasure me, and benefit yourselves. 
 
 The Mayor of London and some Aldermen, 
 
 His lady and their wives, are my kind guests 
 
 This night at supper. Now, to have a play 
 
 Before the banquet will be excellent. 
 
 I prithee, tell me, what plays have ye ? 
 
 Flayer. 
 
 Divers, my lord : ' The Cradle of Security,' 
 
 ' Hit the Nail o' th' Head,' ' Impatient Poverty,' 
 
 ' The Play of Four P's,' ' Dives and Lazarus,' 
 
 ' Lusty Juventus,' and ' The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom.' 
 
 So the Player runs through his repertory. The name 
 of the last hits Mores mood, and he rejoins : 
 
 ' The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom ! ' That, my lads, 
 
 I '11 none but that ! The theme is very good, 
 
 And may maintain a liberal argument. 
 
 AVe '11 see how Master-poet plays his part, 
 
 And whether Wit or Wisdom grace his art. 
 
 Go, make him drink, and all his fellows too. 
 
 How many are ye ? 
 
 Player. 
 Four men and a boy. 
 
 More. 
 
 But one boy ? Then I see, 
 
 There 's but few women in the play. 
 
 Player. 
 
 Three, my lord ; Dame Science, Lady Vanity, 
 And Wisdom — she herself 
 
More and the players. 
 
 More. 
 
 And one boy play them all ? By 'r Lady, he 's loaden ! 
 Well, my good fellows, get ye strait together, 
 And make ye ready with what haste ye may. 
 Provide their supper 'gainst the play be done, 
 Else we shall stay our guests here overlong. 
 Make haste, I pray ye. 
 
 Player. 
 We will, my lord. 
 
 The Chancellor now tells his wife that the Lord 
 Cardinal's Players have luckily turned up. She ap- 
 proves of their engagement. They both receive their 
 guests, and seat them for the Interlude. At this point 
 the chief player, dressed as the Vice, appears, and begs 
 for a few minutes' respite. More addresses him : 
 
 More. How now ! What 's the matter ? 
 
 Vice. We would desire your honour but to stay a little. One of 
 my fellows is but run to Oagles for a long beard for young Wit, and 
 he '11 be here presently. 
 
 More. A long beard for young Wit ! Why, man, he may be 
 without a beard till he comes to marriage, for wit goes not all by the 
 hair. When comes Wit in ? 
 
 Vice. In the second scene, next to the Prologue, my lord. 
 
 More. Why, play on till that scene comes, and by that time Wit's 
 beard will be grown, or else the fellow returned with it. And what 
 part playest thou ? 
 
 Vice. Inclination, the Vice, my lord. 
 
 More. Grammercy ! Now I may take the Vice if I list; and 
 wherefore hast thou that bridle in thy hand? 
 
 Vice. I must be bridled anon, my lord. 
 
 They exchange a few words about the purpose of the 
 play ; and then the scene opens. It is the first act of 
 ' Lusty Juventus,' adapted with retrenchments. Incli- 
 nation and Lady Vanity are in the course of seducing 
 Wit, when the Vice suddenly pulls up with : 
 
 Is Luggins yet come with the beard ? 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o SZ/A/c'SPEHE'S PR£D£CjE:SSORS. 
 
 Enter another Player. 
 No, faith, he is not come : alas ! what shall we do ? 
 
 The Vice, who is the driver of the team, expresses the 
 dislocation of the whole company by this unforeseen 
 accident : 
 
 Forsooth, we can go no further till our fellow Luggins come ; for 
 he plays Good Counsel, and now he should enter, to admonish Wit 
 that this is Lady Vanity and not Lady Wisdom. 
 
 More throws himself into the breach, and from his 
 place before the stage undertakes to play the part of 
 Good Counsel, which he does excellently well in default 
 of Luggins. When Luggins at length appears with 
 the beard, the Vice turns to his lordship : 
 
 Oh, my lord, he is come. Now we shall go forward. 
 
 But the Chancellor thinks it is about time to conduct 
 his guests to the banquet chamber. So the scene 
 breaks up, and the players are left to altercate about 
 this hitch in their arrangements. They pay due com- 
 pliments to Mores ready wit : 
 
 Do ye hear, fellows ? ^Vould not my lord make a rare player ? 
 Oh, he would uphold a company beyond all. Ho ! better than 
 Mason among the King's Players ! Did ye mark how extemprically 
 he fell to the matter, and spake Luggins's part almost as it is in the 
 very book set down ? 
 
 While they are so discoursing, a serving man 
 enters with the news that More is called to Court, and 
 that he bids the players take eight angels, and, after 
 they have supped, retire. The: fellow doles the money 
 out short of twenty shillings, taking his discount, as 
 the way of flunkeys was, and is. Wit begins to 
 grumble : 
 
TRANSITIONAL SPECIES OF PLAYS. 
 
 This, Luggins, is your negligence ; 
 Wanting Wit's beard brought things into dislike ; 
 For otherwise the play had been all seen, 
 Where now some curious citizen disgraced it, 
 And discommending it, all is dismissed. 
 
 They count their money, and find wherein it fails. 
 But Wit mends the whole matter ; for when the Chan- 
 cellor sweeps by to Court, he bids his lordship notice 
 that two of the eight angels have been somehow 
 dropped in the rushes. More calls his servant to 
 account, rights the players, and goes forth on affairs 
 of State. 
 
 This scene, which in some of its incidents reminds 
 us roughly of Hamlet's interview with the Players, was 
 no doubt intended to mark the character of More, and 
 bring his humour and good nature into relief But it 
 serves our present purpose of vividly presenting the 
 circumstances under which a strolling company of 
 actors may have oftentimes in noble houses found 
 the opportunity to play some more or less mangled 
 version of a popular Morality. 
 
 XL 
 
 Before taking final leave of the Moral Plays, it will 
 be necessary to notice three pieces which may be 
 described as hybrids between this species and the 
 serious drama of the future. The first of these 
 is ' King Johan,' by John Bale the controversialist. 
 Written certainly before Mary's accession to the 
 throne of England, this play is the earliest extant 
 specimen of the History, which was reserved for 
 
1 82 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 such high treatment at the hands of Marlowe and 
 Shakspere. King John plays the chief part, and 
 the legend of his death by poison is followed. 
 But the interesting feature of the performance is 
 that personifications, including the Nobility, the 
 Clergy, Civil Order, the Commonalty, Verity and 
 Imperial Majesty, are introduced in dialogue with real 
 historical beings. The Vice too, under the name of 
 Sedition, plays his usual pranks, while Dissimulation 
 hatches the plot of the king's murder. ' King Johan ' 
 must be read less as a history-drama than as a pam- 
 phlet against Papal encroachment and ecclesiastical 
 corruption. But it has some vigorous and some 
 tolerably amusing scenes, and contains the following 
 very curious old wassail song : 
 
 Wassail, wassail, out of the milk pail ; 
 Wassail, wassail, as white as my nail ; 
 Wassail, wassail, in snow, frost, and hail ; 
 Wassail, wassail, with partridge and rail ; 
 Wassail, wassail, that much doth avail ; 
 Wassail, wassail, that never will fail. 
 
 Besides this piece, John Bale wrote a Moral Play in 
 seven parts, with the title of ' God's Merciful Promises,' 
 ^ and two sacred plays on ' The Temptation of our 
 Lord ' and ' John Baptist,' both of which are survivals 
 from the elder Miracles. These are in print. Others 
 of the same description by his hand remain in MS. 
 
 The anonymous tragedy of ' Appius and Virginia ' 
 is a dramatised version of the Roman legend which 
 had previously been handled by Chaucer in his ' Doctor 
 of Physic's Tale.' A leading part is assigned to the 
 Vice, Haphazard; and allegorical personages, Con- 
 
'KING JOHAN' AND OTHERS. 183 
 
 science, Rumour, Comfort, Reward, Memory, and 
 Doctrine, are intermingled with the mortal personages. 
 The same hybrid character distinguishes Preston's 
 ' Cambyses.' Here, the Vice is styled Ambidexter ; 
 and a crowd of abstractions jostle with clowns and 
 courtiers — Huff and Ruff, Hob and Lob, Smirdis and 
 Sisamnes, Praxaspes and the Queen. Neither of these 
 clumsy attempts at tragedy invites a close analysis. 
 It is enough to have mentioned them as intermediate 
 growths between the Moral Play and the emancipated 
 drama. 
 
'?ncj^(^'fSA'^^^^'h^SHAKSPERE'S PRE. 
 
 i\ir- X a^ c / A /x- 
 
 PREDECESSORS. 
 
 ;U. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE RISE OF COMEDY. 
 
 I. Specific Nature of the Interlude — John Heywood — The Farce of 
 ' Johan the Husband ' — 'The Pardoner and the Friar.' — II. Haywood's 
 Life and Character. — III. Analysis of 'The Four P's' — Chaucerian 
 Qualities of Heywood's Talent. — IV. Nicholas Udall and ' Ralph 
 Roister Doister'— Its Debt to Latin Comedy.— V. John Still— Was He 
 the Author of ' Gammer Gurton's Needle' .? — Farcical Character of this 
 Piece — Dicconthe Bedlam. — VI. Reasons for the Early Development 
 of Comedy. 
 
 N.B. The three pieces reviewed in this chapter will be found in 
 Hazlitt's Dodsley, vols. i. and iii. 
 
 I. 
 
 The passage from Moral Plays to Comedy had been 
 virtually effected in such pieces as ' Calisto and 
 Melibcea' and ' The Disobedient Child,' both of which 
 are wrought without the aid of allegories. In dealing 
 with the origins of the Drama, it would, however, be 
 impossible to omit one specifically English form of 
 comedy, which appeared contemporaneously with the 
 later Moralities, and to which the name of Interlude 
 has been attached. The Interlude, in this restricted 
 sense of the term, was the creation of John Heywood, 
 a genial writer in whom the spirit of Chaucer seems to 
 have lived again. In some of his productions, as 
 ' The Play of the Weather ' and ' The Play of Love,' 
 he adhered to the type of the Morality. Others are 
 simple dialogues, corresponding in form to the Latin 
 
THE INTERLUDE. 185 
 
 Disputationes, of which mention has been made above. 
 Biit three considerable pieces, ' The Merry Play 
 between Johan the Husband, Tyb his Wife, and Sir 
 John the Priest,' ' The Four P's,' and ' The Merry 
 Play between the Pardoner and the Friar, the Curate 
 and Neighbour Pratt,' detach themselves from any 
 previous species, and constitute a class apart. The 
 first is a simple farce, in which a henpecked husband 
 sits by fasting, while his wife and the jovial parish 
 priest make a good meal on the pie which was 
 provided for the dinner of the family. It contains 
 abundance of broad humour, and plenty of coarse 
 satire on the equivocal position occupied by the parson 
 in Johan's household. The third has no plot of any 
 kind. Its point consists in the rivalry between a 
 Pardoner and a Friar, who try to preach each other 
 down in church, vaunting their own spiritual wares 
 with voluble and noisy rhetoric. The speeches are 
 so managed that when the Pardoner has begun a 
 sentence, it is immediately intercepted by the Friar, 
 with a perpetual crescendo of mutual interruptions and 
 confusing misconstructions, till the competition ends 
 in a downright bout at fisticuffs. Then the Curate 
 interferes, protesting that his church shall not be made 
 the theatre of such a scandal. He calls Pratt to his 
 assistance; and each of them tackles one of the 
 antagonists. But Pratt and the Curate find themselves 
 too hardly matched ; and at length they send both 
 Pardoner and Friar to the devil with the honours of 
 the fray pretty equally divided. It may be incident- 
 ally mentioned that Heywood has incorporated some 
 fifty lines of Chaucer's ' Pardoner's Prologue ' almost 
 
1 86 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 verbatim in the exordium of his Pardoner — a proof, if 
 any proof were needed, of the close link between his 
 art and that of the father of English poetry. 
 
 II. 
 
 John Heywood was a Londoner, and a choir boy 
 of the Chapel Royal.^ When his voice broke, he 
 proceeded in due course to Oxford, and studied at 
 Broadgate Hall, now Pembroke College. Sir John 
 More befriended him, and took a kindly interest, we 
 hear, in the composition of his first work, a collec- 
 tion of epigrams. Early in his life Heywood obtained 
 a fixed place at Court in connection with the exhibition 
 of Interludes and Plays. It is probably due to this 
 fact that he has been reckoned among the King's 
 jesters ; and if he was not actually a Yorick of the 
 Tudor Court, there is no doubt that he played a merry 
 part there, and acquired considerable wealth by the 
 exercise of his wit. After Henry's death he fell 
 under suspicion of disaffection to the Government, and 
 only escaped, says Sir John Harrington, ' the jerk of 
 the six-stringed whip ' by special exercise of Edward's 
 favour. Heywood was a staunch Catholic, and his 
 offence seems to have been a too sturdy denial of 
 the royal supremacy in spiritual affairs. When Mary 
 came to the throne, he was recalled to Court, where he 
 
 ' I take this on the faith of Mr. Julian Sharman's Introduction to his 
 edition of The Proverbs of John Heywood {IsycAoxw George Bell, 1874). 
 Heywood is there stated to have held a place among the Children of the 
 Chapel in 1 5 1 5. It is not altogether easy, however, to bring this detail 
 into harmony with the little that we know about his early life, especially 
 with the circumstance that he owned land at North Mims. 
 
LIFE OF JOHN HEYWOOD. 187 
 
 exercised his dramatic talents for the Queen's amuse- 
 ment, and Hved on terms of freedom with her nobility. 
 After Mary's death, being a professed enemy of the 
 Reformed Church, Hey wood left England, and died 
 about the year 1565 at Mechlin. One of his sons, 
 Jasper Hey wood, played a part of some importance in 
 the history of our drama, as we shall see when the 
 attempted classical revival comes to be discussed. 
 
 The vicissitudes of Hey wood's life are not with- 
 out their interest in connection with his Interludes. 
 During the religious changes of four reigns, he con- 
 tinued faithful to the creed of his youth. Yet, though 
 he suffered disgrace and exile for the Catholic faith, he 
 showed himself a merciless satirist of Catholic corrup- ji, '^^ 
 tions. Though he was a professional jester, gaining {l^ / 
 his livelihood and taking his position in society as a 
 recognised mirth-maker, he allowed no considerations 
 of personal profit to cloud his conscience. He re- 
 mained an Englishman to the backbone, loyal to his 
 party and his religious convictions, outspoken in his 
 condemnation of the superstitions which disgraced the 
 Church of his adoption. This m.anliness of attitude, 
 this freedom from time-service, this fearless exposure 
 of the weak points in a creed to which he sacrificed 
 his worldly interests, give a dignity to Hey wood's 
 character, and prepossess us strongly in favour of his 
 writings. Their tone, like that of the man, is homely, 
 masculine, downright, and English, in the shrewdness 
 of the wit, the soundness of the sense, and the jovial 
 mirth which pervades each scene. 
 
i88 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 III. 
 
 The ' Four P's,' which I propose to examine more 
 
 closely, is an excellent comic dialogue. More than this 
 
 it cannot claim to be ; for it has no intrigue, and aims at 
 
 ^ the exhibition of characters by contrast and collocation, 
 
 not by action. Its motive is a witty situation, and its 
 
 denouement is a single humorous saying. Thus this 
 
 Interlude has not the proportions of a play, although 
 
 its dialogue exhibits far more life, variety, and spirit 
 
 than many later and more elaborate creations of the 
 
 English stage. It is written in pure vernacular, terse 
 
 and racy if rude, and undefiled by classical pedantry 
 
 or Italianising affectation. Hey wood, here as elsewhere, 
 
 •^ reminds us of Chaucer without his singing robes. As 
 
 Charles Lamb called his namesake Thomas Heywood 
 
 a prose Shakspere, so might we style John Heywood 
 
 a prose Chaucer. The humour which enchants us in the 
 
 ' Canterbury Tales,' and which we claim as specifically 
 
 ^kI ^ English, emerges in Heywood's dialogue, less concen- 
 
 ii\ ^ trated and blent with neither pathos nor poetic fancy, 
 
 . ,*i ikAM^ ygt gtiii indubitably of the genuine sort. 
 
 The Four P's are four representative personages, well 
 known to the audience of Heywood's day. They are 
 the Palmer, the Pardoner, the Poticary, and the Pedlar. 
 The Palmer might be described as a professional pilgrim. 
 He made it his business to travel on foot all through 
 his life from shrine to shrine, subsisting upon alms, 
 visiting all lands in Europe and beyond the seas where 
 saints were buried, praying at their tombs, seeking 
 remission for his sins through their intercessions and 
 
THE 'FOUR P'S.' 189 
 
 entrance into Paradise by the indulgence granted to 
 pilgrims at these holy places.^ His wanderings only 
 ended with his death. Pardoners are described in an 
 old English author as ' certain fellows that carried about 
 the Pope's Indulgences, and sold them to such as would 
 buy them.' ^ Since this was a very profitable trade, it 
 behoved the purchasers of their wares, which, besides 
 Indulgences, were generally relics of saints, rosaries, 
 and amulets, to see that their credentials were in order ; 
 for, even supposing, if that were possible, that a Pardoner 
 could be an honest man, and his genuine merchandise 
 be worth the money paid for it, who could be sure that 
 impostors, deriving no countenance from the Roman 
 Curia, were not abroad ? Therefore all Pardoners dis- 
 played Bulls and spiritual passports from the Popes, 
 which, if duly executed and authenticated, empowered 
 them to sell salvation at so much the groat. The diffi- 
 culty of testing these credentials put wary folk in much 
 perplexity. Ariosto has used this motive in a humorous 
 scene of one of his best comedies, where a would-be 
 purchaser of pardon insists on taking the friar's Bull to 
 his parish priest for verification.^ Chaucer alludes to 
 the custom of Pardoners exhibiting their Bulls, in the 
 exordium of his ' Pardoner's Tale,' and Hey wood in the 
 
 ' Dante defines a Palmer thus in the Viia Nuova : ' Chiamansi 
 Palmieri inquanto vanno oltra mare, laonde molte volte recano la 
 palma : Peregrini, inquanto vanno alia casa di Galizia ; Romei inquanto 
 vanno a Roma.' In England a distinction was drawn between Palmers 
 and Pilgrims. ' The pilgrim had some home or dwelling-place ; but the 
 palmer had none. The pilgrim travelled to some certain designed place 
 or places ; but the palmer to all. The pilgrim went at his own charges ; 
 but the palmer professed wilful poverty, and went upon alms,' &c. See 
 Note 2 to p. 331 of Hazlitt's Dodsley, vol. i. 
 
 ' Hazlitt's Dodsley, i. 343, Note 2. 
 
 ' Scolastica, Act iv. Scene 4. 
 
190 shae:spere'S predecessors. 
 
 Interlude of ' The Pardoner and the Friar' makes merry 
 for many pages with the same motive.^ The sale of 
 Indulgences, as is well known, brought large profits to 
 the Papal exchequer ; and when the extravagance of 
 Leo X. plunged him into deep financial difficulties, his 
 eagerness to stimulate this source of revenue drove 
 Germany into the schism of the Reformation. While 
 S. Peter's was being built with commissions upon par- 
 dons, Luther was taunting the laity with ' buying such 
 cheap rubbish at so dear a price.' 
 
 Chaucer's portrait of the Pardoner forms so good a 
 frontispiece to Hey wood's Interlude, that a quotation 
 from it may be here acceptable : 
 
 This pardoner hadde heer as yelwe as wex, 
 But smothe it heng, as doth a strike of flex ; 
 By unces hynge his lokkes that he hadde, 
 And therewith he his schuldres overspradde. 
 Ful thinne it lay, by culpons on and oon ; 
 
 But hood, for jolitee, ne werede he noon. 
 
 * * * # 
 
 A voys he hadde as smal as eny goot. 
 
 No herd ne hadde he, ne nevere scholde have. 
 
 As smothe it was as it were late i-schave. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 But trewely to tellen atte laste. 
 He was in churche a noble ecclesiaste. 
 Wei cowde he rede a lessoun or a storye. 
 But altherbest he sang an offertorie. 
 
 The Poticary, or Apothecary, and the Pedlar re- 
 quire no special introduction to a modern audience. 
 Both are much the same in our days as in those of 
 Queen Mary— the Pedlar with his pack stuffed full of 
 gauds and gear for women ; the Poticary taking life 
 as a philosopher inclined to materialism. 
 
 ' See Hazlitt's Dodsley, vol. i. pp. 212-223. 
 
THE PARDONER. 191 
 
 The scene opens with a monologue of the Palmer. 
 He recites a long list of the shrines which he has 
 visited : 
 
 I am a Palmer, as ye see, 
 
 Which of my life much part have spent 
 
 In many a fair and far country : 
 
 As Pilgrims do, of good intent. 
 
 At Jerusalem have I been 
 
 Before Christ's blessed sepulchre : 
 
 The Mount of Calvary have I seen, 
 
 A holy place, you may be sure. 
 
 To Jehosaphat and Olivet ^ 
 
 On foot, God wot, I went right bare : 
 
 Many a salt tear did I sweat. 
 
 Before my carcase could come there. 
 
 Yet have I been at Rome also, 
 
 And gone the stations all a-row ; 
 
 S. Peter's shrine and many mo. 
 
 Than, if I told all, ye do know. 
 
 Beginning with the holiest places, Jerusalem and 
 Rome, he runs through the whole bede roll of inferior 
 oracles, until he comes to : 
 
 Our Lady that standeth in the oak. 
 
 While he is still vaunting the extent of his excursions, 
 as a modern globe-trotter might do, the Pardoner 
 breaks in upon him : 
 
 And when ye have gone as far as ye can, 
 For all your labour and ghostly intent, 
 Ye will come home as wise as ye went. 
 
 This ruffles the Palmer's pride and self-esteem. Is 
 the fame of his achievement nothing .? Is the palm 
 for which he has been travailing, of no avail ? The 
 Pardoner says : Nay, your object was a worthy one ; 
 the saving of your soul is a great matter ; it is not for 
 
192 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 a man of my trade to cheapen his own wares. But 
 consider the thing calmly : 
 
 Now mark in this what wit ye have, 
 To seek so far, and help so nigh ! 
 Even here at home is remedy ; 
 For at your door myself doth dwell. 
 Who could have saved your soul as well 
 As all your wide wandering shall do. 
 Though ye went thrice to Jericho. 
 
 This is the very argument which the Pardoning 
 Friar in Ariosto's 'Scolastica' uses to Don Bartolo. 
 That conscience -burdened jurisconsult was minded to 
 make a pilgrimage to Compostella for his soul's peace. 
 The Friar told him he was little better than a fool. 
 By laying out on pardons considerably less than his 
 journey money, he might stay at home and be saved 
 at ease. The Palmer in our Interlude makes much the 
 same reply to the Pardoner as Don Bartolo made to 
 the Friar : 
 
 Right seldom is it seen, or never, 
 That truth and pardoners dwell together. 
 For be your pardons never so great. 
 Yet them to enlarge ye will not let 
 With such lies that ofttimes, Christ wot, 
 Ye seem to have that ye have not. 
 Wherefore I went myself to the self thing 
 In every place, and without saying 
 Had as much pardon there assuredly. 
 As ye can promise me here doubtfully. 
 
 The Palmer preferred the real article — pardons at 
 the shrine, however toilfully obtained, to pardons 
 signed and sealed by Papal licences. He was in the 
 position of an invalid who travels to drink the waters 
 at the s pring, instead of taking them corked and 
 bottled in his sick-room. In spite of brands upon the 
 
THE PALMER. 
 
 193 
 
 cork and labels on the bottle, those mineral waters are 
 so often manufactured ! This metaphor will hold good 
 for the whole business of pardoning. Special virtue 
 emanated from the bodies of martyrs, relics of con- 
 fessors, tombs of saints, the person of the Pope him- 
 self in Rome. These were the salutiferous fountains, 
 where gout and leprosy of soul were cured. At first 
 it was reckoned indispensable to drink those spiritual 
 waters at the source. But the princes of the Church, 
 like the possessors of the Carlsbad or S. Moritz 
 springs, soon perceived what means of profit lay within 
 their grasp. To draw off the virtues of the saints, to tap 
 the apostolic spring of grace perennially flowing from 
 S. Peter's chair, to cork them up in flasks and phials 
 at Rome, and to label them with Papal Bulls, was easy 
 and convenient. Everybody profited by the trans- 
 action. The waters of salvation were brought to the 
 sick soul's door by agents who returned a handsome 
 profit to the owners, after pocketing a fair commission for 
 themselves. But who could be certain that the bottled 
 Carlsbad, or the S. Moritz, warranted to stimulate a 
 drooping faith, were genuine ? There lay the difficulty. 
 And until the world was satisfied upon this point, 
 which in plain truth it could never be, hardier invalids, 
 like our Palmer, preferred to travel to the holy wells 
 themselves. 
 
 The Pardoner, in his turn, is not unreasonably 
 nettled by the Palmer's sneers. If it be a question of 
 truth or untruth, says he, your traveller's tales are at 
 least as likely to be spurious as my Indulgences : 
 
 I say yet again my pardons are such, 
 
 That if there were a thousand souls on heap, 
 
104 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 I would bring them all to heaven as good cheap 
 
 As ye have brought yourself on pilgrimage 
 
 In the least quarter of your voyage, — 
 
 Which is far aside heaven, by God ! 
 
 There your labour and pardon is odd. 
 
 AVith small cost and without any pain, 
 
 These pardons bring them to heaven plain : 
 
 Give me but a penny or two pence, 
 
 And as soon as the soul departeth hence. 
 
 In half an hour, or three-quarters at the most. 
 
 The soul is in heaven with the Holy Ghost 
 
 No sooner has the sleek charlatan made this 
 astonishing assertion, than a third personage, starting 
 up at his elbow, puts a word in very quietly. 
 
 Send ye any souls to heaven by water ? 
 
 This is the Poticary, who, observing that the Par- 
 doner and Palmer are disputing which of them sends 
 souls the quickest and the safest way to heaven, puts in 
 a word for his own profession. Few folk came into 
 the world without a midwife : few go out of it without 
 a Poticary. Thieves, indeed, are hanged. But, quoth 
 
 he: 
 
 Whom have ye known die honestly, 
 Without help of the Poticary ? 
 
 The contention, like a fugue or canon, has now 
 three voices in full cry, pursuing the same theme ; 
 when a fourth joins in. This is the Pedlar. His 
 entrance occasions a pause and a momentary diversion ; 
 for he has to show his wares ; and his wares suggest 
 a somewhat unedifying but humorous debate on women. 
 After this excursion into a region of discourse, where 
 tongues of men are wont to wag, the three disputants 
 return to their original contention ; and the Pedlar 
 
THE PEDLAR. 195 
 
 undertakes to play the part of umpire. Having no 
 experience in spiritual things, he suggests that each of 
 the plaintiffs should make trial of his skill in a matter, 
 of which all alike are masters, and he is eminently 
 qualified to judge. Let them tell lies against each other. 
 
 Now have I found one mastery, 
 
 That ye can do indifferently ; 
 
 And is neither selling nor buying. 
 
 But even on very lying. 
 
 And all ye three can lie as well 
 
 As can the falsest devil in hell. 
 
 And though, afore, ye heard me grudge 
 
 In greater matters to be your judge, 
 
 Yet in lying I can some skill. 
 
 And if I shall be judge, I will. 
 
 The two competitors assent to the fairness of this 
 proposal. But before they proceed to trial. Hey wood 
 contrives to introduce a burlesque scene, which serves 
 to bring the Pardoner and Poticary into strong con- 
 trast. As the Pedlar had exhibited the contents of his 
 pack — points, pin-cases, gloves, laces, thimbles, and so 
 forth ; so now the Pardoner undoes his wallet and 
 produces the relics it contains. The pursy rogue, who 
 thrives on superstition and half believes his own im- 
 postures, brings to sight 
 
 Of All Hallows' the blessed jawbone . . . 
 
 The great toe of the Trinity . . . 
 
 The bees that stang Eve under the forbidden tree . . . 
 
 A buttock-bone of Pentecost . . . 
 
 and many moire absurdities, on which the Poticary, as 
 a man of sense and science, passes caustic sceptical 
 remarks. When the toe, for instance, is held up to 
 
 admiration, he observes : 
 
 o 3 
 
196 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 I pray you turn that relic about ! 
 Either the Trinity had the gout, 
 Or else, because it is three toes in one, 
 God made it as much as three toes alone. 
 
 The Pardoner, too merry to be much offended, points 
 out that this relic would be handy for a man with the 
 toothache. He might roll it in his mouth. But the 
 Poticary, with the scepticism which has always marked 
 the medical profession, prefers his own drugs to these 
 unsavoury panaceas. This gives him an opportunity 
 of displaying his medicine chest, which he does with 
 comical bravado, winding up with an attempt to bribe 
 the judge by the offer of a box of marmalade. 
 
 The Pedlar protests his incorruptibility, and the 
 plaintiffs fall to their contention in good earnest. The 
 Poticary is within an ace of winning the cause by 
 assault. His first shot is a fair one ; for, turning to the 
 Pedlar, he exclaims : 
 
 Forsooth, ye be an honest man ! 
 
 This wakes the fugue up, and the trial is carried 
 briskly on upon the theme suggested by the obviously 
 false imputation of honesty to the Pedlar. Arguments 
 on all three sides are subtly pleaded ; but the umpire 
 expresses his inability to decide the suit in this way. 
 Each of the contending parties must tell some tale : 
 
 And which of you telleth most marvel, 
 And most unlikest to be true. 
 Shall most prevail, whatever ensue. 
 
 The Poticary starts with an extraordinary cure he 
 made ; too gross in details for discussion.^ 
 
 ^ The humour of this cure is of an American type. Its point consists 
 
THE PARDONER'S TALE. 197 
 
 The Pardoner takes up with the far better tale of 
 how he saved the soul 
 
 Of one departed within this seven year, 
 A friend of mine, and likewise I 
 To her again was as friendly. 
 
 The poor woman had died suddenly without ghostly- 
 comfort or viaticum of any sort. Her sad case weighed 
 heavily upon the Pardoner's conscience ; and bethink- 
 ing him how many souls he had saved in his day, 
 the least he could do was to go to Purgatory and 
 look after her. When he arrived there, he was right 
 welcome ; but he could not find his friend : 
 
 Then feared I much it was not well ; 
 Alas ! thought I, she is in hell ; 
 For with her Hfe I was so acquainted, 
 That sure I thought she was not sainted. 
 
 So after scattering a few pardons, and helping out 
 a kindly soul, who blessed him when he chanced to 
 sneeze, the Pardoner proceeded on his journey to hell- 
 gate. The porter, as it happened, was an old ac- 
 quaintance : 
 
 He knew me well, and I at last 
 Remembered him since long time past : 
 For, as good hap would have it chance, 
 This devil and I were of old acquaintance ; 
 For oft, in the play of ' Corpus Christi,' 
 He hath played the devil at Coventry. 
 
 By the help of this opportune friend at court, the 
 Pardoner received a safe-conduct from head-quarters, 
 and was introduced at a favourable moment to the 
 
 in a comical exaggeration of the effect produced by common causes, 
 playing on the sense of space. 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 great Duke of Hell. It was the anniversary of 
 Lucifer's fall from heaven, and the devils were keep- 
 ing high tide and festival : 
 
 This devil and I walked arm in arm 
 So far till he had brought me thither, 
 Where all the devils of hell together 
 Stood in array in such apparel 
 As for that day there meetly fell : — 
 Their horns well gilt, their claws full clean, 
 Their tails well kempt, and, as I ween, 
 With sothery butter their bodies anointed : 
 I never saw devils so well appointed ! 
 The master-devil sat in his jacket, 
 And all the souls were playing at racket: 
 None other rackets they had in hand 
 Save every soul a good firebrand ; 
 Wherewith they played so prettily 
 That Lucifer laughed merrily, 
 And all the residue of the fiends 
 Did laugh thereat full well like friends. 
 
 The Pardoner looked around for his friend, but 
 could not find her, and durst not yet ask after her. 
 An usher then brought him into the presence of 
 Lucifer, who received him graciously : 
 
 By Saint Anthony 
 He smiled on me well-favouredly, 
 Bending his brows as broad as barn-doors. 
 Shaking his ears as rugged as burrs, 
 Rolling his eyes as round as two bushels. 
 Flashing the fire out of his nostrils. 
 Gnashing his teeth so vaingloriously 
 That methought time to fall to flattery. 
 
 Neither low obeisance nor seasonable panegyric did 
 the Pardoner spare ; and after some preliminary col- 
 loquy, he ventured to unfold the object of his visit : 
 
 I am a Pardoner, 
 And over souls as controller 
 
RESCUE OF MARGERY CORSON. 199 
 
 Throughout the earth my power doth stand, 
 Where many a soul Heth on my hand, 
 That speed in matters as I use them, 
 As I receive them or refuse them. 
 
 Such being the authority of his office, he proposes 
 to exchange the soul of any wight ahve the devil 
 chooses for that of his friend. Lucifer agrees : 
 
 Ho, ho ! quoth the devil, we are well pleased ! 
 
 What is his name thou wouldst have eased ? 
 
 Nay, quoth I, be it good or evil, 
 
 My coming is for a she devil. 
 
 What call'st her, quoth he, thou whoreson ? 
 
 Forsooth, quoth I, Margery Corson. 
 
 This demure and casual introduction of the woman's 
 name strikes one as highly comic, after so much pre- 
 paration ; and the immediate effect produced is no less 
 dramatic. Lucifer forgets all about the bargain, and 
 swears that not a devil in hell shall withhold her : 
 
 And if thou wouldest have twenty mo, 
 Wer't not for justice, they should go ! 
 For all we devils within this den 
 Have more to do with two women 
 Than with all the charge we have beside. 
 
 He therefore begs the Pardoner, by good-will and 
 fellowship, to leave the men to their sins, and to apply 
 all his pardons in future to womankind, in order that 
 hell at least may be rid of the sex. Margery had 
 been drafted into the kitchen, and there the Pardoner 
 found her, spitting the meat, basting and roasting it. 
 
 But when she saw this brought to pass, 
 To tell the joy wherein she was, 
 And of all the devils, for joy how they 
 Did roar at her delivery, 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 And how the chains in hell did ring, 
 And how all the souls therein did sing, 
 And how we were brought to the gate. 
 And how we took our leave thereat, 
 Be sure lack of time suffereth not 
 To rehearse the twentieth part of that ! 
 
 The gratification afforded by the Pardoner's story 
 almost distracts attention from its He. The Pedlar 
 comments on the danger of the journey. The Palmer 
 takes it seriously ; but one point, he says, perplexes 
 him. He cannot understand why women have such 
 bad characters in hell. He has wandered over earth 
 and sea, and visited every town in Christendom : 
 
 And this I would ye should understand, 
 I have seen women five hundred thousand ; 
 And oft with them have long time tarried. 
 Yet in all places where I have been, 
 Of all the women that I have seen, 
 I never saw or knew in my conscience 
 Any one woman out of patience. 
 
 Thus quietly, and with this force of earnest assevera- 
 tion, does the largest and most palpable lie leap out 
 of the Palmer's lips. The plaintiffs and the judge are 
 unanimous : 
 
 Poticary. 
 By the mass, there is a great lie ! 
 
 Pardoner. 
 I never heard a greater, by our Lady ! 
 
 Pedlar. 
 A greater ! Nay, know ye any so great ? 
 
 It only remains for the Pedlar to pass judgment, and 
 to assign the prize of victory to the Palmer. This he 
 does at some length, discoursing with comical details 
 
THE PALMERS TRIUMPH. 201 
 
 Upon the composition of woman's character, and de- 
 monstrating how shrewishness, whatever other quaU- 
 ties may co-exist, is a fixed element in every member 
 of the female sex. The Interlude concludes with a 
 sound and wholesome homily from the stout-hearted 
 old author, put into the Pedlar's mouth, whereby he 
 expounds his own views about the right use of pil- 
 grimage and pardons, and lectures the materialistic 
 apothecary upon the necessity of saving virtues. Thus 
 the fun of the piece is turned to good doctrine at its 
 close. 
 
 I have indulged myself in a detailed analysis of 
 Heywood's Interlude, and in copious quotations, partly 
 because of its intrinsic excellence, but more especially 
 because it is unique as a dramatic composition of the 
 purest English style, unmodified by erudite or foreign 
 elements. It presents the England of the pre-Renais- 
 sance and pre- Reformation period with singular vivacity 
 and freshness ; the merry England which had still a 
 spark of Chaucer's spirit left, an echo of his lark-like 
 morning song. The Drama was not destined to 
 expand precisely on the lines laid down by Heywood. 
 Indeed, a very few years made his Interlude almost as 
 archaic to the men of Elizabeth's reign as it is to us. 
 Italian and classical influences were already at work in 
 the elaboration of a different type of art. Still the 
 vigour of this piece is so superabundant, that to neglect 
 it would be to leave out of account the chief factor — 
 native dramatic faculty^ — which rendered our play- 
 wrights in the modern style superior to those of Italy 
 or France. 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Two formal comedies of an early date may be fitly 
 included in this study. These are 'Ralph Roister 
 Doister' and ' Gammer Gurton's Needle.' Heywood's 
 ' Four P's ' was written, in all probability, soon after 
 the year 1530. ' Roister Doister' had been produced 
 to the public before 1550. 'Gammer Gurton' was 
 acted at Cambridge in 1566. These dates bring three 
 epoch-making compositions in the comic art almost 
 within the compass of a quarter of a century. No 
 serious dramatic essays, tragedies, or histories, of like 
 artistic excellence existed at that period. 
 
 To combine a skilfully constructed fable with 
 Heywood's character- delineation was all that comedy 
 required to bring it to maturity. This union Nicholas 
 Udall effected in his ' Ralph Roister Doister.' The 
 author of this, the first regular comedy in the English 
 language, was born about 1505 in Hampshire. He 
 was a Protestant throughout his life, and won some 
 scholarly distinction by translating portions of the 
 Paraphrase of the New Testament by Erasmus. While 
 a student at Oxford, Udall enjoyed Leland's intimacy. 
 Bale praised him for his learning and accomplish- 
 ments. For some time he held the head mastership 
 of Eton College, which he had to resign on a charge, 
 not fully proved, of conniving at a robbery of College 
 plate. He died in 1556, having been for a few years 
 before his death head master of Westminster School. 
 This sketch of Udall's biography prepares us for the 
 taste, propriety of treatment, and just proportions 
 
UDALL'S 'ROISTER DOISTER.' 203 
 
 which we find in his dramatic work. ' Ralph Roister 
 Doister,' however unpromising its title may be, is the 
 composition of a scholar, who has studied Terence and 
 Plautus to good purpose. From the Latin playwrights 
 Udall learned how to construct a plot, and to digest 
 the matter of his fable into five acts. The same 
 models of style gave him that ease of movement and 
 simplicity of diction which make his work, in spite of 
 superficial archaisms, classical. In ' Roister Doister' 
 we emerge from medieval grotesquery and allegory 
 into the clear light of actual life, into an agreeable 
 atmosphere of urbanity and natural delineation. Udall 
 avoided the error of imitating his Roman master too 
 closely. He neither borrowed his fable nor his persons, 
 as was the wont of the Italian comedians, straight from 
 Plautus. His play is founded, indeed, upon the ' Miles 
 Gloriosus ; ' but it is free from that unpleasant taint of 
 unreality which mars the Commedia eriidita of the 
 Florentines. The antique plot has been accommodated 
 to a simple episode of English life among people of the 
 comfortable middle class. The hero, Ralph Doister, is 
 a braggart and a coward ; well to do, but foolish in his 
 use of wealth ; boastful before proof, but timid in the 
 hour of trial ; ridiculously vain of his appearance, with 
 a trick of dangling after any woman whom chance 
 throws in his way. A parasite and boon companion, 
 called Matthew Merigreek, turns him round his finger 
 by alternate flatteries and bullyings. This character 
 Udall owed to the Latin theatre ; but he combined the 
 popular qualities of the Vice with the conventional 
 attributes of the classic parasite, contriving at the same 
 time to create a real personage, who would have been at 
 
204 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 home in ordinary English households. The name Meri- 
 greek seems to point to Juvenal's ' Gr^culus Esuriens ; ' 
 it has also something in common with the abstract titles 
 of the Vice in the Moralities. This clever knave dis- 
 covers that Ralph is in love with a widow, Dame Cus- 
 tance, who is betrothed to the merchant Gawin Good- 
 luck. While Goodluck is away upon a voyage, Ralph and 
 Merigreek pester the widow with love-letters, tokens, 
 serenades, and visits. Her opinion of Ralph is that he 
 is a contemptible coxcomb, not worth an honest woman's 
 notice. She therefore treats his wooing as a joke ; but 
 finding that she cannot shake him off, makes the best 
 fun she can out of the circumstances. This gives a 
 colour of familiarity to his attentions ; and a servant of 
 Goodluck's appearing suddenly upon the scene while 
 Ralph's courtship is in full progress, arouses his master's 
 jealousy. Dame Custance is now placed in a difficult 
 position, from which she is finally extricated by the 
 testimony of an old friend, who was acquainted with 
 her behaviour in the matter, and also by the cowardly 
 admissions of the simpleton Ralph. Thus this slight 
 story contains the principal elements of a comedy — 
 ridiculous as well as serious characters ; laughable Inci- 
 dents ; temporary misunderstandings ; a perplexity in 
 the fourth act ; and a happy adjustment of all difficulties 
 by the self-exposure of the mischief-making braggart. 
 The conduct of the piece is spirited and easy. The 
 author's art, though refined by scholarship, is homely. 
 Between 'Ralph Roister Doister' and 'The Merry 
 Wives of Windsor ' there is, in point of construction 
 and conception, no immeasurable distance, although the 
 one play is the work of mediocrity, the other of genius. 
 
STILL'S 'GAMMER GURTON.' 205 
 
 V. 
 
 ' Gammer Gurton's Needle ' has been hitherto 
 ascribed, on slender but not improbable grounds of 
 inference, to John Still. He was a native of Lincoln- 
 shire, who received his education at Christ's College, 
 Cambridge. After enjoying a canonry at Westminster 
 and the masterships of S. John's and Trinity at 
 Cambridge, he was promoted to the Bishopric of Bath 
 and Wells in 1592. His effigy may still be seen 
 beneath its canopy in Wells Cathedral. A grim 
 Puritan divine, with pointed beard and long stiff 
 painted robes, lies face-upward on the monument. 
 This is the author of the first elaborately executed 
 farce in our language. ' Gammer Gurton's Needle ' is 
 a humorous and vulgar picture of the lowest rustic 
 manners, dashed in with coarse bold strokes in tell- 
 ing realistic style. Its chief merit as a play is the 
 crescendo of its interest, ending in a burlesque de- 
 nouement. Unlike ' Ralph Roister Bolster,' it has no 
 plot, properly so called, and owes nothing to the Latin 
 stage. We may rather regard it as a regular develop- 
 ment from one of the comic scenes interpolated in the 
 Miracles. Gammer Gurton loses her needle ; and 
 Diccon the Bedlam, who is peeping and prying about 
 the cottage, accuses Dame Chat, the alewife, of 
 stealing it. This sets all the village by the ears. 
 One by one the various authorities, parson, baily, 
 constables, are drawn into the medley. Heads are 
 broken ; ancient feuds are exacerbated ; the confusion 
 seems hopeless, when the needle is found sticking in 
 
2o6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 the breeches of Hodge, the Gammer's farm-servant. 
 Diccon the Bedlam, who raised and controlled the 
 storm, may be compared to the Vice of the Moralities, 
 inasmuch as all the action turns upon him. But he 
 has nothing in common with abstractions. He is a 
 vigorously executed portrait of a personage familiar 
 enough in England at that epoch. After the dissolu- 
 tion of the monasteries, no provision was made for the 
 poor folk who used to live upon their doles. A crowd 
 of idle and dissolute beggars were turned loose upon 
 the land, to live upon their wits. The cleverer of 
 these affected madness, and got the name of Bedlam 
 Beggars, Abraham Men, and Poor Toms. Shakspere 
 has described them in ' King Lear : ' 
 
 The country gives me proof and precedent, 
 Of bedlam beggars who, with roaring voices. 
 Strike in their numbed and mortified bare arms. 
 Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary, 
 And with this horrible object from low farms, 
 Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills. 
 Sometimes with lunatic bans, sometimes with prayers. 
 Enforce their charity. 
 
 Dekker in one of his tracts introduces us to the 
 confraternity of wandering rogues in the following 
 curious passage : ' Of all the mad rascals, that are of 
 this wing, the Abraham Man is the most fantastic. 
 The fellow that sat half-naked, at table to-day, from 
 the girdle upwards, is the best Abraham Man that 
 ever came to my house, and the notablest villain. He 
 swears he hath been in Bedlam, and will talk franti- 
 cally of purpose. You see pins stuck in sundry places 
 of his naked flesh, especially in his arms, which pain 
 he gladly puts himself to (being indeed no torment at 
 
DICCON THE BEDLAM. 207 
 
 all, his skin is either so dead with some foul disease 
 or so hardened with weather) only to make you believe 
 he is out of his wits. He calls himself by the name of 
 Poor Tom, and coming near anybody cries out, " Poor 
 Tom is a-cold ! " ' These vagrants wandered up and 
 down the country, roosting in hedge-rows, creeping 
 into barns, extorting bacon from farm-servants by 
 intimidation, amusing the company in rural inns by 
 their mad jests, stealing and bullying, working upon 
 superstition, pity, terror, or the love of the ridiculous 
 in all from whom they could obtain a livelihood. 
 How Shakspere used this character to heighten the 
 tragedy of 'Lear,' requires no comment. Still em- 
 ployed the same character in working out a purely 
 farcical intrigue. His Diccon is simply a clever and 
 amusing vagabond. 
 
 It is worthy of notice that ' Gammer Gurton's 
 Needle' was played at Christ's College, with the 
 sanction of the authorities, in 1566. We might won- 
 der how grave scholars could appreciate the buffoonery 
 of this coarse art, which has neither the intrigue of 
 Latin comedy nor the polish of classic style to recom- 
 mend it. Yet, if the intellectual conditions of the 
 time are taken into account, our wonder will rather be 
 that ' Roister Doister ' should have been written than 
 that ' Gammer Gurton ' should have been enjoyed. 
 The fine arts had no place in England. Literature 
 hardly existed, and the study of the classics was as yet 
 confined to a few scholars. Formal logic and the 
 philosophy of the schoolmen occupied the graver 
 thoughts of academical students. When those learned 
 men abandoned themselves to mirth, they relished 
 
2o8 SItAK:SPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 obscenity and grossness with the same gusto as the 
 cheese and ale and onions of their supper table. Nor 
 let it be forgotten that the urbane Pope of the House 
 of Medici, the pupil of Poliziano, the patron of 
 Raphael, could turn from Beroaldo's 'Tacitus' and 
 Bembo's courtly elegiacs, to split his sides with laugh- 
 ing at Bibbiena's ribaldries. Allowing for the differ- 
 ences between Italy and England, the ' Calandria ' is 
 hardly more refined than ' Gammer Gurton's Needle.' 
 Beneath its classical veneer and smooth Italian varnish, 
 it hides as coarse a view of human nature and a nastier 
 fable. 
 
 VI. 
 
 There are many reasons why Comedy should 
 have preceded Tragedy in the evolution of our Drama. 
 The comic scenes, which formed a regular department 
 of the Miracle, allowed themselves to be detached 
 from the whole scheme. From the first they were 
 extraneous to the sacred subject-matter of those 
 Pageants ; and after passing through the intermediate 
 stage of the Morality, they readily blent with Latin 
 models (as in the case of ' Roister Doister '), and no 
 less readily settled into the form of the five-act farce 
 (as in the case of ' Gammer Gurton '). Comedy at- 
 tracts an uninstructed audience more powerfully than 
 Tragedy. Of this we have plenty of evidence in our 
 own days ; when ' the better vulgar ' crowd the Music 
 Halls, and gather to Burlesques, but barely lounge at 
 fashion's beck to a Shaksperian Revival. Comedy of 
 the average type can be more easily invented than • 
 Tragedy. It appeals to a commoner intelligence. It 
 
PRIORITY OF COMIC DRAMA. 209 
 
 deals with more familiar motives. Lastly, but by no 
 means least, it makes far slighter demands upon the 
 capacity of actors. Passing over into caricature, it is 
 not only tolerable, but oftentimes enhanced in effect. 
 Whereas Tragedy, hyperbolised — Herod out-Herod- 
 ing Herod, Ercles' and Cambyses' vein — becomes 
 supremely ridiculous to those very sympathies which 
 Tragedy appeals to. Among the Northern nations gro- 
 tesqueness was indigenous. They found buffoonery 
 ready to their hand. For the statelier and sterner 
 forms of dramatic art, models were needed. What the 
 Teutonic genius originated in the serious style, was 
 epical ; connected with the minstrel's rather than the 
 jongleur's skill. Comedy, again, was better fitted than 
 Tragedy to fill up the spaces of a banquet or to crown 
 a revel. The jongleurs and jugglers, who descended 
 from the Roman histriones, had their proper place in 
 medieval society ; and these jesters were essentially 
 mimes. Comedy belonged of right to them. Every 
 dais in the hall of manor-house or castle had from 
 immemorial time furnished forth a comic stage. The 
 Court-fools were public characters. Sumner, Will 
 Kempe, Tarleton, and Wilson were as well known to 
 our ancestors of the sixteenth century as Garrick and 
 the Kembles to our great-grandfathers. The occa- 
 sional and extemporaneous jesting of these men passed 
 by degrees into settled types of presentation. They 
 wrote, or had written for them. Merriments, which 
 they enriched with sallies of the choicest gag, illus- 
 trated with movements of the most fantastic humour. 
 When formal plays came into fashion by the labour of 
 the learned, these professional comedians struck the 
 
 P 
 
210 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 key-note of character, and took a prominent part in 
 
 performances. From what we know about private 
 
 semi-private theatricals in our own days, we are a 
 
 furthermore to comprehend how anxiously young gen 
 
 men at College, or fashionable members of an Inr 
 
 Court, would imitate the gestures of a Tarleton ; h 
 
 pliantly the scholar-playwright would adapt his lead 
 
 comic motive to the humours of a Kempe. It was tl 
 
 through many co-operating circumstances that Come 
 
 took the start of Tragedy upon the English sta 
 
 The graver portions of the Miracles, the heavier pa 
 
 of the Moral Plays, meanwhile, developed a school 
 
 acting which made Tragedy possible. The public 
 
 these antecedents were educated to tolerate a seric 
 
 style of art. But the playwright's genius — adequate 
 
 a first-rate Interlude like the ' Four P's,' to a first-r; 
 
 Comedy of manners like ' Roister Doister,' to a fir 
 
 rate screaming farce like ' Gammer Gurton ' — was s 
 
 unequal to the task of a true tragic piece. 
 
211 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE RISE OF TRAGEDY. 
 
 I. Classical Influence in England — The Revival of Learning — English 
 Humanism — Ascham's ' Schoolmaster ' — Itahan Examples. — II. The 
 Italian Drama — Paramount Authority of Seneca — Character of 
 Seneca's Plays. — III. English Translations of Seneca — English 
 Translations of Italian Plays. — IV. English Adaptations of the Latin 
 Tragedy — Lord Brooke — Samuel Daniel — Translations from theFrench 
 — Latin Tragedies — False Dramatic Theory. — V. ' Gorboduc ' — Sir 
 Philip Sidney's Eulogy of it — Lives of Sackville and Norton — General 
 Character of this Tragedy — Its Argument — Distribution of Material 
 — Chorus — Dumb Show — TheActors — Use of Blank Verse. — VI. 'The 
 Misfortunes of Arthur' — Thomas Hughes and Francis Bacon — The 
 Plot — Its Adaptation to the Graeco-Roman Style of Tragedy — Part 
 of Guenevora — The Ghost — Advance on ' Gorboduc ' in Dramatic Force 
 and Versification. — VII. Failure of this Pseudo-Classical Attempt — 
 What it effected for English Tragedy. 
 
 N.B. The two chief tragedies discussed in this chapter will be found 
 in the old Shakespeare Society's Publications, 1847, and in Hazlitt's 
 Dodsley, vol. iv. 
 
 I. 
 
 The history of our Tragic Drama is closely connected 
 with that of an attempt to fix the rules of antique 
 composition on the playwright's art in England. Up 
 to the present point we have been dealing with those 
 religious pageants, which the English shared in com- 
 mon with other European nations during the Middle 
 Ages, and with a thoroughly native outgrowth from 
 them in our Moral Plays and Comedies. The debt, 
 already indicated, of ' fack juggler ' to the ' Amphi- 
 tryon ' of Plautus, and that of ' Roister Doister ' to the 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 ' Miles Gloriosus,' together with a very early English 
 version of the ' Andria ' of Terence, prove, however, 
 that classical studies were beginning to affect our 
 theatre even in the period of its origins. To trace the 
 further and far more pronounced influence of these 
 studies on tragic poetry, will be the object of this 
 chapter. I shall have to show in what way, when 
 men of culture turned their attention to the stage, a 
 determined effort was made to impose the canons of 
 classical art, as they were then received in Southern 
 Europe, on our playwrights ; how the genius of the 
 people proved too strong for the control of critics and 
 ' courtly makers ; ' how the romantic drama triumphed 
 over the pseudo-classic type of comedy and tragedy ; 
 and how England, by these means, was delivered 
 from a danger which threatened her theatre with a 
 failure like to that of the Italian. 
 
 The Revival of Learning may be said to have 
 begun in Italy early in the fourteenth century, when 
 Petrarch, by his study of Cicero, and Boccaccio, by 
 his exploration of Greek literature, prepared the way 
 for discoverers of MSS. like Poggio and Filelfo, 
 for founders of libraries like Nicholas V. and 
 Cosimo de' Medici, for critics and translators like 
 Lorenzo Valla, for poets like Poliziano, for editors 
 like Aldus Manutius, and for writers on philosophy 
 like Ficino and Cristofero Landino. A new type of 
 education sprang up in the universities and schools of 
 Italy, supplanting the medieval curriculum of Grammar, 
 Rhetoric, and Logic by a wider and more genial study 
 of the Greek and Latin authors. This education re- 
 duced to a system by Vittorino da Feltre at Mantua 
 
HUMANISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 213 
 
 and developed in detail by wandering professors, who 
 
 attracted scholars from all countries to their lectures 
 
 in the universities of Padua and Bologna, Florence 
 
 and Siena, rapidly spread over Europe. Grocin 
 
 (1442-15 19) and Linacre (1460-1524) transplanted the 
 
 study of Greek from Italy to Oxford, whence it spread 
 
 to Cambridge. The royal family and the great nobles 
 
 of England, vying with the aristocracy of Mantua and 
 
 Milan, instituted humanistic tutors for their sons and 
 
 daughters. The children of Henry VIII., the Prince 
 
 Edward and the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, grew 
 
 up accomplished in both ancient languages. Lady Jane 
 
 Grey preferred the perusal of Plato's ' Phaedo ' in her 
 
 study to a hunting party in her father's park. Queen 
 
 Elizabeth at Windsor turned from consultations with 
 
 Cecil on the affairs of France and Spain to read 
 
 Demosthenes with Ascham. Sir Thomas More at 
 
 Westminster, Dean Colet at S. Paul's, Sir John Cheke 
 
 at Cambridge, and the illustrious foreign friends of 
 
 these men, among whom the first place must be given 
 
 to Erasmus, formed as brilliant a group of classical 
 
 scholars, at the opening of the sixteenth century, as 
 
 could be matched in Europe. Meanwhile large sums 
 
 were being spent on educational foundations ; by 
 
 Wolsey at Christ Church, by Edward VI. in the 
 
 establishment of grammar schools, by Colet in his 
 
 endowment of S. Paul's, and by numerous benefactors 
 
 to whom we owe our present system of high class 
 
 public education. A race of excellent teachers sprang 
 
 into notice, among whom it may suffice to mention 
 
 Nicholas Udall, Roger Ascham, William Camden, Elmer 
 
 the tutor of Lady Jane Grey, and Cheke the lecturer 
 
214 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 on Greek at Cambridge. English gentlemen, at this 
 epoch, were scholars no less than soldiers, men of. 
 whom the type is brilliantly represented by Sir Walter 
 Raleigh and Sir Philip Sidney. English gentlewomen 
 shared the studies of their brothers ; and if a Lady Jane 
 Grey was rare, a Countess of Pembroke and a Princess 
 Mary may be taken as the leaders of a numerous class.^ 
 Of the humanistic culture which prevailed in 
 England, we possess a vigorous and vivid picture in 
 the ' Schoolmaster ' of Ascham. imported from Italy, 
 where it had flourished for at least a century before it 
 struck its first roots in our soil, this culture retained 
 a marked Italian character. But in the middle of 
 the sixteenth century Italian scholarship had already 
 begun to decay. Learning, exclaimed Paolo Giovio, 
 is fled beyond the Alps. The more masculine 
 branches of erudition were neglected for academical 
 frivolities. The study of Greek languished. It 
 seemed as though the Italians were satiated and 
 exhausted with the efforts and enthusiasms of two 
 centuries. In the North, curiosity was still keen. 
 The speculative freedom of the Reformation movement 
 kept the minds of men alert to studies which taxed 
 intellectual energy. And though the methods of edu- 
 cation, both in public schools and in private tuition, 
 were borrowed from the practice of Italian professors, 
 no class of professional rhetoricians corresponding to 
 the Humanists corrupted English morals, no learned 
 bodies like the academies of the South dictated laws to 
 
 ' See the note on female education by Nicholas Udall in his preface 
 to Erasmus' Paraphrase of S. John, translated together with him by the 
 Princess Mary and the Rev. F. Malet, D.D. It will be found in Prof. 
 Arber's Introductions to Ralph Roister Doister, p. 4. 
 
ITALIAN INFLUENCES. 
 
 2IS 
 
 taste, or imposed puerilities on erudition. Society in 
 general was far simpler ; the Court purer ; manners 
 less artificial ; religion more influential in controlling 
 conduct. Sidney furnished a living illustration of 
 Ascham's precepts ; and no one who should compare 
 the life of Sidney with that of a contemporary Italian 
 of his class, would fail to appreciate the specifically 
 English nature of this typical gentleman. 
 
 Still, though English culture was now independent, 
 though English scholars held the keys of ancient 
 learning and unlocked its treasures for themselves, 
 though English thinkers drew their own philosophy 
 from original sources, while the character of an accom- 
 plished Englishman differed from that of an Italian 
 by superior manliness, simplicity, sincerity, and moral 
 soundness ; yet the example of Italy was felt in all 
 departments of study, in every branch of intellec- 
 tual activity. Three centuries ahead of us in mental 
 training ; with Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ariosto, and 
 Tasso already on their list of classics ; boasting a multi- 
 farious literature of novels, essays, comedies, pastorals, 
 tragedies, and lyrics ; with their great histories of Guic- 
 ciardini and Machiavelli; with their political philosophy 
 and metaphysical speculations ; the Italians — as it was 
 inevitable — swayed English taste, and moved the poets 
 of England to imitation. Surrey and Wyat introduced 
 the sonnet and blank verse from Italy into England. 
 Spenser wrote the ' Faery Queen ' under the influence 
 of the Italian romantic epics. Raleigh could confer 
 no higher praise on this great poem than to say that 
 Petrarch's ghost, no less than Homer's, was moved 
 thereby to weeping for his laurels. Sidney copied the 
 
2i6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Italians in his lyrics, and followed Sannazzaro in the 
 'Arcadia.' The bookstalls of London were flooded 
 with translations of loose Italian novels, to such an 
 extent that Ascham trembled for the morals of his 
 countrymen.^ Harrington's Ariosto, Fairfax's Tasso, 
 Hoby's Cortigiano, proved that the finer products of 
 Italian literature were not neglected. This absorbing 
 interest in the creations of Italian genius was kept 
 alive and stimulated by the almost universal habit 
 of sending youths of good condition on an Italian 
 journey. It was thought that residence for some 
 months in the chief Italian capitals was necessary 
 to complete a young man's education ; and though 
 jealous moralists might shake their heads, averring that 
 English lads exchanged in Italy their learning for lewd 
 living, their religious principles for atheism, their patriot- 
 ism for Machiavellian subtleties, their simplicity for 
 affectations in dress and manners, and their manliness 
 for vices hitherto unknown in England, yet the custom 
 continued to prevail, until at last, in the reign of the 
 first Stuart, the English Court competed for the prize 
 of immorality with the Courts of petty Southern princes. 
 
 II. 
 
 Trained in classical studies, and addicted to 
 Italian models, it was natural enough that those men 
 of letters who sought to acclimatise the lyric poetry 
 of the Italians, who translated their novels, and adopted 
 the style of their romance, should not neglect the 
 tragic drama. This had long ago established itself as 
 
 ^ See Schoolmaster, ed. Mayor, pp. 8i, 82. 
 
CLASSICAL MODELS. 217 
 
 a branch of the higher hterature in Italy. Mussato 
 in the first years of the fourteenth century, with his 
 Latin tragedy on the history of EcceUno da Romano ; 
 Trissino in 1515, with his Itahan 'Sofonisba ; ' Rucellai 
 at the same epoch, with ' Rosmunda ; ' Speron Sperorie, 
 Cinthio Giraldi, Lodovico Dolce, Luigi Alamanni, 
 Giannandrea dell' Anguillara, Lodovico Martelli, in 
 the next two decades, with their ' Canace,' ' Orbecche,' 
 ' Giocasta,' ' Antigone,' ' Edippo,' ' Tullia ; ' all these 
 Italian poets wrote, printed, and performed tragedies 
 with vast applause upon the private and the courtly 
 theatres of Italy. That England should remain without 
 such compositions, struck the 'courtly makers' as a para- 
 dox. The English had their own dramatic traditions, 
 their companies of players, their interludes in the ver- 
 nacular, their masques and morris-dances and pageants ; 
 in a word, all the apparatus necessary. It only remained 
 for men of polite culture to engraft the roses of the 
 classic and Italian styles upon this native briar. 
 Reckoning after this fashion, but reckoning without 
 their host, the public, as the sequel proved, courtiers 
 and students at the Inns of Court began to pen 
 tragedies. Under Italian guidance, they took the 
 classics for their models. The authority of Italian 
 playwrights, incompetent in such affairs, enslaved 
 these well-intentioned persons to a classic of the silver 
 age ; to Seneca, instead of the great Attic authors. 
 Every tragic scene which the Italians of the Renais- 
 sance set forth upon the boards of Rome or Florence 
 or Ferrara, was a transcript from Seneca. Following 
 this lead, our English scholars went to school with 
 Seneca beneath the ferule of Italian ushers. 
 
2i8 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Seneca's collected works include eight complete 
 tragedies, two fragments of tragic plays, and one com- 
 plete piece in the same style, but posterior to the 
 author. The eight dramas are : ' Hercules Furens,' 
 'Thyestes,' ' Pheedra,' ' CEdipus,' the ' Troades,' 
 'Medea,' 'Agamemnon,' and 'Hercules upon Mount 
 CEta.' The fragments of an CEdipus at Colonus and 
 a Phcenissse have been pieced together to make up a 
 ' Thebais.' The later play, belonging to Seneca's tradi- 
 tion, is a tragedy upon the subject of Octavia. With 
 the exception of the last, all these so-called dramas are 
 a rhetorician's reproduction of Greek tragedies. So- 
 phocles and Euripides, familiar to that rhetorician's 
 learned audience, have been laid under contribution. 
 But he has invented for himself a sphere of treatment, 
 apart from the real drama, and apart from translation. 
 It was Seneca's method to rehandle the world-worn 
 matter of the Greek tragedians in the form of a dramatic 
 commentary. Instead of placing characters upon the 
 stage in conflict, he used his persons as mere mouthpieces 
 for declamation and appropriate reflection. Instead of 
 developing the fable by action, he expanded the part of 
 the Messenger, and gave the rein to his descriptive 
 faculty. For a Roman audience, in the age of Nero, 
 this new species of dramatic poetry furnished a fresh 
 kind of literary pleasure. They had the old situations of 
 Greek tragedy presented to them indirectly, in long 
 monologues adorned with sophistical embroidery, in 
 laboured descriptions, where the art of the narrator 
 brought events familiar to all students of Greek plays 
 and Grseco-Roman painting forth in a new vehicle of 
 polished verse. Rhetoric and the idyll, philosophical 
 
SENECA. 
 
 219 
 
 analysis and plastic art, forensic eloquence and scholas- 
 tic disputation, were skilfully applied to touch at a 
 dramatic point the intellectual sense of men and 
 women trained by education and the habits of imperial 
 Roman life to all these forms. It is more than doubt- 
 ful whether the pseudo-tragedies produced upon this 
 plan were intended for scenical representation. We 
 have rather reason to believe that they found utterance 
 in those fashionable recitations, of which the Satirists 
 have left sufficient notices. Roman ladies and gentle- 
 men assembled at each other's houses, in each other's 
 gardens, in clubs and coteries, to applaud a Statius 
 declaiming his hexameters, or the school of Seneca 
 reciting their master's studies from the Attic drama. 
 An audience which could appreciate whole books of 
 the ' Pharsalia' or the ' Thebais' at a sitting, may have 
 gladly enough accepted one of Seneca's orations in two 
 hundred iambics. A tragedy recited was anyhow less 
 tedious than a declaimed epic. 
 
 Such, however, being the nature of Seneca's tra- 
 gedies — regarding them, as we are bound to do, in 
 the light of a decadent, pedantic, reproductive period 
 of art — ascribing their originality and merit to the 
 author's sympathy with very special intellectual con- 
 ditions of his age — it follows that we must condemn 
 them as pernicious models for incipient literature. Per- 
 nicious undoubtedly they were in their effect upon the 
 Italian theatre. At its very outset the authority of 
 Seneca stifled tragedy and set tragedians on an utterly 
 false scent. The society of Italy in the sixteenth 
 century had certain points in common with that of 
 Neronian Rome. There was the same taste for 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 pedantic studies, the same appreciation of forensic 
 oratory, the same tendency to verbal criticism, the_ 
 same confinement of the higher Hterature to coteries. 
 Meeting, then, with a congenial soil and atmosphere, 
 Seneca's mannerism took root and flourished in Italy. 
 It is not a little amusing to find Giraldi openly express- 
 ing his opinion that Seneca had improved upon the 
 Greek tragedians, and to notice how playwrights 
 thought they were obeying Aristotle, when they made 
 servile copies of the Corduban's dramatic commen- 
 
 taries.^ 
 
 III. 
 
 Between the years 1559 and 1566, five English 
 authors applied themselves to the task of translating 
 Seneca. The ' Troades,' ' Thyestes,' and ' Hercules 
 Furens ' were done by Jasper Heywood ; the ' CEdi- 
 pus ' by Alexander Nevyle ; the ' Medea,' ' Agamem- 
 non,' 'Phaedra,' and 'Hercules on CEta' by John 
 Studley ; the ' Octavia ' by Thomas Nuce ; and the 
 ' Thebais ' by Thomas Newton. These ten plays, 
 collected and printed together in 1581, remain a monu- 
 ment of English poets' zeal in studying the Roman 
 pedagogue. In all of these versions rhymgd measures 
 were used ; and the translators allowed themselves 
 considerable latitude of treatment, adding here and 
 there, and altering according to their fancy. 
 
 The impulse thus given, was soon felt in the pro- 
 duction of a great variety of classical or classical- Italian 
 plays. Only two of these call for special notice. But 
 
 ' Scaliger's and Malherbe's opinions might be quoted to prove that 
 this strange preference of Seneca was not confined to Italy. 
 
GEORGE GASCOIGNE. 221 
 
 before I proceed to their consideration, it will be well to 
 pass this chapter in the literary history of our Drama in 
 rapid review, and to notice some of its more prominent 
 personalities. 
 
 George Gascoigne was a gentleman by birth and 
 education, a member of Gray's Inn, and the author 
 of many excellent works in prose and verse. In 
 the year 1566, the society of which he was a member 
 performed two of his dramatic essays in their hall 
 of Gray's Inn. These were a translation of Ariosto's 
 ' Suppositi,' and a version of Lodovico Dolce's ' Gio- 
 casta.' The first of these plays has special interest, 
 since it was the earliest known comedy in English 
 prose. The 'Jocasta' has hitherto been accepted 
 by historians of our Drama, following Collier's au- 
 thority, as a free transcript from the ' Phoenissse ' of 
 Euripides. This it is in substance. But critics have 
 generally omitted to notice that before the ' Phoenissae ' 
 came into the hands of Gascoigne, it had passed 
 through those of Dolce.-^ There is no reason to sup- 
 pose that Gascoigne was a learned poet ; and the merit 
 of having adapted a tragedy from the Greek must, I 
 think, be denied him. If Collier had paid attention to 
 his own quotations from 'Jocasta,' the point would have 
 been clear. He extracts the speech of a person named 
 Bailo at the opening of the first act. Bailo is the 
 Italian translation of the Greek word Paidagogos ; and 
 what this Bailo says in English, is a tolerably close 
 rendering of Dolce's addition to the tutor's part in the 
 ' PhoenissEB ' of Euripides. Again, in the speech of the 
 Messenger, Gascoigne follows Dolce, where Dolce has 
 
 ' See Teatro Antico Italiano, vol. vi. for Dolce's Giocasta. ^ . ^, 
 
 l^ It! iyCU,L ^-k cUcZl'- h^^^^^ hi^lLu jn^Ci^'^ (h'J. 
 
 V 
 
222 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 departed from Euripides. My excuse for insisting upon 
 so insignificant a matter, must be that this ' Jocasta ' is 
 the only early English play for which a Greek source 
 has been claimed. The truth appears to be that, like 
 the rest of the classical dramas of that period, it had an 
 Italian derivation.^ 
 
 IV. 
 
 The study of Seneca made itself apparent in two 
 tragedies by Fulke Grevile, Lord Brooke. These are 
 'Alaham' and ' Mustapha ;'— Oriental fables treated 
 in the strictest pseudo-classic style, with conscientious 
 observance of the unities and other rules for depriving 
 tragedy of movement. A ghost of one of the old 
 kings of Ormus prologises in ' Alaham.' A Chorus of 
 Good and Evil Spirits, Furies and Vices, comments 
 on the action. In ' Mustapha' the Chorus varies : at 
 one time it consists of Pashas and Cadis ; then of 
 Mohammedan Priests ; again of Time and Eternity ; 
 lastly, of Converts to Mohammedanism. These plays, 
 though printed in Brooke's works as late as 1633, 
 were certainly composed at a much earlier period. It 
 is curious that both are written in elaborate rhymed 
 structure. They had no influence over the develop- 
 ment of the English Drama, and must be regarded in 
 the light of ponderous literary studies. 
 
 Upon the close of the century, Samuel Daniel, the 
 sweet lyrist of Delia, set himself in opposition to the 
 current of popular taste ; and blaming ' the idle fictions ' 
 and 'gross follies' with which men abused their leisure 
 
 ' It ought in this connection to be noted that the Plutus of Aristo- 
 phanes is said to have been performed in Greek before Oueen Elizabeth 
 
LORD hkOOKE And DANIEL. ^23 
 
 hours, produced two tragedies, ' Philotas ' and ' Cleo- 
 patra,' to serve as patterns of a purer style. Both, in 
 the opinion of impartial critics, are apparent failures. 
 They resemble a dilettante's disquisitions upon tragic 
 fables rather than tragedies for action. Daniel, in his 
 determination not to violate the unities, confines 
 himself to the last hours of Cleopatra's life ; and 
 rather than disturb the ceremonious decorum of his art, 
 he introduces a Messenger who relates in polished 
 phrases how she died. A. better instance could not 
 be chosen than this ' Cleopatra,' to prove the im- 
 potence in England of the pseudo-classic style. 
 Daniel's tragedy bore points of strong resemblance to 
 the work of contemporary French playwrights. But 
 it hardly needed the fierce light from Cleopatra's dying 
 hours in Shakspere's play to pale its ineffectual fires. 
 Where Italian and French poets attained to moderate 
 success in their imitation of antique art, English 
 dramatists invariably failed. Their failure was due in 
 no small measure, doubtless, to the fact that their 
 attempt revealed an undramatic turn of mind. In the 
 age of Elizabeth and James the born playwright felt 
 instinctively, felt truly, that the path of Shakspere and 
 the people was the only path to walk in. Daniel's 
 'Cleopatra' met with the lukewarm approval of a 
 lettered audience. His ' Philotas ' was badly received, 
 not on account of its artistic faults apparently, but 
 because the audience recognised in its catastrophe 
 allusions to the fate of Essex. 
 
 Daniel, in sympathy with the French authors 
 whom probably he had in view, adhered to rhyme 
 The Countess of Pembroke, who translated Garnier's 
 
224 SMAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 'Antony' into English as early as 1590, made some 
 use of blank verse — a somewhat noticeable fact, since 
 Marlowe's ' Tamburlaine,' which heralded the triumph of 
 that metre, was first printed in the same year. Another 
 tragedy of Ganiier's, the ' Cornelia,' was translated by 
 Thomas Kyd, and dedicated in 1594 to the Countess 
 of Sussex. It is also in blank verse, of vigorous 
 quality. It would serve no purpose to enlarge upon 
 these essays in translation, or to do more than 
 mention Brandon's ' Virtuous ^Octavia.' They are 
 only interesting as indicating a continuous revolt 
 among the literary folk in England against the preva- 
 lent and overwhelming influence of the romantic or 
 the native English drama. Doomed to failure, buried 
 beneath the magna moles of the work of mightier 
 poets, the historian of literature regards them only as 
 exceptions and abortions, indicating by their very 
 failure the organic strength and soundness of the 
 growth which they attempted to displace. 
 
 The same judgment may be passed on numerous 
 tragedies in the Latin tongue, and performed at 
 Universities before a courtly audience. The titles 
 and dates of these productions are in some cases 
 curious. Thus we find a 'Jephtha' by George 
 Christopherson, dedicated in 1546 to Henry VIII. 
 It preceded George Buchanan's 'Jephtha' by eight 
 years. A ' Dido,' by John Rightwise, was exhibited 
 in King's College Chapel at Cambridge in 1564 be- 
 fore Queen Elizabeth. Another 'Dido,' by William 
 Gager, entertained a Polish prince in Christ Church 
 Hall at Oxford in 1583. An ' Ajax Flagellifer,' 
 adapted probably from Sophocles, was written and got 
 
PLAYS IN LATIN. 225 
 
 up for Queen Elizabeth's amusement at Cambridg-e in 
 1564. For some reason, its performance had then to 
 be abandoned ; but it was played at Oxford in 1605. 
 The ' Roxana ' of William Alabaster, which was 
 acted in Trinity College Hall, at Cambridge, about 
 1592, and printed in 1632, deserves notice for the 
 praise conferred upon its author by Fuller ; also for 
 an anecdote which relates that during one of its per- 
 formances a gentlewoman went mad on hearing the 
 words sequar, sequar, uttered in a tone of tragic horror. 
 The following titles, chosen pretty much at random 
 ■ — ' Adrastus Parentans,' ' Machiavellus,' ' Laelia,' 
 ' Leander,' ' Fatum Vortigerni,' ' ^Emilia,' ' Sapientia 
 Salomonis' — prove that the Latin playwrights went 
 far and wide afield for subjects. Should any student 
 have the patience to search our libraries for the MSS. 
 of these compositions, many of which are known to be 
 still extant, it is probable that he would find the influ- 
 ence of Seneca ascendant in them. What the scholars 
 of the sixteenth century seem to have understood by 
 classical dramatic theory, was a deduction from the 
 practice of the Roman rhetorician, with the further ap- 
 plication of imperfectly apprehended canons of unity 
 derived from Italian commentaries on Aristotle's 
 ' Poetics.' Gian Giorgio Trissino has more than any 
 single man to answer for the growth of that quaint 
 formalism which imposed itself on the Italian theatre, 
 and found illustrious expression in the work of Racine 
 and his followers. A more intelligent and sympathetic 
 study of the Attic tragedians on the part of the Italian 
 humanists might have saved modern Europe from a 
 mass of errors which crept into that pedantic system. 
 
 Q 
 
226 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Unluckily, Seneca ranked first in the appreciation of 
 the critics, partly because he was easier to read, but 
 chiefly because he was easier to imitate. Even 
 Milton, both in his practice as the author of ' Samson 
 Agonistes' and in his judgment of the Attic stage, 
 shows that he was infected with the same original 
 misapprehension of Greek art. The following verses 
 from ' Paradise Regained,' sublime and beautiful as 
 they may be, betray a want of insight into the essence 
 of the drama as a fable put in action : 
 
 Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught, 
 In Chorus or Iambic, teachers best 
 Of moral prudence, with delight received, 
 In brief sententious precepts, while they treat 
 Of fate, and chance, and change in human life, 
 High actions and high passions best describing. 
 
 The qualities on which Milton here insists gave weight 
 and dignity indeed to the Attic drama. They may be 
 even singled out for admiration also in the monologues 
 of Seneca. But the romantic, as opposed to the classi- 
 cal, school of dramatists, were right in their perception 
 that not ethical wisdom and not description, but action, 
 was the one thing needful to their art. They saw that 
 the Drama, as it differs from didactic poetry, must pre- 
 sent human life in all possible fullness, vigour, and 
 variety ; must portray and develop character ; must 
 delineate the conflict of personalities and passions, the 
 collision of human wills with circumstance ; must com- 
 bine events into a single movement with a climax and 
 catastrophe. Finally, they knew well that in a drama 
 the doing Is the whole matter. Reflection upon action 
 Is extraneous to the essence of a play. It forms no 
 
PSEUDO-CLASSIC IDEAL. 227 
 
 doubt, an ornament of meditated art. But the object of 
 tragedy is not to teach by precept. If he teaches, the 
 tragic playwright teaches by example. With this just 
 instinct the romantic poets applied all their energies to 
 action, allowing the conclusions, moral and sententious, 
 to be drawn by the spectators of that action. Work- 
 ing thus upon a sound method, in spite of formal dif- 
 ferences, due for the most part to the altered condi- 
 tions of the theatre itsejf in modern times, they shared 
 the spirit of the Greeks more fully than the pseudo- 
 classics. Of ' brief sententious precepts,' capable of iso- 
 lation from the dramatic context, ^schylus has hardly 
 any, Sophocles but few. Euripides, the least to be 
 commended of the Attic tragedians, abounds in them. 
 Seneca's plays are made up of such passages. It 
 might almost be laid down that in proportion as a 
 dramatist lends himself to the compilation of ethical 
 anthologies, in that very measure is he an inferior 
 master of his craft. 
 
 V. 
 
 These remarks have led by a circuitous and dis- 
 cursive path to the two English tragedies which, 
 emanating from the school of Seneca in England, still 
 deserve particular attention. They are ' Ferrex and 
 Porrex,' or, as the play is also called, ' Gorboduc,' and 
 ' The Misfortunes of Arthur.' Though intended to be 
 strictly classical, and written by Senecasters of the 
 purest water, both are founded upon ancient English 
 fables. This fact is not without significance. It 
 indicates that even in the limbo of pseudo-classic 
 imitation, the national spirit was alive and stirring. 
 
 Q2 
 
228 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 The tragedies in question are therefore connected by 
 no unimportant Hnk with the more vital art of the 
 romantic Drama. 
 
 ' Gorboduc' has long been famous as the first tragedy 
 written in our tongue. Sir Philip Sidney in his ' Defence 
 of Poesy ' hailed it as the dawn-star of a brighter day 
 for English literature. After blaming the playwrights 
 of his time as bastards of the Muses, ' paper-blurrers,' 
 churls ' with servile wits, who think it enough if they 
 can be rewarded of the printer,' he passes a sweeping 
 censure on their dramatic compositions, charging them 
 with neglect of rule and precedent, and showing how 
 they violate the laws of ' honest civility and skilful 
 poetry.' The one exception he makes, is in favour of 
 ' Gorboduc' ' It is full,' he says, ' of stately speeches 
 and well-sounding phrases, climbing to the height of 
 Seneca his style.' The only grave blot he detects in 
 it, is non-observance of the unity of time. In this 
 criticism, delivered by so excellent a wit as Sidney, by 
 Sidney whom the ballad of ' Chevy Chase ' stirred like 
 the sound of the trumpet, we learn how the best 
 intellects lay under bondage to that false ideal which I 
 have attempted to describe. What Sidney demands 
 of the tragic drama, is solemn diction, sonorous de- 
 clamation, conformity to the unities. He knows of no 
 model superior to Seneca. Judged by these standards, 
 ' Gorboduc ' is almost perfect. Unruffled calm, senten- 
 tious maxims, lengthy speeches, ceremonious style, the 
 action dealt with by narration : all these qualities it 
 possesses in as full a measure as a play by Trissino 
 himself. Alas, adds Sidney, that the unity of time 
 was not observed ! Only that was lacking to a work 
 of absolute art in English. 
 
NORTON AND SACKVILLE. 229 
 
 ' Gorboduc ' was written by Thomas Norton and 
 Thomas Sackville. Norton was a strict reformer of 
 the bitterest sect, a polemical pamphleteer, and per- 
 secutor of the Roman Catholics. Though a barrister 
 by profession, his inclination led him to theology. 
 He translated Calvin's ' Institutions of the Christian 
 Religion,' and versified the Psalms in wretched 
 doggrel. Sackville's career belongs to English 
 history. Son of Elizabeth's kinsman, Sir Richard 
 Sackville, the Privy Councillor and Chancellor of the 
 Court of Augmentations, he grew up in close intimacy 
 with the Queen. As his will informs us, he was ' in 
 his younger years, by her particular choice and liking, 
 selected to a continual private attendance upon her 
 own person.' His youth was wild and extravagant ; 
 and at one period, between the years 1563 and 1566, 
 he lost the favour of his royal cousin. Elizabeth 
 declared that ' she would not know him till he knew 
 himself Sackville returned to a knowledge of him- 
 self in time, however, to secure a brilliant future. On 
 his father's death in 1566, he entered into the enjoy- 
 ment of a vast estate. He was created Knight of the 
 Garter, Privy Councillor, Baron Buckhurst, Earl of 
 Dorset, Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and 
 Lord High Treasurer of England. 
 
 In his early manhood, and while his extravagance 
 was moving Elizabeth's indignation, Sackville played 
 no mean part in English literature. To him we owe 
 the finest portions of ' The Mirror for Magistrates,' that 
 great collection of poems which has been justly said 
 to connect the work of Lydgate with the work of 
 Spenser. Sackville's part in it has certainly more of 
 
230 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Spenser's than of Lydgate's spirit ; and the Induc- 
 tion, though sombre enough to justify Campbell in 
 calling it • a landscape on which the sun never shines,' 
 forms a worthy exordium to the graver poetry of the 
 Elizabethan age. With the publication of that work 
 in 1565, his literary activity ceased. ' Gorboduc' had 
 already been played in 1561, when Sackville was but 
 twenty-five years of age, and had not yet deserved the 
 Queen's displeasure. Norton, his collaborator in the 
 tragedy, was four years his senior. Upon the title-page 
 of the first and pirated edition (1565), the first three acts 
 are ascribed to Norton, the fourth and fifth to Sackville. 
 Nor does there seem to be sufficient reason for dis- 
 puting this assignment, which was not contradicted 
 by the authors when the play was reprinted (with 
 their sanction apparently) under the title of ' Ferrex 
 and Porrex' in 1570. It is difficult to trace any im- 
 portant difference of style, although the only pathetic 
 passage in the drama, and some descriptions not 
 wholly unworthy of Sackville's contribution to ' The 
 Mirror for Magistrates,' occur in the fourth act. 
 
 Framed upon the model of Seneca, ' Gorboduc ' 
 is made up of dissertations, reflective diatribes, and 
 lengthy choruses. The action, of which there is 
 plenty behind the scenes, is reported by Messengers. 
 The dialogue does not spring spontaneously from the 
 occasion ; por is it used to bring the characters into 
 relief by natural collision. Each personage delivers 
 a set oration, framed to suit his part, and then gives 
 way to the next comer. The second scene of the first 
 act might be used to illustrate this method. Gorbo- 
 duc, having decided to divide the realm of Britain 
 
PLOT OF 'GORBODUC 231 
 
 between his two sons Ferrex and Porrex, seeks the 
 advice of his Privy Council. First of all, the King sets 
 forth at great length his reasons for desiring a change. 
 Then each of the three Councillors unfolds a different 
 theory of government in measured terms. Gorboduc 
 thanks them, replies that he adheres to his opinion, and 
 dismisses the assembly. There is no argument, no per- 
 suasion, no contention, no pleading, in this cold de- 
 bate. Our mind reverts to Marlowe's disputes between 
 Edward 1 1, and his barons, not to speak of Shakspere's 
 scenes of a like order. 
 
 The plot of ' Gorboduc ' is well explained in the 
 Argument prefixed to the first edition. ' Gorboduc, 
 King of Britain, divided his realm in his lifetime to his 
 sons, Ferrex and Porrex. The sons fell to division 
 and dissension. The younger killed the elder. The 
 mother, that more dearly loved . the elder, for revenge 
 killed the younger. The people, moved with the 
 cruelty of the fact, rose in rebellion and slew both 
 father and mother. The nobility assembled and most 
 terribly destroyed the rebels. And afterwards, for want 
 of issue of the Prince, whereby the succession of the 
 crown became uncertain, they fell to civil war, in 
 which both they and many of their issues were slain, 
 and the land for a long time almost desolate and 
 miserably wasted.' This programme is fertile in 
 surprising incidents, rife with horrors, replete with all 
 the circumstances of a sanguinary history. Its defect 
 is superfluity of motives. The murder of the King 
 and Queen by their rebellious subjects should properly 
 have closed the play. By curtailing the conclusion, 
 Gorboduc would have taken his proper place as the 
 
232 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 tragic protagonist, and would have closely resembled 
 a hero of the Attic stage who perishes through his own 
 error. The error of Gorboduc, what Aristotle styles 
 the afLaprCa of the hero, was his rash and inconsiderate 
 division of the realm for which he was responsible as 
 monarch. Though an error, it was not ignoble. It 
 had in it an element of greatness, blended with the 
 folly which brought forth bitter fruits. Those fruits 
 were discord between the Princes, the murder of the 
 elder by the younger, and the Queen's act of unnatural 
 vengeance on her fratricidal son. She in her death 
 was justly punished, while Gorboduc perished in the 
 general ruin he had brought by ill-considered gene- 
 rosity upon his kingdom. Up to this point, therefore, 
 the plot has tragic unity. The civil wars, which 
 followed on the King's death, may interest the philo- 
 sophical historian, but do not concern the dramatist. 
 
 The authors of ' Gorboduc ' can hardly be censured 
 for drawing out the plot beyond its due dramatic limits, 
 for the very simple reason that they did not attempt to 
 treat it dramatically at all. Having caught this wild 
 beast of a subject, they tamed it down, and cut its 
 claws by a variety of shrewd devices. Though blood 
 flows in rivers, not a drop is spilt upon the stage. We 
 only hear of murders and wars in brief allusions, 
 formal announcements, and obscure hints dropped by 
 the Chorus. The division of the play into acts is 
 characteristically regular, and corresponds exactly to 
 the movement of the fable. In the first act Gorboduc 
 declares his intention of partitioning his kingdom, and 
 Videna, the Queen, expresses her disapprobation. In 
 the second act Ferrex and Porrex are incited by their 
 
DUMB SHOWS AND CHORUS. 233 
 
 , 
 
 several confidants to make war, each upon the other. In 
 the third act, while Gorboduc is asking the gods whether 
 they are not satisfied with Tro)-'s destruction, a Messen- 
 ger informs him that Ferrex has died by his brother's 
 hand. In the fourth act Videna lashes herself up to 
 vengeance in a monologue of eighty-one lines, goes off 
 the stage, and after a short interval her murder of 
 Porrex is announced. In the fifth act a conversation 
 between privy councillors and noblemen informs us that 
 Gorboduc and Videna have been assassinated by their 
 subjects, that the rebels have been crushed, and that a 
 Civil War of Succession is in progress. The speeches 
 average some fifty lines. 
 
 Each act is concluded with a Chorus, spoken by 
 ' four ancient and sage men of Britain,' into whose 
 mouths some of the best poetry of the play is put. 
 They comment on the situations, and draw forth the 
 moral, as thus : 
 
 Blood asketh blood, and death must death requite ; 
 Jove by his just and everlasting doom 
 Justly hath ever so requited it. 
 This times before record, and times to come 
 Shall find it truej and so doth present proof 
 Present before our eyes for our behoof. 
 
 O happy wight that suffers not the snare 
 Of murderous mind to tangle him in blood ! 
 And happy he that can in time beware 
 By others' harms, and turn it to his good ! 
 But woe to him that, fearing not to offend, 
 Doth serve his lust, and will not see the end ! 
 
 In order to acquaint the audience beforehand with the 
 motive of each act. Dumb Shows were devised, which 
 digested the meaning of the play in five successive 
 scenes of metaphorical pantomime. The first act, for 
 
234 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 i 
 
 instance, was ushered in by stringed music, ' during 
 which came in upon the stage six wild men, clothed in 
 leaves.' One of these ' bare on his back a faggot of 
 small sticks, which they all, both severally and together, 
 essayed with all their strengths to break, but it could 
 not be broken by them.' At last, one of the wild men 
 pulled out a stick, and broke it. He was followed by 
 the rest, and the whole faggot fell to pieces. This 
 Dumb Show was meant to signify that ' a State knit in 
 unity doth continue strong against all force, but being 
 divided is easily destroyed.' We are not surprised 
 to find that the Dumb Shows in ' Gorboduc ' required 
 a commentary. Standing by themselves, they were 
 little better than allegorical charades, and did not serve 
 to elucidate the action. The custom of prefacing the 
 acts of a play with Dumb Shows, which prevailed 
 widely in the first period of our Drama, had, however, 
 its excellent uses. These pageants were not always 
 allegorical. They frequently set forth the pith of the 
 action in a series of tableaux, appealing vividly to the 
 spectator's eyesight, and preparing him to follow the 
 dialogue with a clearer intelligence and a more com- 
 posed mind. They enriched the simple theatre of the 
 sixteenth century with exhibitions corresponding to 
 the Masques which then enjoyed great popularity in 
 England. In the case of serious plays like ' Gorboduc,' 
 they relieved the dull solemnity of the performance, 
 and gave frivolous spectators something to look forward 
 to in the intervals of those dreary scenes. 
 
 ' Gorboduc,' as we have seen, was written by a 
 learned lawyer and a lettered courtier. It was per- 
 formed at Whitehall before the Queen's Majesty by 
 
SCHOLASTIC STYLE OF ' GORBODUC 235 
 
 Gentlemen of the Inner Temple on January 17, 156/. 
 Authors and actors, alike, were men of birth and 
 culture, striving to please a royal mistress, famous for 
 her erudition. These circumstances account in no 
 small measure for the character of the tragedy. With 
 the example of Seneca and the Italians before their 
 eyes, they did not aim at presenting a play as we now 
 understand that word. Marlowe and Shakspere had 
 not yet taught them what a play might be. They chose 
 a tragic story, rich in serious moral lessons. Omitting 
 the action, they uttered grave reflections on the benefits 
 of strong government, the horrors of division in a 
 realm, and the disorders introduced by violence of pas- 
 sion into human life. The fable, with its terrible epi- 
 sodes, catastrophes, and scenes of bloodshed, lurked 
 like a lurid background in the imagination of the 
 spectators. Those grave debating personages on the 
 stage supplied their minds with food for thought and 
 meditation. That very little scope was left for his- 
 trionic action, mattered not. We may even doubt 
 whetheir the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple could 
 have done justice to Cordelia or King Lear, suppos- 
 ing that Norton and Sackville had been able to treat 
 their similar subject with a Shakspere's genius for the 
 drama. 
 
 What gives its chief interest to 'Gorboduc,' has 
 not yet been mentioned. Not only is this the first 
 regular tragedy in English. It is also the first play 
 written in Blank Verse. Surrey adapted the metre 
 from the Versi Sciolti of the Italians, and used it in his 
 translation of the second and fourth Books of the 
 ' .^neid.' Norton and Sackville brought it into dra- 
 
236 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 matic literature — tame as yet in cadence and mono- 
 tonous in structure ; but with so fateful and august a 
 future, that this humble cradle of its birth commands 
 our reverence. The peroration to Videna's invective 
 against her son Porrex will show how Sackville used 
 blank verse : 
 
 Murderer, I thee renounce ! Thou art not mine. 
 Never, O wretch, this womb conceived thee. 
 Nor never bode I painful throes for thee ! 
 Changeling to me thou art, and not my child. 
 Nor to no wight that spark of pity knew : 
 Ruthless, unkind, monster of nature's work. 
 Thou never sucked the milk of woman's breast. 
 But from thy birth the cruel tiger's teats 
 Have nursfed thee ; nor yet of flesh and blood 
 Formed is thy heart, but of hard iron wrought ; 
 And wild and desert woods bred thee to hfe ! 
 
 Surrey, in his version of Dido's address to yEneas, 
 had already written : 
 
 Faithless, forsworn ! no goddess was thy dam ! 
 Nor Dardanus beginner of thy race ! 
 But of hard rocks Mount Caucase monstruous 
 Bred thee, and teats of tigers gave thee suck. 
 
 Marcella's apostrophe to Videna, upbraiding her for the 
 murder of Porrex, combines declamation and descrip- 
 tion in verses which are not deficient in dramatic 
 vigour : 
 
 O queen of adamant, O marble breast ! 
 
 If not the favour of his comely face, 
 
 If not his princely cheer and countenance. 
 
 His valiant active arms, his manly breast. 
 
 If not his fair and seemly personage. 
 
 His noble limbs in such proportion cast 
 
 As would have rapt a silly woman's thought — 
 
 If this mote not have moved thy bloody heart, 
 
BIRTH OF BLANK VERSE. 237 
 
 And that most cruel hand the wretched weapon 
 
 Even to let fall, and kissed him in the face, 
 
 With tears for ruth to reave such one by death. 
 
 Should nature yet consent to slay her son ? 
 
 O mother, thou to murder thus thy child ! 
 
 Even Jove with justice must with lightning flames 
 
 From heaven send down some strange revenge on thee ! 
 
 Then her memory reverts to the young bravery of 
 Porrex in the tilting-yard and battle : 
 
 Ah, noble prince, how oft have I beheld 
 Thee mounted on thy fierce and trampling steed. 
 Shining in armour bright before the tilt, 
 And with thy mistress' gleeve tied on thy helm, 
 And charge thy staff, to please thy lady's eye, 
 That bowed the headpiece of thy friendly foe ! 
 How oft in arms on horse to bend the mace. 
 How oft in arms on foot to break the sword ; 
 Which never now these eyes may see again ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 The ' Misfortunes of Arthur,' hke ' Gorboduc,' was 
 written by learned men, and acted by the members of a 
 legal society before the Queen. The Gentlemen of 
 Gray's Inn produced it at Greenwich on the 8th of 
 February, 1581. The author of the tragedy was 
 Thomas Hughes. The choruses, dumb shows, argu- 
 ment, induction, and some extra speeches — all the 
 setting of the play in short — are ascribed to other stu- 
 dents of the Inn. Among these occurs the name of 
 Francis Bacon. The future Lord Verulam was at that 
 time in his twent y-third year. The subject of the 
 ' Misfortunes of Arthur' was well chosen. The Arthurian 
 legend, here presented to us, is a truly Thyestean 
 history of a royal house devoted for its crimes of inso- 
 
238 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 lence to ruin. Uther Pendragon loved Igerna, the wife 
 of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, whom he afterwards slew 
 in battle. The fruits of their adultery were a son and 
 daughter, twins of the same birth, Arthur and Anne. 
 Arthur, when he grew to man's estate, became the 
 father of Mordred by his sister^Anne. In course of time 
 he married Guenevora ; and in his absence, on a success- 
 ful campaign against the Emperor Lucius Tiberius, left 
 his queen'with Mordred. Mordred and Guenevora filled 
 up the cup of incest and adultery. On Arthur's return, 
 Guenevora betook her to a nunnery, and Mordred 
 stirred war against his father. They met in battle. 
 Mordred slew himself on Arthur's sword ; but, dying, 
 struck his father with a mortal wound. Thus ended the 
 House of Pendragon. 
 -'j^ This legend, hideous in its details, and far more re- 
 i^pugnant to our taste than the common tale of Lancelot's 
 • love, supplied the author with a fable suited to his style 
 of art. He had set himself to imitate Seneca's method 
 of dealing with a tale of antique destiny ; and no tragedy 
 of Thebes or Pelops' line was ever more tremendous. 
 At the same time he treated his main motive as a Greek, 
 rather than the Roman rhetorician, might have used it. 
 I hazard this criticism although Hughes has not per- 
 meated the whole play with that prevailing sense of the 
 divine wrath, of Ate following her victim from above, 
 and Atasthalia confusing his reason from within, which 
 would have made it ^schylean. In his hands the plot 
 is conducted on the lines of a chronicle play. This, in 
 itself, marks an important divergence from Seneca's 
 habit of treatment, and suggests comparison with the 
 Euripidean drama. Yet, on the whole, we must classify 
 
'MISFORTUNES OF ARTHUR.' 239 
 
 the play with ' Gorboduc ' as an experiment in Roman 
 tragedy. 
 
 In the first act, Guenevora resolves to take refuge 
 in the nunnery. The rest of the tragedy relates the 
 conflict between son and sire. First they debate, each 
 with the accustomed confidant, about engaging in this 
 war. Arthur is restrained by motions of relenting 
 toward his son. Mordred dreads his father's veterans. 
 At length the combat opens. The King, on whose side 
 our sympathies are powerfully enlisted, drives his foes 
 before him, when Mordred rushes in, and by his des- 
 perate suicide effects the purpose of his hate. The 
 decisive incident is of course narrated by a Messenger. 
 But Arthur survives the battle, and lives to comment 
 in the fifth act on his nation's overthrow. He quits the 
 stage with this apostrophe to fate and fortune : 
 
 This only now I crave, O fortune, erst 
 My faithful friend ! Let it be soon forgot. 
 Nor long in mind nor mouth, where Arthur fell. 
 Yea, though I conqueror die, and full of fame. 
 Yet let my death and 'parture rest obscure ! 
 No grave I need, O fates ! nor burial rites. 
 Nor stately hearse, nor tomb with haughty top ; 
 But let my carcase lurk ; yea, let my death 
 Be aye unknown, so that in every coast 
 I still be feared and looked for every hour. 
 
 In order to have invested the plot with true artistic 
 unity, Guenevora should have stayed, like Clytemnestra, 
 to meet the King, or have confronted him in the last act. 
 But this was not demanded by the scheme of Seneca ; 
 and a kind of external unity, more suited to his style 
 of art, is gained by the introduction of the Ghost of 
 wronged and murdered Gorlois. He opens the first 
 
240 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 act, crying for revenge ; and closes the fifth with a pro- 
 phecy of Queen Elizabeth. It was Uther's crime of 
 uy8/ots against Gorlois which set In motion the whole 
 series of events so fatal to his house. Therefore the 
 Ghost of Gorlois, like the Ghosts of Tantalus in Seneca's 
 ' Thyestes' and of Thyestes in his 'Agamemnon,' broods 
 above the action, and retires at last blood-surfeited, ap- 
 peased. It may also be remarked that the bringing of 
 Arthur back to fight his son and die in Cornwall, the first 
 seat of crime, was a touch worthy of the Greek sense 
 of fate. 
 
 The Ghost, imported from Seneca into English 
 tragedy, had a long and brilliant career. Lord Brook, 
 in his' ' Alaham,' summons ' the Ghost of one of the old 
 Kings of Ormus ' from the limbo of undated age to 
 speak his prologue. In Jonson's 'Catiline' the Ghost of 
 Sylla stalks abroad, ' ranging for revenge.' Marston's 
 Andrugio, Tourneur's Montferrers, Kyd's Andrea — to 
 mention at haphazard but a few of these infernal visi- 
 tants — fill the scene with hollow clamours for revenge. 
 Shakspere, who omitted nothing in the tragic apparatus 
 of his predecessors, but with inbreathed sense and swift 
 imagination woke those dead things to organic life, 
 employed the Ghost, all know with what effect, in 
 'Hamlet' and ' Macbeth' and 'Julius Caesar.' It is not 
 here the place to comment upon Shakspere's alchemy 
 — the touch of nature by which he turned the coldest 
 mechanisms of the stage to spiritual use. Enough to 
 notice that, in his hands, the Ghost was no longer a 
 phantom roaming in the cold, evoked from Erebus to 
 hover round the actors in a tragedy, but a spirit of like 
 intellectual substance with those actors, a parcel of the 
 
ADVANCE IN TRAGIC STYLE. 241 
 
 universe in which all live and move and have their 
 being. 
 
 'The Misfortunes of Arthur' shows a marked 
 advance on ' Gorboduc' The characters are far more 
 fully modelled — those of Arthur and Mordred standing 
 forth in bold relief The language is less studiedly 
 sententious. The verse flows more harmoniously. 
 The descriptive passages are marked by greater vivid- 
 ness ; and the dialogue evolves itself more sponta- 
 neously from the situation. Many vigorous single 
 lines anticipate the style of Marston ; who, without 
 Shakspere's work before his eyes, could certainly have 
 not produced a better tragedy. Some of these lines 
 are due to Seneca : 
 
 Yea, worse than war itself is fear of war . . . 
 Small griefs can speak, the great astonished stand. 
 
 Seneca had -vy^ritten : 
 
 Pejor est bello timor ipse belli. . . . 
 Curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent. 
 
 Shakspere wrote : 
 
 The grief that does not speak. 
 Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break. 
 
 To neglect this instance of the Shaksperian alchemy, 
 though unseasonable, was beyond my fortitude. 
 
 What the Greeks called Stichomuthia is com- 
 mon in this tragedy. Gawin, for example, urges on 
 Mordred the imprudence of resisting Arthur in the 
 field. 
 
 G. And fear you not so strange and uncouth war ? 
 M. No, were they wars that grew from out the ground ! 
 G. Nor yet your sire so huge, yourself so small ? 
 M. The smallest axe may fell the hugest oak. 
 
 R 
 
242 SHAKSPERE\S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 G. Nor that in felling him yourself may fall ? 
 
 M. He falleth well that falling fells his foe. 
 
 G. Nor common chance, whereto each man is thrall ? 
 
 M. Small manhood were to turn my back to chance. 
 
 This dialogue by a stroke of tragic irony prefigures 
 the catastrophe, which is thus described by the 
 Messenger : 
 
 So saying, forth he flings. 
 And desperate runs on point of Arthur's sword— 
 A sword, alas ! prepared for no such use ! 
 Whereon engored, he glides till, near approached, 
 With dying hand he hews his father's head. 
 So through his own annoy he 'noys his liege. 
 And gains by death access to daunt his sire. 
 
 From the point of view of tragic passion, the 
 finest scene in the play, and the highest in expres- 
 sion, is when Arthur greets the dead body of his 
 
 son. 
 
 \The breathless body of Mordred in armour, as he fell, 
 is brought upon the stage. 
 
 A. A causeless foe ! When wars did call me hence. 
 He was in years but young, in wit too old. 
 As virtue shineth most in comeliest wights. 
 When inward gifts are decked with outward grace. 
 So did his wit and feature feed that hope. 
 Which falsely trained me to this woeful hap. 
 
 [Jle turns to the corpse. 
 
 His mind transformed thus, I cannot choose 
 
 But long to see what change his face sustains. 
 
 My blood and kindred, doubled in his birth. 
 
 Inspires a mixed and twice-descending love. 
 
 Which drives my dying veins to wish his view. 
 
 Unhelm his luckless head, set bare his face, 
 
 That face which erst pleased me and mine too much ! 
 
 Ch. See, worthiest king, tfie hope of all your realm, 
 Had not his lust to rule prevented all. 
 
 A. I see, alas ! I see — Hide, hide again ! 
 Oh, spare mine eyes !— a witness of my crimes, 
 
ARTHUR AND MORDRED. 243 
 
 A fearful vision of my former guilt, 
 A dreadful horror of a future doom, 
 A present gaU of mind ! O happy they. 
 Whose spotless lives attain a dreadless death ! 
 And thou, O hapless boy ! O spite of fates ! 
 What might I term thee — nephew, son, or both ? 
 Alas ! how happy should we both have been. 
 If no ambitious thought had vexed thy head. 
 Nor thou thus strived to reave thy father's rule, 
 But stayed thy time, and not forestalled us both ! 
 
 Cador, an attendant noble, compares Mordred in 
 his fate to the 'hot-spurred' and aspiring Phaethon. 
 Arthur resumes his lamentation : 
 
 What ruth, ah, rent the woeful father's heart. 
 That saw himself thus made a sonless sire ! 
 Well, since both heavens and hell conspired in one 
 To make our ends a mirror to the world. 
 Both of incestuous life and wicked birth, 
 Would God the fates that linked our faults alike 
 Had also framed our minds of friendlier mould. 
 That as our lineage had approached too near. 
 So our affections had not swerved so far ! 
 
 Something magnanimous in Arthur's attitude toward 
 his dead son, something noble in his meditation on their 
 common crime, the playing with antitheses, the covert 
 allusion to Guenevora's guilty love, the natural and 
 dignified movement of the dying hero's apostrophes 
 to fate — all these points of style seem to me to 
 indicate a study of the Greek at first hand. The 
 ' Misfortunes of Arthur,' superior in all respects to 
 ' Gorboduc,' has this particular superiority, that it 
 breathes in parts the air of an Euripidean tragedy. 
 
 R 3 
 
244 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The tragedies of what I have called the pseudo- 
 classic school differ in very essential points from the 
 type of the true English drama. Their authors, men 
 of birth, culture, and position, were unable to stem the 
 tide of popular inclination. They could not persuade 
 play-goers to prefer the measured rhetoric of Seneca 
 to the stirring melodrama and varied scenes of the 
 romantic poets. It remains, however, to be asked what 
 these workers in an unsuccessful style, permanently 
 achieved for our dramatic literature. The answer is 
 not far to seek. Their efforts, arguing a purer taste 
 and a loftier ideal than that of the uncultivated English, 
 forced principles of careful composition, gravity of 
 diction, and harmonious construction, on the attention 
 of contemporary playwrights. They compelled men 
 of Marlowe's mental calibre to consider whether mature 
 reflection might not be presented in the form of drama- 
 tic action. The earlier romantic playwrights regarded 
 the dramatisation of a tale as all-important. The 
 classical playwrights contended for grave sentences 
 and weighty matter. To the triumph of the romantic 
 style the classics added this element of studied thought. 
 Mere copies of Latin tragedy were doomed to deserved 
 unpopularity with the vulgar. Yet these plays had 
 received the approbation of the Court and critics ; and 
 the approbation of the higher social circles is rarely 
 without influence. Thus, though themselves of little 
 literary value and of no permanent importance, they 
 taught certain lessons of regularity and sobriety in 
 
VALUE OF THE PSEUDO-CLASSICS. 245 
 
 tragic art, by which the poets of the romantic drama 
 did not fail to profit. We have cause to be thankful 
 that no Richelieu, with a learned Academy at his back, 
 was at hand in England to stereotype this pseudo-classic 
 style ; and that the Queen who patronised our theatre 
 in its beginnings, was very far from being a purist in 
 dramatic matters. Else Marlowe, like Corneille, might 
 have been forced to walk in the fetters which Sidney 
 and Sackville sought to forge, and the Shaksperian 
 drama might never have been England's proudest boast 
 in literature. But, while recording our gratitude for 
 these mercies, we should not refuse their due meed to 
 the School of Seneca. It is no slight thing moreover to 
 have given blank verse to the English stage ; and drama- 
 tic blank verse was certainly the discovery of Norton, 
 Sackville, Hughes, and Gascoigne. These followers 
 of Seneca and the Italians familiarised the reading 
 public with this metre in their ' Gorboduc ' (1561), 
 ' Jocasta' (1566), and ' Misfortunes of Arthur' (1587). 
 The first of these works was printed at least twenty 
 years before the production of Marlowe's ' Tamburlaine.' 
 The last of them was printed three years before 
 Marlowe sent that play to press. 
 
246 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TRIUMPH OF THE ROMANTIC DRAMA. 
 
 I. Fifty-two Plays at Court — Analysis of their Subjects — The Court 
 follows the Taste of the People — The ' Damon and Pithias ' of Ed- 
 wards — ' Romeo and Juliet ' — ' Tancred ' and ' Gismunda ' — ' Promos 
 and Cassandra.' — II. Contemporary Criticisms of the Romantic Style 
 — Gosson — Whetstone — Sidney. — III. Description of the English 
 Popular Play — The Florentine Farsa— Destinies of this Form in 
 England. 
 
 I. 
 
 Though the pseudo-classical or Italian type of Tragedy 
 engaged the attention of learned writers, it must not 
 therefore be imagined that the Court was exclusively 
 addicted to this kind of entertainment. From Minutes 
 of the Revels between 1568 and 1580, Mr. Collier has 
 published a list of fifty-two plays ; eighteen of which 
 bear antique titles, while twenty-one appear to have 
 been Dramatised Romances, six Moral Plays, and seven 
 Comedies. None of these survive. Composed by 
 unknown playwrights only to be acted, they perished 
 in thumbed MSS. together with the other properties 
 of their itinerant possessors, before arriving at the 
 honours of the press. Only Gentlemen of Gray's Inn 
 or the Middle Temple, amateur authors and dilettante 
 actors could afford the luxury of printing their per- 
 formances. Only tragedies put on the stage with the 
 ^clat of ' Gorboduc,' tempted publishers to acts of 
 piracy. 
 
ROMANTIC PLAYS. 247 
 
 That the fifty-two plays, cited by Collier as having 
 been exhibited at Court during those twelve years, 
 failed to struggle into print, proves that the life of the 
 popular drama was exuberantly vigorous. Men of birth 
 and erudition might translate or copy Seneca, with the 
 view of elevating English taste ; and such men had a 
 direct reason for publishing their works. But those 
 numerous professional artists who now catered for the 
 public — strolling players, setting up their booths in the 
 yards of hostelries or knocking at great men's gates in 
 seasons of festivity — actors with temporary licence from 
 the local magistrates — superior companies with licence 
 from the Queen — Lord Leicester's Servants, Lord 
 Derby's Servants, the Lord Chamberlain's Servants, 
 Lord North's Servants — these men plied their trade 
 with no further object in view than full houses, fair 
 receipts, and the approbation of mixed audiences. Per- 
 manent theatres were already established in more than 
 one quarter of the suburbs ; and the people had be- 
 come the patrons of the stage. It was not to the 
 interest of such professional players to produce their 
 repertories in a printed form. A popular piece was valu- 
 able property, and was jealously guarded by the company 
 which owned it. Moreover, it is highly probable that 
 the rudimentary dramas of this epoch existed in single 
 copies, from which the leading actor taught his troop, 
 or that they were ' Plat-form ' sketches filled in by 
 extemporisation. 
 
 Though the titles of these fifty-two plays are both 
 curious and instructive, it would serve no useful pur- 
 pose to attempt to classify them. ' Orestes ' and the 
 'History of Cynocephali ; ' 'Duke of Milan' and 
 
248 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 ' Murderous Michael ; ' 'Six Fools ' and ' The History 
 of Error : ' we seem in these names to detect the 
 classic and romantic fable, the Italian story and the 
 domestic tragedy, the farce and the morality. But 
 one thing may be safely assumed of the whole list ; 
 viz. that whatever was their subject-matter, they were 
 each and all designed for popular amusement. In other 
 words, we can feel tolerably certain that these plays, 
 produced at Court, formed together a mixed species, 
 observant of no literary rules, depending for effect 
 upon the scope afforded to the actor, and for success 
 upon appeal to the taste of uninstructed London play- 
 goers. Such as they were, they contained in embryo 
 the English or Romantic Drama, the Drama which 
 Marlowe was to mould and Shakspere was to perfect. 
 
 There is plenty of proof that at this period, a period 
 decisive for the future of the English theatre, the 
 Court rather followed than directed the taste of the 
 people. It was the business of the Master of the 
 Revels, upon the occasion of Christmas or some other 
 feast-time, to convene the players and invite them to 
 rehearse the pieces they were ready to perform. The 
 companies produced the budget of such plays as they 
 were in the habit of exhibiting before the public or at 
 great men's houses ; and from these the Master of the 
 Revels chose what he thought suitable. The Queen 
 herself had no fastidious appetite. All she seems to 
 have cared for in the matter of stage-spectacles, was 
 that the supply should be both plentiful and various. 
 Thus, instead of hampering the evolution of the national 
 drama in its earlier stages, the Court gave it protection 
 and encouragement. Performances at Court confirmed 
 
THE PUBLIC AND THE COURT. 249 
 
 and ratified the popularity which any piece had gained 
 by open competition. 
 
 The Romantic species, with all its absurdities and 
 extravagances, with its careless ignorance of rules and 
 single-minded striving after natural effect, took root and 
 acquired form before critics and scholars turned their 
 attention seriously to the stage. A school of play- 
 wrights and of actors, dependent upon popular support, 
 came into being. London audiences were already 
 accustomed to the type of play which thus undisputedly 
 assumed possession of the theatre. It was too late now 
 for critics or for scholars to resist that growth of wijd- 
 ing art ; for the genius of the people had adopted it, 
 and the Queen did not disdain it. Great poets were 
 soon to see the opportunity it offered them ; and great 
 actors bent their talents to the special style of histrionic 
 art which it demanded. In spite of pedantic opposition, 
 in spite of Sidney's noble scorn, the world was destined 
 to rejoice in Shakspere. 
 
 Even playwrights of superior station and culture, 
 poets aspiring to the honours of the press, were 
 irresistibly attracted by the vogue of the Romantic 
 Drama. Thus Richard Edwards, whose work is men- 
 tioned with applause by Puttenham, selected a subject 
 from Valerius Maximus, and composed a tragi-comedy 
 upon the tale of ' Damon and Pithias ' (1565 ?).^ Yet, 
 though he laid the scene at Syracuse, he brought Grim, 
 the Collier of Croydon, to the court of Dionysius, 
 mixing kings and clowns, philosophers and classic 
 
 ' This play was entered on the Stationers' Books in 1 567. CoUier 
 conjectures that it may have been the ' tragedy ' by Edwards which was 
 played before the Queen two years earlier than this date. 
 
250 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 worthies, in admired confusion. The fashionable study 
 of ItaHan was not merely fruitful of translations in the 
 style of the ' Supposes ' and ' Jocasta.' Popular tales 
 were dramatised in all their details. The Novella, with 
 its complicated episodes, was presented in a series of 
 loosely connected scenes. Our earliest ' Romeo and 
 Juliet' saw the light, as appears from Arthur Brooke's 
 preface to his poem on this story, before 1562. 
 Boccaccio's tale of ' Tancred and Gismunda ' was pro- 
 duced upon the stage in Robert Wilm ot's version 
 in 1563. George Whetstone made one of Cinthio's 
 Hecatommithi the subject of his ' Promos and 
 Cassajidra,' printed in two parts in 1578. Cinthio 
 had already dramatised this story in the ' Epitia ; ' 
 and Shakspere conferred immortality upon its fable 
 by using it for ' Measure for Measure.' 
 
 II. 
 
 From plays which found their way into the printer's 
 hands, we cannot rightly judge the products of this 
 fertile epoch. They are far too few in number, and 
 with some rare exceptions are the compositions of men 
 distinguished by birth and literary culture. In order 
 to form a more exact conception of the romantic 
 drama in its period of incubation, when professional 
 actors and playwrights — the two arts being commonly 
 exercised by the same persons — were unconsciously 
 shaping the new style, we have to view it in the mirror 
 of contemporary criticism. That criticism emanates 
 from writers hostile to the popular stage on several 
 accounts. Some, like John Northbrooke, assail it on 
 
GOSSON'S CRITICISM. 251 
 
 the score of immorality. Others, like Sidney, attack 
 its want of art. It is chiefly with the latter class of 
 accusers that we are here concerned. 
 
 Stephen Gosson had been a writer, and probably 
 also an actor, of plays, before the year 1 5 79, at which 
 date he published his ' School of Abuse.' This was 
 a comprehensive arraignment of the theatre from the 
 ethical point of view. His tract called forth numerous 
 replies, to one of which, composed by Thomas Lodge, 
 he retorted in a second pamphlet, entitled ' Plays Con- 
 futed in Five Actions.' ' This, though its object is also 
 mainly ethical, contains some references useful to our 
 present purpose. Regarding the variety of sources 
 drawn on by the playwrights at that early period, he 
 asserts : ' I may boldly say it because I have seen it, 
 that " The Palace of Pleasure." " The Golden Ass," " The 
 Ethiopian History," " Amadis of France," "The Round 
 Table," bawdy Comedies in Latin, French, Italian, and 
 Spanish, have been ransacked to furnish the playhouses 
 in London.' That is to say, the translations of Italian 
 Novels published by Painter, the Chivalrous Romances 
 of the later Middle Ages, Heliodorus, the Myth of 
 ' Cupid and Psyche,' together with comedies in Latin 
 and three modern languages, had already become the 
 stock in trade of dramatist and actor. On the topic of 
 History, he says : ' If a true History be taken in hand, 
 it is made like our shadows, largest at the rising and 
 falling of the sun, shortest of all at high noon. For 
 the poets drive it most commonly unto such points as 
 may best show the majesty of their pen in tragical 
 
 ^ Reprinted in the Roxburgh Library, 1869, from the undated 
 edition of possibly 1581 or 1582. 
 
252 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 speeches ; or set the hearers agog with discourses of 
 love ; or paint a few antics to fit their own humours 
 with scoffs and taunts ; or wring in a show to furnish 
 forth the stage when it is too bare ; when the matter 
 of itself comes short of this, they follow the practice of 
 the cobbler, and set their teeth to the leather to pull it 
 out. So was the history of Csesar and Pompey, and 
 the play of the Fabii at the Theatre, both amplified 
 there where the drums might walk or the pen ruffle.' 
 Through this critique we discern how the romantic 
 method was applied to subjects of classical History. In 
 another place, he touches on the defects of chivalrous 
 fable as treated by romantic playwrights : ' Sometimes 
 you shall see nothing but the adventures of an amorous 
 knight, passing from country to country for the love 
 of his lady, encountering many a terrible monster 
 made of brown paper, and at his return is so wonder- 
 fully changed that he cannot be known but by some 
 posy in his tablet, or by a broken ring or a handker- 
 chief, or a piece of cockle shell. What,' adds the 
 critic pertinently, ' shall you learn by that ? ' 
 
 George Whetstone, when he published ' Promos 
 and Cassandra' in 1578, prefixed to it a short dis- 
 course upon contemporary plays. It is a succinct 
 disparagement of the romantic as compared with the 
 classical method. Having commended the moral 
 dignity and mature art of the ancient comic poets, he 
 proceeds thus : ^ ' But the advised devices of ancient 
 poets, discredited with the trifles of young, unadvised, 
 and rash-witted writers, hath brought this commend- 
 able exercise in mislike. For at this day the Italian 
 
 1 Six old plays, published by J. Nichols, 1779, p. 3. 
 
WHETSTONE'S CRITICISM. 253 
 
 is so lascivious in his comedies that lion est hearers are 
 grieved at his actions : the Frenchman and Spaniard 
 follows the Italian's humour : the German is too holy, 
 for he presents on every common stage what preachers 
 should pronounce in pulpits. The Englishman, in this 
 quality, is most vain, indiscreet, and out of order. 
 He first grounds his work on impossibilities : then in 
 three hours runs he through the world ; marries, 
 gets children ; makes children men, men to conquer 
 kingdoms, murder monsters ; and bringeth gods from 
 heaven, and fetcheth devils from hell. And (that 
 which is worst) their ground is not so imperfect as 
 their working indiscreet ; not Weighing, so the people 
 laugh, though they laugh them, for their follies, to 
 scorn. Many times, to make mirth, they make a 
 clown companion with a king ; in their grave counsels 
 they allow the advice of fools ; they use one order of 
 speech for all persons — a gross indecorum, for a crow 
 will ill counterfeit the nightingale's sweet voice ; even 
 so, affected speech doth ill become a clown. For to 
 work a comedy kindly, grave old men should instruct ; 
 young men should show the imperfections of youth ; 
 strumpets should be lascivious ; boys unhappy ; and 
 clowns should be disorderly : intermingling all these 
 actions in such sort as the grave matter may instruct, 
 and the pleasant delight : for without this change the 
 attention would be small, and the liking less.' 
 
 The whole case against the English Drama of that 
 age is summed up by Sir Philip Sidney in a famous 
 passage of his ' Defence of Poesy.' Written probably 
 in 1583, though not printed till 1595, Sidney was most 
 likely acquainted with what Gosson and Whetstone 
 
254 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 had already published on the subject. He certainly 
 knew Whetstone's Preface, for he borrowed some of 
 its phrases almost verbatim. Though long, I shall 
 not hesitate to transcribe the whole of Sidney's 
 criticism, bidding the reader bear in mind that the 
 apologist for poetry wrote some years before the 
 earliest of Shakspere's plays appeared, and when the 
 first of Marlowe's had not yet been acted. His 
 strictures apply therefore in the most literal sense to 
 the romantic drama in its embryonic period. 
 
 ' Our tragedies and comedies, not without cause, are 
 cried out against, observing rules neither of honest civi- 
 lity nor skilful poetry. Excepting " Gorboduc " (again I 
 say of those that I have seen), which notwithstanding, as 
 it is full of stately speeches, and well-sounding phrases, 
 climbing to the height of Seneca his style, and as full 
 of notable morality, which it doth most delightfully 
 teach, and so obtain the very end of poesy ; yet, in 
 truth, it is very defectuous in the circumstances, which 
 grieves me, because it might not remain as an exact 
 model of all tragedies. For it is faulty both in place 
 and time, the two necessary companions of all corporal 
 actions. For where the stage should alway represent 
 but one place ; and the uttermost time presupposed in 
 it, should be, both by Aristotle's precept, and common 
 reason, but one day ; there is both many days and 
 many places inartificially imagined. 
 
 ' But if it be so in " Gorboduc," how much more 
 in all the rest ? where you shall have Asia of the one 
 side, and Afric of the other, and so many other under 
 kingdoms, that the player, when he -comes in, must 
 ever begin with telling where he is, or else the tale will 
 
SIDNEY'S CRITICISM. 255 
 
 not be conceived. Now shall you have three ladies 
 walk to gather flowers, and then we must believe the 
 stage to be a garden. By-and-by, we hear news of 
 shipwreck in the same place, then we are to blame if 
 we accept it not for a rock. Upon the back of that 
 comes out a hideous monster with fire and smoke, and 
 then the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a 
 cave ; while, in the meantime, two armies fly in, re- 
 presented with four swords and bucklers, and then, 
 what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field ? 
 ' Now of time they are much more liberal ; for 
 ordinary it is, that two young princes fall in love ; after 
 many traverses she is got with child ; delivered of a 
 fair boy ; he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, 
 and is ready to get another child ; and all this in two 
 hours' space ; which, how absurd it is in sense, even 
 sense may imagine ; and art hath taught and all 
 ancient examples justified, and at this day the ordinary 
 players in Italy will not err in. Yet will some bring in 
 an example of the Eunuch in Terence, that containeth 
 matter of two days, yet far short of twenty years. 
 True it is, and so was it to be played in two days, and 
 so fitted to the time it set forth. And though Plautus 
 have in one place done amiss, let us hit it with him, 
 and not miss with him. But they will say, How then 
 shall we set forth a story which contains both many 
 places and many times ? And do they not know, that 
 a tragedy is tied to the laws of poesy, and not of 
 history ; not bound to follow the story, but having 
 liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame 
 the history to the most tragical convenience ? Again, 
 many things may be told, which cannot be shewed ; if 
 
256 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 they know the difference betwixt reporting and repre- 
 senting. As for example, I may speak, though I am 
 here, of Peru, and in speech digress from that to the 
 description of CaHcut ; but in action I cannot represent 
 it without Pacolet's horse. And so was the manner 
 the ancients took by some " Nuntius,"to recount things 
 done in former time, or other place. 
 
 ' Lastly, if they will represent an history, they must 
 not, as Horace saith, begin " ab ovo," but they must 
 come to the principal point of that one action which 
 they will represent. By example this will be best 
 expressed ; I have a story of young Polydorus, de- 
 livered, for safety's sake, with great riches, by his 
 father Priamus to Polymnestor, King of Thrace, in 
 the Trojan war time. He, after some years, hearing 
 of the overthrow of Priamus, for to make the treasure 
 his own, murdereth the child ; the body of the child is 
 taken up ; Hecuba, she, the same day, findeth a sleight 
 to be revenged most cruelly of the tyrant. Where, 
 now, would one of our tragedy-writers begin, but with 
 the delivery of the child ? Then should he sail over 
 into Thrace, and so spend I know not how many years, 
 and travel numbers of places. But where doth Euri- 
 pides ? Even with the finding of the body ; leaving 
 the rest to be told by the spirit of Polydorus. This 
 needs no farther to be enlarged ; the dullest wit may 
 conceive it. 
 
 ' But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their 
 plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, 
 mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter 
 so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and 
 shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with 
 
SUM TOTAL OF THESE CRITICISMS. 357 
 
 neither decency nor discretion ; so as neither the 
 admiration and commiseration, nor the right sport 
 fulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained. I 
 know Apuleius did somewhat so, but that is a thing 
 recounted with space of time, not represented in one 
 moment : and I know the ancients have one or two 
 examples of tragi-comedies as Plautus hath Amphytrio. 
 But, if we mark them well, we shall find, that they 
 never, or very daintily, match hornpipes and funerals. 
 So falleth it out, that having indeed no right comedy 
 in that comical part of our tragedy, we have nothing 
 but scurrility, unworthy of our chaste ears ; or some 
 extreme show of doltishness, indeed fit to lift up a loud 
 laughter, and nothing else : where the whole tract of 
 a comedy should be full of delight ; as the tragedy 
 should be still maintained in a well-raised admiration.' 
 Thus critics like Sidney, trained in humanistic and 
 Italian studies, demanded a clear separation of tra- 
 gedy from comedy. No merriment, according to their 
 theory, may relax the frown of Melpomene. Thalia 
 may not borrow the chord of pathos from her sister's 
 lyre. It were well to banish clowns, buffoons, and 
 jugglers altogether from the stage. Kings and rustics 
 should not figure in the same play, unless the latter 
 be required to act the part of Nuntius. The three 
 main species of the Drama are properly assigned to the 
 three sections of society ; Tragedy to royal personages 
 and the aristocracy ; Comedy to the middle class ; the 
 Pastoral to hand-labourers. Action in tragedy should 
 be narrated rather than presented. The persons can 
 discuss events which have happened or are expected ; 
 but a Messenger must always be at hand to announce 
 
 s 
 
2S8 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 important news. If needful, the clumsiest artifices 
 should be devised in order to prevent the audience 
 from actually beholding a battle or a murder. Lastly, 
 the unities of time and place are to be observed with 
 scrupulous exactitude, in spite of every inconvenience 
 to the author and of any damage to the subject. 
 
 These canons the Italians had already compiled 
 from passages of Aristotle and of Horace, without 
 verifying them by appeal to the Greek dramatic 
 authors. They were destined to determine the practice 
 of the great French writers of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, and to be accepted as incontrovertible by every 
 European nation, until Victor Hugo with Hernani 
 raised the standard of belligerent Romanticism on the 
 stage of Paris. 
 
 III. 
 
 Not a single one of the above-mentioned rules was 
 obeyed in our Romantic Drama. In a dialogue 
 between G., H., and T., quoted from Florio's ' First 
 Fruits ' by Mr. Collier, one of the interlocutors says : 
 G. After dinner we will go see a play. 
 
 His friend answers : 
 
 H. The plays that they play in England are not right comedies. 
 
 A third joins in the conversation : 
 
 T. Yet they do nothing else but play every day ! 
 
 The second sticks to his opinion : 
 
 H. Yea, but they are neither right comedies nor right tragedies. 
 The first inquires : 
 
 G, How would you name them then ? 
 
ESSENCE OF ROMANTIC DRAMA. 259 
 
 The critic scornfully replies : 
 
 H. Representations of histories without any decorum. 
 
 Such in truth they were. Without the decorum 
 of deliberate obedience to classic rules, without the 
 decorum of accomplished art, without the decorum 
 of social distinctions' properly observed, they drama- 
 tised a tale or history in scenes. Nothing in the 
 shape of a story came amiss to the romantic play- 
 wright ; and perhaps we cannot penetrate deeper into 
 the definition of the Romantic Drama than by say- 
 ing that its characteristic was to be a represented 
 story, In this it differed from the Classic or Athenian 
 Drama ; for there, although there lay a myth or fable 
 behind each tragedy, the play itself was written on 
 some point or climax in the fable. ^ 
 
 A Florentine, if at this epoch he had been asked, 
 ' How do you name them then ? ' might possibly have 
 answered, ' Farsa ! ' For it is not a little curious that 
 in these very years, when the romantic type of art was 
 taking shape in England, a distinguished Florentine 
 playwright attempted to popularise a very similar 
 species in Tuscany. The endeavour was foredoomed 
 to failure. Italian dramatic literature had moved too 
 long already upon different lines ; and the life which 
 remained in it, was destined to survive in the fixed 
 
 ' I do not mean to assert that no plays of the Romantic species 
 are written, like the Classical, upon the point or climax of a story rather 
 than upon the story itself. What I do mean, is that the Romantic 
 method accepted the dramatic evolution of a story— setting forth, for 
 instance, the whole of a man's life, or the whole of a king's reign, or the 
 whole of a complicated fable. It is only necessary to mention King 
 Lear, Pericles, Henry IV., Cymbeline. And even where the plot is far 
 more strictly narrowed to a single point, as in Othello, the dramatic 
 movement remains narrative. 
 
26o shakspere's predecessors. 
 
 personages and the improvisatory action of the Corn- 
 media dell' Arte. Yet Giovanmaria Cecchi's de- 
 scription of the Farsa in his prologue to ' La 
 Romanesca' (a play of this species composed in 1585) 
 would serve better than the most elaborate description 
 to explain the nature of the English Romantic Drama 
 to men who never read a line of Marlowe. I have, 
 therefore, translated it from the Florentine reprint of 
 
 1880 
 
 The Farce is a third species, newly framed 
 
 'Twixt tragedy and comedy. She profits 
 
 By all the breadth and fullness of both forms, 
 
 Shuns all their limitations. She receives 
 
 Under her roof princes and mighty lords. 
 
 Which comedy doth not; is hospitable. 
 
 Like some caravanserai or lazar-house. 
 
 To whoso hsts, the vulgar and the lewd, 
 
 Whereto Dame Tragedy hath never stooped. 
 
 She is not tied to subjects; for she takes 
 
 Or grave or gay, or pious or profane, 
 
 Polished or rude, mirthful or lamentable : 
 
 Of place she makes no question; sets the scene 
 
 In church, in public, nay, where'er she chooses : 
 
 Indiiferent to time, if one day's space 
 
 Content her not, she '11 run through two or three ; 
 
 What matters it ? Troth, she 's the pleasantest. 
 
 The readiest, best attired, fresh country lass. 
 
 The sweetest, comeliest, this world contains ! 
 
 One might compare her to that jovial friar 
 
 Who laughingly conceded to his abbot 
 
 All things he craved, always except obedience ! 
 
 Enough for her to keep propriety 
 
 Of persons ; to be honest ; to observe 
 
 Moderate dimensions, decency of language. 
 
 Speaking the common speech of Christian folk, 
 
 Born and brought up in this your native land. 
 
 She too, as I have told you, hails all fellows — 
 
 Sansculottes, big-wigs— men ahke, as brothers. 
 
 And if the ancients used her not, brave playwrights 
 
 Among these modern, use her. If the Sire 
 
CECCHI ON THE FARSA. 261 
 
 Of Those that Know wrote nothing in her favour, 
 
 Either she was not plying then, or haply 
 
 He broached that subject in his books now lost. 
 
 Besides, the Stagirite spoke nothing, mark you. 
 
 Of paper, printing, or the mariner's compass ; 
 
 Yet, prithee say, are these things not worth using 
 
 Because, forsooth, that great man did not know them ? 
 
 Let then who lists make Farces at his will ; 
 
 And note that 't is far better thus to do. 
 
 Than to breed monsters, and to christen these 
 
 Tragedies, Comedies — lame things that need 
 
 Crutches or go-carts to get into motion ! 
 
 Let Farces but be played two hundred years. 
 
 They '11 not be novelties to those, I warrant, 
 
 Who in far times to come will call us Ancients. 
 
 It would hardly be possible, I think, to plead the 
 caase of the Romantic Drama against the supposed 
 canons of Aristotle and the rules of Horace more 
 pleasantly than thus, or to set forth with more genial 
 intelligence the claims of the new style on popular ac- 
 ceptance. Curiously enough, the prediction uttered by 
 Cecchi in the last lines of his prologue has been amply 
 verified. We condemn the stilted tragedies of his con- 
 temporaries, and tax their comedies with imitative affec- 
 tation. We regard the Italian playwrights, with two 
 or perhaps three luminous exceptions, as obsolete anti- 
 quities ; while Shakspere's masterpieces in the mingled 
 or romantic manner are still new ; a perennial Fount of 
 Juvenescence for all dramatists who seek fresh inspira- 
 tion, and for all the audiences of Europe who desire a 
 draught of nature quickened with poetic passion. 
 
 The very faults of youthfulness which Sidney made 
 so manifest, were now to build the fortune of this 
 sweetest, prettiest country lass, for whom no name as 
 yet was found in England. Precisely because she, the un- 
 
262 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 taught girl, the latest born of all the Muses, pronounced 
 herself no Muse of Tragedy or Comedy, because she 
 knew no rules distilled from foreign, obsolete, and 
 scholar-disciplined tradition, it was her mission to be- 
 come the Muse of Modern Drama. The Italian play- 
 wright called her Farsa. This title reminds us of 
 French Farce, with which she can indeed afford to re- 
 cognise some„slight relationship. But she travelled so 
 far wider, climbed so far higher, penetrated so far 
 deeper, that to name her Farce at any time in Eng- 
 lish, would be out of question. The destinies of all 
 dramatic art were in her hands. She held the keys of 
 Tragedy and Comedy ; bid classic myth and legend suit 
 her turn ; stretched her rod over fairyland and history ; 
 led lyric poetry, like a tamed leopard-whelp, at chariot- 
 wheels of her fantastic progress. Critics now recognise 
 this village-maiden Muse, as Muse of the Romantic 
 Drama, Shakspere's Drama. Under those high-sound- 
 ing titles she now enjoys a fame equal to that of 
 her grave sisters, Attic Tragedy and Comedy. It 
 was her fortune to give to the modern world a theatre 
 commensurate with that of ancient Greece, adapted 
 to the spirit of the new-born age, differing indeed in 
 type from the antique, but not less perfect nor less 
 potent in its bearing on the minds of men. 
 
 What a future lay before this country lass — the 
 bride-elect of Shakspere's genius ! For her there was 
 preparing empire over the whole world of man : — over 
 the height and breadth and depth of heaven and 
 earth and hell ; over facts of nature and fables of 
 romance ; over histories of nations and of house- 
 holds; over heroes of past and present times, and 
 
FUTURE OF- ROMANTIC DRAMA. 263 
 
 airy beings of all poets' brains! Hers were Greene's 
 meadows, watered by an English stream. Hers, Hey- 
 wood's moss-grown manor-houses. Peele's goddess- 
 haunted lawns were hers, and hers the palace-bordered, 
 paved ways of Verona. Hers was the darkness of the 
 grave, the charnel-house of Webster. She walked 
 the air-built loggie of Lyly's dreams, and paced 
 the clouds of Jonson's Masques. She donned that 
 ponderous sock, and trod the measures of Volpone. 
 She mouthed the mighty line of Marlowe. Chapman's 
 massy periods and Marston's pointed sentences were 
 hers by heart. She went abroad through primrose 
 paths with Fletcher, and learned Shirley's lambent wit. 
 She wandered amid dark dry places of the outcast 
 soul with Ford. ' Hamlet * was hers. ' Anthony and 
 Cleopatra ' was hers. And hers too was ' The Tem- 
 pest' Then, after many years, her children mated 
 with famed poets in far distant lands. ' Faust ' and 
 ' Wallenstein,' ' Lucrezia Borgia ' and ' Marion De- 
 lorme,' are hers. 
 
 For the present moment, when Marlowe is yet 
 at school at Canterbury, this young-eyed, nonchalant 
 girl, with the still unrecognised promise of such 
 womanhood, saunters afield with nameless playwrights 
 and forgotten singers. The strait-laced Melpomene, 
 who -smiled so acidly on ' Gorboduc,' watches her 
 pastimes with a frown. But our Lady of Romance 
 heeds not Melpomene, and flouts the honours of that 
 pedant-rid Parnassus. She is abroad in dew-sprent 
 meadows to bring home the may. Nature, the divine 
 schoolmistress, instructs her in rules of living art 
 beneath the oaks of Arden, by the banks of Cam and 
 
264 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 I sis. Lap-full of flowers, ' warbling her native wood- 
 notes wild,' the country lass of English art 'returns 
 from those excursions to crowded booths at Bankside 
 or Blackfriars, to torch-lit chambers of Whitehall and 
 Greenwich. You may call her a grisette. But, once 
 again, what destinies are hovering over her ! 
 
26s 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THEATRES, PLAYWRIGHTS, ACTORS, AND PLAYGOERS. 
 
 I. Servants of the Nobility become Players — Statutes of Edward VI. 
 and Mary — Statutes of Elizabeth — Licences.^ — II. Elizabeth's and 
 Leicester's Patronage of the Stage — Royal Patent of 1574 — Master of 
 the Revels — Contest between the Corporation of London and the Privy 
 Council. — III. The Prosecution of this Contest — Plays Forbidden 
 within the City — Establishment of Theatres in the Suburbs — Hostility 
 of the Clergy. — IV. Acting becomes a Profession — Theatres are Mul- 
 tiplied — Building of the Globe and Fortune — Internal Arrangements 
 of Playhouses — Interest of the Court in Encouragement of Acting 
 Companies. — V. Public and Private Theatres — Entrance Prices — 
 Habits of the Audience. — ^VI. Absence of Scenery — Simplicity of 
 Stage — Wardrobe — Library of Theatres. — ^VII. Prices given for Plays 
 — Henslowe — Benefit Nights — Collaboration and Manufacture of 
 Plays. — VIII. Boy-Actors — Northbrooke on Plays at School — The 
 Choristers of Chapel Royal, Windsor, Paul's— Popularity of the Boys 
 at Blackfriars— Female Parts — The Education of Actors. — IX. Pay- 
 ment to various Classes of Actors — Sharers — Apprentices — Receipts 
 from Court Performances — Service of Nobility — Strolling Companies 
 ■ — Comparative Dishonour of the Profession. — X. Taverns — Bad Com- 
 pany at Theatres — Gosson and Stubbes upon the Manners of Play- 
 goers — Women of the Town — Cranley's 'Amanda.' — XI. 'The Young 
 Gallant's Whirligig ' — Jonson's Fitzdottrel at the Play.^XII. Com- 
 parison of the London and the Attic Theatres. 
 
 N.B. The authorities for this chapter are Collier's ' History of English 
 Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakespeare,' upon which it is chiefly 
 based ; the Tracts published by the Old Shakespeare Society, 1853 ; 
 and the Collection of Documents and Tracts in the Roxburghe Library, 
 1869. 
 
 I. 
 
 The history of English dramatic literature cannot be 
 rightly understood without a survey of the theatres in 
 which plays were exhibited, of the actors who performed 
 
266 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 them, and of the audience for which they were pro- 
 vided. In the infancy of the stage, there existed no 
 permanent buildings set apart for theatrical exhibi- 
 tions ; nor did play-acting constitute a recognised' 
 profession. We have seen in the chapter upon Moral 
 Plays that noblemen used to maintain a musical 
 establishment for the service of their Chapels, and 
 to this department of their households the actors of 
 Interludes and Moral Plays were attached. When 
 not required by their masters, these players strolled 
 the country, calling themselves Servants of the mag- 
 nate whose pay they took and whose badge they 
 wore. After this fashion Companies of Actors came 
 into existence ; and the towns of England were in- 
 fested by wandering bands, professing to be the Ser- 
 vants of the Earl of Warwick, Lord Clinton, the Earl 
 of Derby, or some other eminent person, whose house- 
 hold supported the luxury of a trained set of players. 
 Often enough, the claim of such strollers was well 
 founded. But pretenders to a title which they could 
 not justify were numerous ; and under the name of 
 My Lord's Players, common vagabonds and men of 
 no condition roamed the counties. During the reign 
 of Edward VI. it was found necessary to place the 
 theatrical establishments of noble houses under the 
 special control of the Privy Council. Licences were 
 granted to the aristocracy to maintain troops of players, 
 and their performances were limited to the residences 
 of their masters. The political and religious disturb- 
 ances of that reign had given occasion to seditious 
 propaganda under the colourable pretext of play- 
 acting. There were no newspapers ; and next to the 
 
STAGE IN REIGNS OF EDWARD AND MARY. 267 
 
 pulpit, the stage, rude as it was, formed the most 
 popular and powerful engine for disseminating opinions 
 on matters of debate. During the reign of Mary, 
 theatrical exhibitions were submitted to even stricter 
 control. Finding that the Protestant reaction was 
 being worked by means of Moral Plays, the Crown 
 endeavoured to silence secular acting in public through 
 the length and breadth of England. Encouragement, 
 meanwhile, was given to the revival of Miracle Plays, in 
 the belief that these would educate the people back to 
 their old creeds. The Court, however, still maintained 
 a musical and dramatic establishment upon a scale of 
 great magnificence. In salaries alone, independent of 
 board, liveries, and incidental expenses, it is calculated 
 that Mary spent between two and three thousand 
 pounds a year on this department of her household. 
 It was impossible, however, by any repressive mea- 
 sures of the Privy Council, to check a custom which 
 had gained so strong a hold upon the manners of 
 the nation. Noblemen refused to be interfered with. 
 The public had no mind to be deprived of their 
 amusements. Therefore the class of men who gained 
 their livelihood by acting, having the goodwill of the 
 people and the protection of powerful masters on their 
 side, defied or eluded the orders of the Crown. It 
 would seem that Mary's edicts had the effect of in- 
 creasing clandestine performances, and driving the 
 professors of the art of acting into vagrancy and 
 vagabondage. This at least is the conclusion we may 
 draw from the tenor of Elizabeth's first proclamations 
 on the subject of the stage. These are clearly 
 regulative, implying the intention to check disorder 
 
268 SHAKSP-ERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 and to place a prevalent national amusement under 
 State supervision. Soon after Elizabeth's accession it 
 was decreed that no players should perform without 
 a licence from the Mayors of towns, or from the 
 Lord- Lieutenants of counties, or from two Justices of 
 the Peace resident in the neighbourhood. Companies 
 professing to be Servants of noblemen, who could not 
 prove their title, were to be treated as rogues and 
 vagrants under the rigorous Acts in force against such 
 persons. Plays on matters touching religion and 
 government were strictly forbidden. The department 
 of the Revels at Court was put at once upon a more 
 economical footing. But the theatrical establishments 
 of the aristocracy seem, at the same period, to have 
 been multiplied in numbers and considerably strength- 
 ened in efficiency. 
 
 IL 
 
 It was a fortunate circumstance for the develop- 
 ment of our theatre that both Elizabeth herself and 
 her favourite Leicester were enthusiastically partial to 
 play-acting. Had it not been for their encouragement 
 and patronage, the stage could hardly have established 
 itself upon a permanent footing in London ; and the 
 conditions which rendered a national Drama possible 
 in England might have been missed. The justice of 
 this observation will be perceived when we come to 
 consider the next and most eventful chapter in the 
 history of the English stage. In the first years of 
 Elizabeth's reign, Leicester, then Sir Robert Dudley, 
 had the best company of players in his service. He 
 took a personal interest in their welfare, as appears 
 
LEICESTER'S SERVANTS. 269 
 
 from a letter addressed by him in June 1559 to the 
 Earl of Shrewsbury. The object of this letter was to 
 obtain for them the licence to play in Yorkshire. He 
 begins by saying that his servants, ' bringers hereof 
 unto you, be such as are players of interludes ; ' ex- 
 pressly states that they hold ' the licence of divers of 
 my Lords here, under their seals and hands, to play 
 in divers shires within the realm under their authori- 
 ties, as may amply appear unto your Lordship by the 
 same licence ; ' and recommends them to Lord Shrews- 
 bury as ' honest men, and such as shall play none other 
 matters, I trust, but tolerable and convenient.' Thus 
 it seems that, in conformity with Elizabeth's edicts, 
 the servants of Sir Robert Dudley had armed them- 
 selves with a licence signed by several Lord-Lieu- 
 tenants of counties, upon the production of which they 
 counted on the liberty to play within the jurisdictions of 
 the signataries. 
 
 The same players, relying on their Master's power- 
 ful support, advanced so far in their pretensions that 
 in 1574 they obtained from Elizabeth herself a Royal 
 Patent. This document, the first licence granted by 
 the Crown to a dramatic company, was given at Green- 
 wich under the Privy Seal upon May 7, to James 
 Burbage and four partners. Addressed ' to all Justices, 
 Mayors, Sheriffs, Bailiffs, head Constables, under Con- 
 stables, and all other our officers and m'nisters,' it em- 
 powered Lord Leicester's servants to ' use, exercise, 
 and occupy the art and faculty of playing Comedies, 
 Tragedies, Interludes, Stage-plays, and such other 
 like ... as well for the recreation of our loving 
 subjects, as for our solace and pleasure, when we shall 
 
270 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 think good to see them.' Elizabeth, in this paragraph, 
 specially contemplates the double function of Lord 
 Leicester's servants ; first as caterers for the public and 
 then as players at Court. Up to this time the royal 
 establishment had no formed body of dramatic artists, 
 and no players with the title of Queen's Servants. 
 The Master of the Revels for the time being engaged 
 the best companies to play at Court ; and among 
 these the Servants of Lord Leicester had been con- 
 spicuous for frequent performance. After the date of 
 the patent, Leicester's men, for a time at any rate, 
 called themselves, upon the strength of the document, 
 ' The Queen's Majesty's Poor Players.' 
 
 The patent next rehearses the places to which the 
 privilege extends : ' As well within our City of London 
 and Liberties of the same, as also within the liberties 
 and freedoms of any our Cities, Towns, Boroughs, 
 &c. whatsoever, as without the same, throughout our 
 Realm of England.' Then follow the limitations under 
 which the privilege is granted. All plays performed 
 by Leicester's men must have received the sanction of 
 the Master of the Revels. No public representations 
 might take place ' in the time of Common Prayer, or 
 in the time of great and common Plague in our said 
 City of London.' 
 
 The privileges granted in this Royal Licence testi- 
 fied to Elizabeth's personal approval of Burbage and 
 his comrades, no less than to Leicester's warm-hearted 
 patronage. They were ample, and seemed explicit 
 enough to have conferred a monopoly of acting on this 
 company throughout the length and breadth of Eng- 
 land. Yet the players met with a determined opposi- 
 
ELIZABETH'S LICENCE. 271 
 
 tion when they strove to exercise their rights, and only 
 entered, after a sharp struggle, into a partial enjoy- 
 ment of the Queen's concession. 
 
 Eleven years earlier, Archbishop Grindall had 
 already raised his voice against the growing fre- 
 quency of plays in London. He termed the actors 
 ' an idle sort of people, which had been infamous in all 
 good commonwealths,' and called upon the Secretary 
 of State to get them altogether banished to at least 
 three miles beyond the City bounds. A disastrous 
 epidemic was then raging, which furnished the Arch- 
 bishop with an excellent argument. Undoubtedly the 
 concourse of all kinds of people to hear plays helped 
 to spread infection. Upon the double grounds which 
 Grindall had adopted in 1563, namely, the lewdness 
 and profanity of plays, and the peril of contagion in 
 times of sickness, the Corporation of London now 
 determined to resist the establishment of Leicester's 
 company within their jurisdiction. 
 
 On December 6, 1575, the Common Council drew 
 up a memorial upon the subject of play-acting, which 
 so curiously illustrates the feeling of the times, that it 
 must furnish copious extracts. The preamble opens 
 thus : ' Whereas heretofore sundry great disorders and 
 inconveniences have been found to ensue to this City 
 by the inordinate haunting of great multitudes of 
 people, specially youth, to plays, interludes, and shows ; 
 namely, occasion of frays and quarrels ; evil practices 
 of incontinence in great inns, having chambers and 
 secret places adjoining to their open stages and gal- 
 leries ; inveigling and alluring of maids, specially 
 orphans, and good citizens' children under age, to privy 
 
272 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 and unmeet contracts ; the publishing of unchaste, 
 uncomely, and unshamefast speeches and doings ; with- 
 drawing of the Queen's Majesty's servants from Divine 
 service on Sundays and holy days, at which times such 
 plays were chiefly used ; unthrifty waste of the money 
 of the poor and fond persons ; sundry robberies by 
 picking and cutting of purses ; uttering of popular, 
 busy, and seditious matters, and many other corrup- 
 tions of youth, and other enormities ; besides that also 
 sundry slaughters and maimings of the Queen's sub- 
 jects have happened by ruins of scaffolds, frames, and 
 stages, and by engines, weapons, and powder used in 
 plays.' So far the Recorder has recited the first of 
 Grindall's arguments. He next takes up the second : 
 ' And whereas in time of God's visitation by the 
 Plague, such assemblies of the people in throng and 
 press have been very dangerous for spreading of in- 
 fection, &c.' He then proceeds to remedies and regu- 
 lations, which are in substance these : i. That all 
 plays shall be subjected to censors appointed by the 
 Lord Mayor and Aldermen. 2. That none but players 
 licensed by the Council shall exhibit. 3. That the 
 same shall be taxed for maintenance of poor and sick 
 persons. 4. That no performance shall take place 
 during Divine service, or in times of general sickness, 
 5. That though the private houses of the nobility be 
 exempt from these restrictions, the Council shall de- 
 termine what constitutes a privileged residence, and 
 shall exercise control and censure over the plays 
 there represented. 
 
 Among the ' Orders appointed to be executed in 
 the City of London ' during the year 1 5 76, one pro- 
 
OPPOSITION FROM THE CITY. 273 
 
 vided for the total prohibition of theatrical perform- 
 ances in public within the City-bounds, upon the score 
 of their ungodliness. This Order of the Common 
 Council, had it taken full effect, would have nullified 
 the Queen's Licence. What gave further importance 
 to the matter was, that the Justices of Middlesex 
 made common cause with the Corporation ; and it 
 seemed not improbable that the players would be 
 driven far off into the country. Leicester's servants, 
 therefore, seeing their privileges threatened with ex- 
 tinction, sent up a petition (in which they styled 
 themselves 'the Queen's Majesty's Poor Players') to 
 the Privy Council. This was answered, point by 
 point, in a Memorandum addressed by the Corpora- 
 tion to the same body. The actors argued that they 
 needed practice in public, in order that they might 
 acquire proficiency enough to play before the Queen 
 at Court. Their livelihood was being taken from 
 them. Their dramatic performances were honest re- 
 creations, fit for holydays. London was the proper 
 place for theatrical exhibitions, inasmuch as disorders 
 would certainly arise on winter evenings from persons 
 flocking to and from the stages in the fields. Though 
 it was right and proper to suspend play-acting in 
 times of the plague, it ought to be clearly defined 
 what rate of mortality constituted a general and dan- 
 gerous sickness. Lastly, they claimed the monopoly of 
 acting, which seemed to have been granted them. 
 
 To these pleas the Recorder responded. It is not 
 decent that the Queen should witness shows which had 
 been ' commonly played in open stages before all the 
 basest assemblies in London and Middlesex ; ' there- 
 
274 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 fore, if the players need practice, they must take it in 
 the private residences of their masters. The art of 
 acting is not a profession by itself, but is only tolerable 
 as a recreation exercised by men ' using other honest 
 and lawful arts, or retained in honest services.' Holy- 
 days are abused by such folk, who do not respect the 
 regulation respecting service time ; and ' it may be 
 noted how uncomely it is for youth to run straight 
 from prayer to plays, from God's service to the 
 Devil's.' ^ If the fields are too far off to serve their 
 turn, ' the remedy is ill conceived to bring them into 
 London ; ' it would be far better to put a stop to them 
 altogether. With regard to the Plague, it were desir- 
 able. Plague or no Plague, to be quit of plays ; yet, 
 if the point has to be considered, the right data for 
 deciding it are these : the common rate of mortality in 
 London is between forty and fifty per week, or more 
 often under forty ; if then the death-rate for two or 
 three weeks together has not exceeded fifty, it may be 
 assumed that there is no immediate peril on the score 
 of infection. Finally, if there must be players, a 
 monopoly extended to one company may be regarded 
 as a blessing. In that case let the Queen's Servants be 
 scheduled, man by man ; for as it is, the town is in- 
 fested with companies, all of which call themselves 
 Queen's Players. 
 
 From this contention between the Players and the 
 Corporation, it appears that the latter despaired of 
 suppressing the Drama altogether, though they would 
 have liked to do so. They scouted the notion that 
 
 1 In the tract called The Second and Third Blast of Retreat from 
 Plays, the author says of Holidays : ' Then all Hell breaks loose.' 
 
DISPUTE BETWEEN COURT AND CITY. 275 
 
 Actors could be treated like the craftsmen of a recog- 
 nised trade. They had indeed to tolerate them in great 
 men's houses. But they were resolved to drive them 
 beyond the City bounds into the fields or country, to 
 silence them in Plague-time, and to restrain them from 
 performing on Sundays and holydays. It is also clear 
 that the strong point in the actor's case was the Queen's 
 partiality for the drama. This circumstance is con- 
 firmed by an order sent from the Privy Council, 
 December 24, 1578, to the Lord Mayor, commanding 
 him to suffer six companies — the Children of the Chapel 
 Royal and S. Paul's, and the Servants of the Lord 
 Chamberlain, Lord Warwick, Lord Leicester, and Lord 
 Essex — to play in London ' by reason that they are 
 appointed to play this Christmas before her Majesty.' ^ 
 
 IIL 
 
 Open warfare on the subject of the Drama was thus 
 declared between the Court and the City. But it was 
 conducted upon terms of mutual respect and cautious 
 circumspection. Both parties took the tone of armed 
 neutrality rather than one of active hostility. The 
 Queen's patronage of Leicester's men, her known 
 partiality for stage-shows, and the privilege claimed by 
 the nobility, rendered it impossible for the Common 
 Council to prosecute their case with vigour. While 
 
 ' The Second and Third Blast, printed in 1 580, ' allowed by Authority,' 
 and adorned with the shield of the City, forms an important manifesto 
 against plays and theatres from the side of the Corporation. A long 
 section is directed against the privilege of Noblemen to maintain players, 
 and their abuse of this privilege by omitting to support them and turning 
 them over to the public as their source of income. See Roxburghe 
 Library Reprint, pp. 133 et seq. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 protesting, they were forced to tolerate. The Court, 
 upon the other hand, was glad to temporise. It formed 
 no part of the Crown's policy to tamper with the ancient 
 freedom of the City ; and the attitude assumed by the 
 burghers of London showed that the matter in debate 
 was one of no slight moment to them. Instead, there- 
 fore, of fighting out the battle, both sides consented to 
 a compromise. Instead of defining the situation by 
 fixed statute, it was left indefinite. The players took 
 the best line which was open to them. Relying on the 
 favour of the Court, bending to the authority of the 
 Corporation, they established themselves in permanent 
 buildings outside the strict limits of the City. This 
 was a conclusion of the struggle which the City can 
 hardly have foreseen. Hitherto plays had been acted 
 in the yards and galleries of inns on scaffolds erected 
 for the purpose. The Orders of the Common Council 
 had been directed chiefly against scandals thence en- 
 suing. Now they found themselves obliged to tolerate 
 a far more formidable nuisance. In Shoreditch, at 
 Blackfriars, on Bankside, in the best frequented and 
 most accessible suburbs, the players, whom the burghers 
 wished to extirpate, began to erect theatres. The 
 debatable lands which these persistent servants of the 
 public and the Court had chosen for their settlement, 
 illustrated in geographical terms the compromise upon 
 which their future existence depended. Those out- 
 lying districts were neither in the City nor the fields. 
 Comprehended for certain purposes within the juris- 
 diction of the Mayor, they still formed no parcel of his 
 undisputed, indefeasible domains. The suburbs sa- 
 voured of the country, to which the Corporation sought 
 
THEATRES BUILT IN THE SUBURBS. 277 
 
 to relegate play-acting. Yet they lay convenient to the 
 public, and were handy to the gallants of the Court. It 
 was under the tacit, if unwilling, consent of the Mayor, 
 though not without explicit protest from distinguished 
 inhabitants of the invaded quarters, that the first self- 
 styled Theatres were built in 1576. 
 
 The decisive issue in this contest between the Court 
 and players on the one hand and the Corporation on the 
 other, resulting in the banishment of the players from 
 the City and their erection of permanent stages, is 
 commemorated in the following popular rhyme : 
 
 List unto my ditty ! 
 Alas, the more the pity. 
 From Troynovant's old city 
 The Aldermen and Mayor 
 Have driven each poor player ! 
 
 What the ballad leaves unnoticed, because it was not 
 then apparent, is that this expulsion of the players 
 from the City, with their ensuing settlement in the 
 suburbs, decided the fortunes of our Drama, and ad- 
 vanced it from the state of nomadism to that of urbane 
 and accredited civility. 
 
 The year 1576, following that in which the Corpo- 
 ration made its unsuccessful onslaught on play-acting, 
 may be regarded as the birth-year of the English 
 Drama. Three theatres, at least, were then established 
 in the purlieus of the City. The first of these was 
 styled ' The Theatre ; ' the second took its name, in 
 all probability, from the plot of ground on which it 
 stood, and was called ' The Curtain.' ^ Both were in 
 Shoreditch, and both soon obtained a bad reputation 
 
 * Curtina in base Latin means a little court. 
 
278 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 for brawling, low company, and disreputable entertain- 
 ments. In the old play of Stukeley, the hero dis- 
 charges, among his other debts, upon his marriage 
 morning, five marks to the Bailiff of Finsbury — 
 
 For frays and bloodshed in the Theatre fields. 
 
 A ballad written in contempt of Marlowe records, 
 among the disorders of his manhood, that — 
 
 He had also a player been 
 
 Upon the Curtain stage. 
 But brake his leg in one lewd scene 
 
 When in his early age. 
 
 The Servants of Lord Leicester in the sa me y ear built 
 their theatre at Blackfriars. On hearing that Burbage 
 had bought up certain dwellings for this purpose, near 
 the Lord Chamberlain's lodgings, the respectable in- 
 habitants of Blackfriars petitioned the Privy Council 
 against his project. They alleged that the concourse 
 of ' vagrant and lewd persons ' would prove a nuisance 
 to the neighbourhood, and in particular that the play- 
 house being close to the church, ' the noise of the drums 
 and trumpets will greatly disturb and hinder both the 
 minister and the parishioners.' It is noticeable that 
 the Lord Chamberlain did not sign this petition. The 
 theatre was built, and continued to enjoy a high reputa- 
 tion under the name of ' The Blackfriars.' Burbage's 
 company, which had first been Leicester's men, soon 
 after their settlement at Blackfriars, were known as 
 the Lord Chamberlain's Servants. Later on, in the 
 reign of James, they called themselves the King's 
 Servants. Their theatre, like those of Shoreditch, was 
 a wooden structure. After twenty years' use it became 
 
CENSORSHIP OF VARIOUS KINDS. 279 
 
 untenantable, and in 1 596 it was rebuilt, Shakspere's 
 name occurring at that time among the company.^ 
 
 A sermon, preached at Paul's Cross in December 
 1576 or 1577, shows that the erection of these theatres 
 had made a profound impression on the public mind. 
 * Look but upon the common plays in London,' exclaims 
 the preacher, ' and see the multitude that flocketh to 
 them and followeth them ! Behold the sumptuous 
 Theatre houses, a continual monument of London's 
 prodigality and folly ! ' What, he argues, is the sense 
 of closing them in times of sickness ? ' The cause of 
 plagues is sin ; and the cause of sin are plays ; there- 
 fore the cause of plagues are plays.' A triumphant 
 syllogism, if the premisses be granted ' 
 
 The voices of preachers and Puritan pamphleteers 
 were daily raised against playhouses. Yet the Court 
 would not abandon its amusements, and the public 
 grew daily more attached to the Drama. Elizabeth, 
 about this period, ratified her patronage of the Drama 
 by selecting twelve actors from the servants of her 
 nobles, and calling them the Queen's Players. In 
 1582 the contest between the Privy Council and the 
 Corporation was renewed, and the old arguments were 
 employed to silence the scruples of the citizens. 
 ■ Playgoing is an ' honest recreation,' and players must 
 have practice in order to ' attain to the more perfection 
 and dexterity' when they appear at Court. At the 
 same time, the Lords of Council were desirous that 
 the Drama should be placed under proper restrictions. 
 Acting upon Sundays, in Lent, or during service time 
 on holydays, was strictly forbidden — a prohibition 
 
 ' Query : Was Blackfriars rebuilt or built for the first time in 1596? -f. 
 
28o SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 constantly evaded in fact. Stage-plays were kept 
 under the censorship of the Master of the Revels ; 
 and when Martin Marprelate was brought upon the 
 stage in 1589, commissioners were appointed to assist 
 that functionary of the Court in his labours. At this 
 period, all acting was suspended for a season. 
 
 To the continued jealousy of the civic authorities, 
 combined with the censorship established by the Court, 
 we may ascribe the comparative purity of moral tone 
 and the total absence of political or religious satire, 
 which distinguish our early Drama. When we contrast 
 English Interludes with French Farces, and English 
 with Italian Comedies, we cannot fail to be struck with 
 the greater manliness and innocence that mark the 
 comic stage of London. The whole mass of our 
 dramatic literature reveals nothing like the ' Farce de 
 Frere Guillebert ' or the ' Mandragola ' of Machiavelli. 
 Perhaps, without indulging too much in national vanity, 
 we may attribute something also to the healthy spirit 
 of the English people. The public, who were the real 
 patrons of the Drama, kept the playwrights within 
 decent limits ; for the public, though it did not 
 share the Puritan horror of dramatic exhibitions, re- 
 mained in sympathy with law-abiding and God-fearing 
 teachers. At the same time, English people, before 
 the triumph of Puritan opinions, saw no reason why 
 theatres should not stand side by side with churches, 
 and both be used for purposes of intellectual ad- 
 vancement. The very invectives of the preachers,' 
 humorously jealous of the playhouse, prove how little 
 the good folk of London dreaded the contaminations of 
 the stage. ' Woe is me ! ' cries one in 1586, ' the play- 
 
GROWTH AND EXTENSION OF THEATRES. 281 
 
 houses are pestered, when churches are naked : at the 
 one it is not possible to get a place, at the other 
 void seats are plenty. When the bells toll to the 
 Lecturer, the trumpets sound to the stages ! ' 
 
 IV. 
 
 Meanwhile the art and industry of acting rose into 
 comparative respectability, and considerable wealth 
 was flowing into the coffers of the Companies. ' It is 
 a woeful sight,' groans out the Puritan, ' to see two 
 hundred proud players jet in their silks, where five 
 hundred poor people starve in the streets ! ' as though 
 money acquired in honest service of the public by play- 
 acting might not be spent upon fine clothes, as well as 
 money gained by selling cloth or forging broad -swords ! 
 ' Over-lashing in apparel,' writes Gosson, ' is so com- 
 mon a fault, that the very hirelings of some of our 
 players, which stand at reversion of 6s. by the week, 
 jet under gentlemen's noses in suits of silk, exercising 
 themselves to prating on the stage and common 
 scoffing when they come abroad, where they look 
 askance over the shoulder at tvery man of whom the 
 Sunday before they begged an alms.' 
 
 Many places of public entertainment had been con- 
 verted into theatres before the close of the century. 
 Paris Garden was a circus for bear-baiting, capable 
 of holding one thousand people, if we may trust 
 the report of an accident which happened there one 
 Sunday in 1582. It was fitted up and used for a 
 playhouse, when Henslowe and Meade took it in 161 3. 
 On the Bankside in Southwark, near to London 
 
282 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Bridge, we find a nest of such small theatres : the 
 Hope, originally a bear-garden ; the Rose, and the 
 Swan, so called from their signs. Newington Butts 
 was the title of a house erected for the convenience of 
 archers and pleasurers in that suburb. On its boards 
 ' The Jew of Malta,' the first ' Hamlet,' the ' Taming of 
 the Shrew,' and ' Tamburlaine,' were brought out. The 
 yard of the ' Red Bull ' had long been employed for 
 occasional performances, before the erection of perma- 
 nent theatres. Late in Elizabeth's reign it was con- 
 verted into a playhouse of a rough and somewhat 
 boisterous type ; though excellent playwrights, like 
 Heywood, wrote for it. The Cockpit, or the Phoenix, 
 in Drury Lane was also turned into a theatre early in 
 the reign of James. It too enjoyed no favourable 
 reputation, being surrounded with houses of ill fame, 
 which exposed it in 1616 to partial demolition by the 
 prentices on Shrove Tuesday. Whitefriars and Salis- 
 bury Court could also boast their theatres. But we 
 have reason to believe that these two houses may have 
 occupied the same site, for Whitefriars ceased to 
 exhibit before Salisbury Court came into notice. 
 
 I have hitherto omitted all mention of the two 
 most famous houses in the annals of the stage, the 
 Globe and Fortune. The Globe was first erected 
 in 1593 by Richard Burbage, leader of the Lord 
 Chamberlain's or King's Men. It stood on the Bank- 
 side. Street, a builder, was engaged to construct it of 
 timber. The theatre was hexagon-shaped externally, 
 and round within. It had two doors, one leading into 
 the body of the house, the other into the actors' tire- 
 room. It was open to the air, with the exception of 
 
GLOBE AND FORTUNE. 283 
 
 a thatched roof or ' heaven/ projecting over the stage. 
 The audience stood in the large central place or ' yard,' 
 which was railed off from the stage. Private boxes 
 were provided round this yard, for such as chose to 
 pay for them. This primitive theatre, for ever famous 
 as the scene of Shakspere's exploits, was burned 
 down in 16 13 during the performance of a play upon 
 the history of the reign of Henry VIII. Two small 
 guns, it appears, were let off in the course of a pageant, 
 and their discharge set fire to the thatched roof of the 
 heaven. Next year, the house was rebuilt, at the cost 
 of James and noblemen, with a tiled roof, ' in far 
 fairer manner than before.' The Company of Burbage 
 and Shakspere played here in the summer. In the 
 winter they used their other theatre of Blackfriars. 
 
 The Fortune came into existence in 1599. Hen- 
 slowe and Alleyn caused it to be built by Peter 
 Street in avowed competition with the Globe. At 
 this epoch the numerous companies of London had 
 resolved themselves into two main rival troupes : that 
 of Burbage and Shakspere, known as the Lord Cham- 
 berlain's or the King's Men ; and that of Henslowe 
 and Alleyn, known as the Lord Admiral's, and after- 
 wards as the Prince Henry's, Men. Shakspere, as 
 dramatist, actor, and part-owner, gave the tone to 
 the former of these companies, and supported their 
 theatrical business with a genius which is now known 
 to have been incomparable. But, during the period of 
 Shakspere's management, this vast superiority was not 
 apparent. Henslowe was a shrewd and stirring man 
 of affairs, interested in more than one of the best 
 London theatres, and keeping famous playwrights in 
 
284 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 his service. Alleyn was perhaps the greatest actor of 
 the English stage. While the Lord Chamberlain's troop 
 appealed through Shakspere to the highest faculties of 
 the audience, and showed in their performances a 
 certain unity of moral and artistic tone ; Henslowe, 
 on the other hand, knew well how to sustain his 
 popularity by efficiency in theatrical details, and how 
 to stimulate the public interest by constant variety. 
 Consequently the two companies were not ill matched ; 
 and to their rivalry we owe the unexampled fertility 
 of our dramatic literature in the first decade of the 
 seventeenth century. 
 
 The success of the Globe pushed Alleyn on to 
 build the Fortune. It was erected in Golding Lane, 
 Cripplegate. Up to the time of its destruction by fire 
 in 1 62 1, it was a square building, of lath and plaster, 
 measuring eighty feet externally on each of its four 
 sides. Inside, it measured fifty-five feet each way ; so 
 that about twelve feet and a half were left for boxes, 
 galleries, and staircases in front, and tiring-rooms behind 
 the stage. It had three tiers of boxes, rising twelve, 
 eleven, and nine feet, one above the other. The stage 
 was fortj'-three feet wide, leaving a gangway on each 
 side into the yard, and twenty-seven feet and a half deep 
 to the partition of the tiring-room. The ' gentlemen's and 
 twopenny rooms,' or private boxes, had four divisions ; 
 and the tiring-rooms were furnished with windows. 
 
 The stage was fenced with oak ; and the roof called 
 
 'the heaven' or 'the shadow' — was tiled. It stood 
 upon wooden pillars, carved square and surmounted 
 with satyrs for capitals. From Alleyn's pocket-book 
 we gather that the cost of the erection amounted to 
 
PLAYING COMPANIES. 285 
 
 520/. This sum, when added to the purchase of the 
 lease and some adjacent buildings, he reckons at a 
 total of 880/. The theatre was rebuilt in 1623, after 
 a conflagration which destroyed the structure, together 
 with the dresses, properties, and play-books of the 
 company, in two hours. The new Fortune was pro- 
 bably of brick. 
 
 Thus London at the end of Elizabeth's reign had 
 at least eleven theatres. Efforts were made, from 
 time to time, by antagonists of the stage, to reduce 
 this number to two, the Globe and the Fortune. But 
 such endeavours proved unavailing ; and when the 
 Commonwealth put an end to theatres, we know that 
 six were pulled down and destroyed between 1644 and 
 1656.^ Corresponding efforts were made to check the 
 multipHcation of companies, and to confine them to 
 the two which had received Royal Licence, namely, 
 the Lord Chamberlain's and the Lord Admiral's Men. 
 These, as we have seen, commanded the largest share 
 of public favour and attention. But they by no means 
 enjoyed a monopoly of the stage. In the reign of 
 James, it became fashionable for players to put them- 
 selves under the patronage of various members of the 
 Royal Family. In addition to the servants of the 
 nobility, we hear of the Queen's Servants and the 
 Prince Palatine's Servants, not counting minor troops 
 assembled by private adventurers. The boys attached 
 to choirs, who took so prominent a share in theatrical 
 performances, will receive notice in their proper place 
 
 » The Globe, April 1644 ; Blackfriars, August 1655 ; Salisbury Court, 
 March 1649 ; Phcenix, March 1649 ; Fortune, 1649 ; Hope, 1656. These 
 dates are given on the authority of a letter addressed by Mr. Furnivall to 
 the Academy, Oct. 28, 1882. 
 
286 SHAICSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 and time. From an early period they formed the 
 nurseries of actors, and had a separate existence from 
 that of the playing companies. It must here, how- 
 ever, be noted, that the Court had a direct interest in 
 the promotion and encouragement of actors. Masques 
 and plays formed an indispensable element of the 
 royal equipage ; lacking which, the Court of England 
 would have cut but a poor figure by comparison with 
 the other Courts of Europe. The sovereign's establish- 
 ment was unable to stand alone. It needed recruiting 
 grounds and exercising grounds, schools in which the 
 actors tried their talents on the public. Nor was the 
 Crown disposed to check the pastimes of the people, 
 which brought it popularity, and which supplied the 
 gentle youth with entertainment. Therefore, the 
 royal countenance was given, for the Court's sake and 
 the people's sake, to private speculators. At the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century, in England, the 
 dramatic business of the metropolis was thus conducted 
 by two great Companies under the King's patent, and 
 by the Court, which needed their co-operation and 
 assistance. Minor troops revolved around these 
 luminaries as their centres, forming as occasion served, 
 disbanding, and resolving their component parts into 
 the main attractive bodies of the Globe, the Fortune, 
 and Whitehall. When the national party, which had 
 been hostile to play-acting from the first, became 
 politically omnipotent, theatres were swept away to- 
 gether with the Monarchy of England. The intimate 
 connection between the Court and the Drama is thus 
 established, and a certain political importance is vindi- 
 cated for the Puritan tirades against the stage. 
 
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE HOUSES. 287 
 
 V. 
 
 Of the eleven theatres above enumerated, some 
 were called public, and some private. The latter were 
 smaller in size, roofed all over, and frequented by a 
 more select company. Their performances, like those 
 of the public theatres, took place in the afternoon, but 
 by candle-light. For night scenes, the windows were 
 closed to exclude daylight, and some of the torches 
 were extinguished. Blackfriars, Salisbury Court, and 
 the Cockpit in Drury Lane (though this is not quite 
 certain, since the Cockpit had a reputation for low 
 company) were private houses. The Globe, Fortune, 
 and Bull, were public. Both classes of theatres 
 had signs. Heywood, in the fourth act of his ' English 
 Traveller,' speaks of 'the picture of Dame Fortune 
 before the Fortune playhouse ; ' and Malone asserts, 
 on insufficient but not improbable grounds, that the 
 sign of the Globe was a Hercules supporting the 
 world.^ When the play was going to begin, the actors 
 hoisted flags and blew trumpets. Play-bills to an- 
 nounce the show, were also in common use ; tho.se 
 of tragedies being printed in red letters. Perform- 
 ances began at three o'clock in the afternoon, and 
 averaged about two hours in duration ; so that the 
 audience came to the theatre at a convenient time 
 after their dinner, and got away in winter before night- 
 fall. The piece of the day was generally closed with 
 an address to the sovereign, recited by the actors 
 on their knees. Then followed a kind of farce, 
 
 1 Comp. Hamlet, act ii. sc. 2. 
 
288 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 technically called a jig, in which the Clown performed 
 a solo. Jigs were written in rhyme, plentifully inter- 
 spersed with gag and extempore action. 
 
 Entrance prices varied according to the theatre, the 
 seat, and the kind of exhibition. First representations 
 seem to have drawn higher sums, and so did actors of 
 the first celebrity. For the most ordinary shows, three 
 pennies were paid : ' one at the gate, another at the entry 
 of the scaffold, and a third for quiet standing.' In the 
 larger theatres there was a place called the ' twopenny 
 room,' which answered to our gallery, and was probably 
 paid for extra after the entrance fee, which admitted 
 spectators to the yard or cheapest place. Private 
 boxes, or compartments in the ' gentlemen's rooms,' 
 were sold at a higher rate. The doors of these boxes 
 shut with locks, the keys of which were handed over 
 to their lessees. The lowest frequenters of the public 
 theatres, contemptuously alluded to as 'groundlings' 
 and ' stinkards,' stood in the yard beneath the open sky. 
 In the private theatres, the yard was called the pit, 
 and was supplied with benches. Spectators of the 
 more fashionable kind, who frequented theatres to see 
 and be seen, sat on three-legged stools upon the stage. 
 At the private theatres they had the right, it seems, to 
 do so ; but at the public houses they took this place 
 by force, in defiance of the hissings and hootings of 
 the groundlings separated from them by the barriers of 
 the stage. For the use of a stool they paid sixpence, 
 which was collected after they had taken their seats. 
 This custom was a great annoyance both to the actors 
 and the audience ; for the young gallants, who affected 
 it, showed very little consideration for either. They 
 
PRICES AND PROFITS. 289 
 
 exchanged remarks, and chaffed the players, peeled 
 oranges and threw apples into the yard, puffed tobacco 
 from pipes lighted by their pages, and flirted with the 
 women in the neighbouring boxes. It was found 
 necessary at last to double the price of a ' tripod ; ' 
 but it may be doubted whether this served to check 
 the practice. 
 
 Taking various circumstances into consideration, it 
 may be estimated that on a good night at one of the 
 larger theatres, prices varying from sixpence to half- 
 a-crown were paid for a seat. 
 
 To form an accurate and lively picture of an 
 Elizabethan stage-performance is not easy from the 
 meagre references which we now possess. Yet some- 
 thing of the sort might be attempted. Let us imagine 
 that the red-lettered play-bill of a new tragedy has 
 been hung out beneath the picture of Dame Fortune. 
 The flag is flying from the roof The drums have 
 beaten, and the trumpets are sounding for the second 
 time. It is three o'clock upon an afternoon of summer. 
 We pass through the great door, ascend some steps, 
 take our key from the pocket of our trunk-hose, and 
 let ourselves into our private room upon the first or 
 lowest tier. We find ourselves in a low square build- 
 ing, open to the slanting sunlight, built of shabby 
 wood, not unlike a circus ; smelling of sawdust and the 
 breath of people. The yard below is crowded with 
 'sixpenny mechanics,' and prentices in greasy leathern 
 jerkins, servants in blue frie/e with their masters' 
 badges on their shoulders, boys and grooms, elbowing 
 each other for bare standing ground and passing coarse 
 jests on their neighbours. A similar crowd is in the 
 
 u 
 
290 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 twopenny room above our heads, except that here are 
 a few flaunting girls. Not many women of respect- 
 abiHty are visible, though two or three have taken a 
 side-box, from which they lean forward to exchange 
 remarks with the gallants on the stage. Five or six 
 young men are already seated there before the curtain, 
 playing cards and cracking nuts to while away the 
 time. A boy goes up and down among them, offering- 
 various qualities of tobacco for sale, and furnishing 
 lights for the smokers. The stage itself is strewn with 
 rushes ; and from the jutting tiled roof of the shadow, 
 supported by a couple of stout wooden pillars, carved 
 into satyrs at the top, hangs a curtain of tawny- 
 coloured silk. This is drawn when the trumpets have 
 sounded for the third time ; and an actor in a black 
 velvet mantle, with a crown of bays upon his flowing 
 wig, struts forward bowing to the audience for atten- 
 tion. He is the Prologue. He has barely broken into 
 the jogtrot of his declamation, when a bustle is heard 
 behind, and a fine fellow comes shouldering past him 
 from the tire-room followed by a mincing page. 
 
 ' A stool, boy ! ' cries our courtier, flinging off his 
 cloak, and displaying a doublet of white satin and hose 
 of blue silk. The Prologue has to stand aside, and 
 falters in his speech. The groundlings hiss, groan, 
 mew like cats, and howl out, ' Filthy ! filthy ! ' It may 
 also happen that an apple is flung upon the stage, to 
 notify the people's disapproval of this interruption. 
 Undisturbed by these discourtesies, however, the new 
 comer twirls his moustachios, fingers his sword-hilt, and 
 nods to his acquaintance. After compliments to the 
 gentlemen already seated, the gallant at last disposes 
 
PERFORMANCES DESCRIBED. 291 
 
 himself in a convenient place of observation, and the 
 Prologue ends. The first act now begins. There is 
 nothing but the rudest scenery : a battlemented city- 
 wall behind the stage, with a placard hung out upon it, 
 indicating that the scene is Rome. As the play pro- 
 ceeds, this figure of a town makes way for some wooden 
 rocks and a couple of trees, to signify the Hyrcanian 
 forest. A damsel, with a close-shaved chin, wanders 
 alone in this wood, lamenting her sad case. Suddenly 
 a cardboard dragon is thrust from the sides upon the 
 stage, and she takes to flight. The first act closes 
 with a speech from an old gentleman arrayed in antique 
 robes, whose white beard flows down upon his chest. 
 He is the Chorus ; and it is his business to explain 
 what has happened to the damsel, and how in the next 
 act her son, a sprightly youth of eighteen years, will 
 conquer kingdoms. During the course of the play, 
 music is made use of for the recreation of the audience 
 with songs and ditties, and much attention is bestowed 
 upon the costly dresses of the principal performers. 
 Meanwhile, a cut-purse has been found plying his 
 trade in the yard. It is a diversion in the interval 
 between the acts, to see him hoisted with many a cuff 
 and kick to the stage. There he is tied tightly to 
 one of the pillars, and left to linger the performance 
 out against his will — literally pilloried— pelted and 
 scoffed at when the audience have nothing else to do. 
 The show concludes with a Prayer for the Queen's 
 Majesty, uttered by the actors on their knees. After 
 this is over, or possibly while it is still in progress, the 
 spectators make their exit. Those who have come 
 
 for rational amusement, pass criticisms on the piece, 
 
 u 2 
 
292 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 the company, and the poet's wit. Others put up the 
 table-books, to which they have committed memoranda 
 of choice phrases, epigrams, new-fangled oaths, and 
 definitions fit to air at social gatherings. Young men, 
 who have scraped acquaintance with some damsel in 
 the galleries or boxes, conduct the fair Amanda to a 
 supper in the private room of an adjacent tavern. 
 
 VI. 
 
 It is difficult for us to realise the simplicity with 
 w:hich the stage was mounted in the London theatres. 
 Scenery may be said to have been almost wholly 
 absent. Even in Masques performed at Court, on 
 which immense sums of money were lavished, and 
 which employed the ingenuity of men like Inigo Jones, 
 effect was obtained by groupings of figures in dances, 
 by tableaux and processions, gilded chariots, temples, 
 fountains, and the like, far more than by scene-paint- 
 ing. Upon the public stage such expenditure had, of 
 course, to be avoided. Attention was concentrated 
 on the actors, with whose movements, boldly defined 
 against a simple background, nothing interfered. The 
 stage on which they played was narrow, projecting 
 into the yard, surrounded on all sides by spectators. 
 Their action was thus brought into prominent relief, 
 placed close before the eye, deprived of all perspective. 
 It acquired a special kind of realism, which the vast 
 distances and manifold artifices of our modern theatres 
 have rendered unattainable. This was the realism of 
 an actual event, at which the audience assisted ; not 
 the realism of a scene to which the audience is trans- 
 
MATERIAL CONDITIONS OF THE STAGE. 293 
 
 ported by the painter's skill, and in which the actor 
 plays a somewhat subordinate part. As might be 
 expected in a theatre of this description, the actor's 
 wardrobe was both rich and various. John Alleyn's 
 note-book informs us that he paid as much as 20/. 
 \os. for one cloak, and 16/. for another costume. 
 The dresses of a playhouse formed indisputably its 
 most valuable property. Attention being so closely 
 and exclusively directed to the players, they were 
 forced to be appropriately and substantially attired. 
 Moving, as it were, upon the same plane as the au- 
 dience, they had to detach themselves from their 
 surroundings by impressive brilliancy of outfit. This 
 want of perspective in the Elizabethan stage, and the 
 absence of scenical appeals to the sense of sight, deter- 
 mined the style of dramatic composition. Our older 
 playwrights depended upon the fancy of the audience 
 to conjure up the scenes which they described. The 
 luxuriance of their diction can be attributed to the 
 necessity they felt for stimulating the spectators to an 
 effort of imagination. Their disregard of place and 
 time was justified by the conditions of a stage which 
 left all to the intellect. The mind can contemplate 
 the furthest Ind as easily as more familiar objects ; 
 nor need it dread to traverse the longest tract of years, 
 the widest expanse of space, in following the sequence 
 of an action. It resulted from these circumstances 
 that the language of the dramatist and the personality 
 of the actor were all-important. A naked action was 
 presented by the player to the audience. That naked 
 action had to be assisted by the playwright's poetry ; 
 and much that now seems superfluous in the descriptive 
 
294 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 passages of the Elizabethan tragedies, was needed to 
 excite imagination/ 
 
 Even more valuable than the wardrobe was the 
 library of a theatre. Each company bought and 
 jealously preserved the MSS. of plays, which became 
 its exclusive property, until such time as the author 
 obtained leave to print it, or some publisher contrived 
 to pirate it. One of the strongest charges brought 
 against Robert Greene was, that he had sold the same 
 play to two rival companies ; and complaints are 
 frequently made that mutilated copies of a comedy 
 had got abroad without the owner's sanction. Short- 
 hand writers frequented theatres for the express pur- 
 pose of taking down the text of a new play, which 
 they conveyed to press or sold to a competing set of 
 actors. This custom partly accounts for the infamous 
 state in which we have received many dramas — blank 
 verse reduced to chaos, phrases misunderstood, and 
 speeches clearly compressed to suit the scribe's con- 
 venience. The extraordinary indifference of play- 
 wrights must also be taken into account. Hejrwood 
 and Marston repeatedly protest against the publication 
 of plays which they had written to be acted. Having 
 placed the MS. in the hands of the manager, and 
 received their money for it, the authors thought it 
 worth no more attention. Jonson was sneered at for 
 styling his plays ' Works ; ' and Webster got the 
 reputation of a pedant for taking pains about the 
 appearance of his tragedies in print. With time how- 
 
 ' It may be worth quoting a passage from Tom Coryat, who, in his 
 Crudities, observes that the comic theatre in Venice is ' very beggarly 
 and base in comparison of our stately playhouses in England • neither 
 "can their actors compare with ours for apparel, shows and music' 
 
PRICES PAID FOR PLAYS. 295 
 
 ever, dramatists began to superintend the publication 
 of their own plays. With or without their permission, 
 these things reached the press. The public bought 
 them for sixpence, and read them with avidity. 
 Authors perceived that they could make a profit from 
 the publisher, and receive a handsome sum from the 
 patron to whom they inscribed their composition. It 
 was also to their interest to see that works which bore 
 their name, appeared without gross blemishes. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The sums paid for a play varied considerably. The 
 Diary of Philip Henslowe makes it clear that up to 
 the year 1600 the highest price he ever paid was 8/. 
 or 9/. He gave Drayton, Dekker, and Chettle only 
 4/. for a History of Henry I. Jonson, Porter, and 
 Chettle received from him 6/. for a comedy called 
 ' Hot Anger soon Cold.' Greene sold ' Orlando 
 Furioso ' for something over 7/. Ben Jonson raised 
 the price of plays to a minimum of 10/. In ' Histrio- 
 mastix.' the poet-scholar Chrisoganus, when asked, 
 ' What's the lowest price ? ' answers : 
 
 You know as well as I ; ten pound the play. 
 
 Henslowe occupied a somewhat singular position in 
 dramatic society. He was part-owner of the For- 
 tune and several other theatres. As manager and 
 impresario, he came into business relations with actors 
 and authors who were not, like Shakspere, exclu- 
 sively devoted to the Globe. But he also appears to 
 have established a kind of brokerage between the 
 
296 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 companies and playwrights, by means of which he 
 made much private profit. He speculated on the 
 necessities of authors, advancing money to secure their 
 services or to help them at a pinch. Some of the 
 needier quill-drivers, a Daborne or a Munday or a 
 Chettle, were thus always in his debt ; and he drove 
 hard bargains with them. Daborne, in one of his 
 letters to Henslowe, complains that the playing Com- 
 pany would have given 20/. for his labour, which 
 seems to prove that the broker had some previous 
 claim upon him. Or else we may suppose that 
 the Company's pay involved participation in their 
 profits, whereas Henslowe paid in cash and took 
 the risks. A passage in the ' Actors' Remonstrance ' 
 points to the habit of securing the service of play- 
 wrights by ' annual stipends and beneficial second- 
 days ; ' and we know that it was customary to allow the 
 playwright a benefit upon the second or third day, or 
 both. Daborne stipulates with Henslowe for ' but 1 2/. 
 and the overplus of the second day.' A large propor- 
 tion of Elizabethan plays were the joint production of 
 several authors, who must have had their own system 
 of dividing profits. In some cases the playwrights 
 collaborated to save time in ' firking up ' a comedy or 
 history. Other instances, where several names are 
 printed on a title-page, point to the remodelling of 
 popular plays by new hands. Or a poet would add 
 prologue and epilogue to a piece which needed some 
 fresh attraction. For this sort of service Henslowe 
 generally paid 5^^. Still, we have every reason to 
 believe that the practice of genuine collaboration in 
 the concoction of a drama was common. It does not 
 
BOY- ACTORS. 297 
 
 SO much argue good fellowship among the dramatists, 
 though that undoubtedly existed, as their thoroughly 
 business-like conception of their craft. A play had to 
 be produced for a certain price, and they applied the 
 principle of divided labour to its composition, careless 
 of posterity, seeking money profit more than fame. 
 When play-writing became fashionable, poets from the 
 universities with tedious tragedies, persons of quality 
 with stupid comic pieces to dispose of, had to pay the 
 managers to get their rubbish acted. It may here be 
 mentioned that in the flourishing period of the Drama, 
 playwrights very commonly were also actors and ma- 
 nagers of theatres. Marlowe and Hey wood, Shak- 
 spereand Jonson, to mention only the more prominent, 
 served their apprenticeship as players to the stage. 
 Cyril Tourneur took a company across the seas to 
 act in Flanders. Davenant in 1639 obtained letters 
 patent for erecting what would have been the largest 
 theatre in London. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Considering how little the Elizabethan Drama owed 
 to scenery and mounting, and how wholly it depended 
 for interpretation upon acting, the facts we know about 
 stage-players are not a little astonishing. First and 
 foremost, actresses were never seen upon the stage.^ 
 Beardless youths ' boyed the greatness ' of Cleopatra 
 
 • A strong feeling prevailed in England against actresses. In 1629 a 
 French company came over and played at Blackfriars. Prynne, in his 
 Histriomastix, terms the actresses among them, 'French women or 
 monsters rather.' They were not well received, but on the contrary were 
 ' hissed, hooted, and pippin-pelted from the stage.' See Collier, i. 452. 
 
298 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 and Lady Macbeth. Hobbledehoys 'squeaked' out 
 the pathos of Desdemona and JuHet's passion. Some- 
 times the beard and broken voice were only too 
 apparent in these male performers of female parts. 
 • O, my old friend ! ' says Hamlet, when he greets the 
 players : ' thy face is valanced since I saw thee last ; 
 comest thou to beard me in Denmark ? What, my 
 young lady and mistress ! By'r lady, your ladyship is 
 nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the 
 altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like a 
 piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the 
 ring.' 
 
 It appears that boys who acted female characters 
 received higher pay than adults. This arose, no 
 doubt, from the difficulty of finding lads sufficiently 
 good-looking and well-educated to sustain a woman's 
 part with dignity and grace. It was only for a short 
 while that their capacity for representing women lasted ; 
 and during those few years they were much sought 
 after. When their beards grew and their voices broke, 
 they proceeded to the common business of the theatre. 
 From a ' Dialogue of Plays and Players ' written after 
 the Restoration, we glean a few details respecting these 
 boy-actors. ' Hart and Clun,' says Trueman, ' were 
 bred up boys at the Blackfriars, and acted women's 
 parts. Hart was Robinson's boy or apprentice ; he 
 acted the Duchess in the tragedy of " The Cardinal," 
 which was the first part that gave him reputation.' 
 Durfey, who had seen Hart play in Chapman's ' Bussy 
 d'Ambois,' calls him ' that eternally renowned and best 
 of actors.' He took the part in a revival of the tragedy 
 in 1675. The same interlocutor adds further on: 
 
NORTHBROOKE ON BOYS ACTING. 299 
 
 ' Amyntor was played by Stephen Hammerton, who 
 was at first a most noted and beautiful woman-actor, 
 but afterwards he acted with equal grace and applause 
 a young lover's part.' 
 
 In the infancy of the theatre, it was customary for 
 whole plays to be performed by boys. At the great 
 schools, Eton and Westminster for instance, acting 
 formed a part of the ordinary course of education, 
 combining exercise in memory and elocution with 
 honest recreation. When Northbrooke published his 
 sweeping condemnation of the stage in 1577, he made 
 an exception in favour of these private performances. 
 ' I think it is lawful for a schoolmaster to practise his 
 scholars to play comedies, observing these and the like 
 cautions : first, that those comedies which they shall 
 play be not mixed with any ribaldry and filthy terms 
 and words. Secondly, that they be for learning and 
 utterance' sake, in Latin, and very seldom in English. 
 Thirdly, that they use not to play commonly and often, 
 but very rare and seldom. Fourthly, that they be not 
 pranked and decked up in gorgeous and sumptuous 
 apparel in their play. Fifthly, that it be not made 
 a common exercise, publicly, for profit and gain of 
 money, but for learning and exercise' sake. And lastly, 
 that their comedies be not mixed with vain and wanton 
 toys of love,' Northbrooke's rules and regulations for_ 
 boy -actors were consistently violated in practice. The 
 choristers of cathedral and royal foundations, the Child- 
 ren of the Queen's Chapel, of Windsor and of S. Paul's, 
 became public actors, and performed upon the common 
 stage. It also appears that great men, who patronised 
 the theatre, kept companies of boys as well as adult 
 
 n> 
 
30O SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 players; thus we hear of Leicester's boys in 1577. 
 The custom of combining the duties of the choir and 
 the theatre dated from the eariiest times of Mysteries 
 and Miracles. The Children of Paul's petitioned 
 Richard II. in 1378 against the performance of sacred 
 pageants by lewd and ignorant people, which interfered 
 with their monopoly. The same choir, numbering 
 thirty-eight boys, exhibited a Latin play before Henry 
 VIII. in 1528, when Luther was brought upon the 
 stage and satirised. It is clear from many sources that 
 the theatrical establishments of royal and noble per- 
 sons were attached to their chapels ; and we have 
 already seen that the exhibition of Miracles was at 
 first in the hands of the clergy. This helps to ex- 
 plain what seems to us the anomaly of choristers 
 being avowedly dedicated to the stage, and of reli- 
 gious foundations being used as nurseries for actors. 
 Elizabeth, in 1586, gave letters patent to Thomas 
 Gyles, then Master of the Children of Paul's, em- 
 powering him to enlist and press into his service 
 likely lads. In this, and in subsequent patents down 
 to the year 1626, when Puritan opinions were gain- 
 ing strength, and when the scandals of the public 
 stage had grown notorious, the employment of the 
 choristers of Paul's and of the Chapel Royal in 
 dramatic business was always specially contemplated. 
 The singing-i'oom at S. Paul's became a theatre, where 
 the public gained admittance upon payment. So far 
 from exhibiting harmless comedies for educational 
 exercise, these children uttered seditious matter during 
 the Martin Marprelate controversy, and had to be 
 silenced for some years after 1589. The Children of 
 the Chapel Royal, recruited under similar privileges, 
 
CHILDREN OF THE CHAPFlLS. 30! 
 
 and with the same avowed object of providing the 
 Queen with suitable actors, took the name of Children 
 of her Majesty's Revels. They played at Blackfriars, 
 when this theatre was not used by the King's Servants, 
 and had the monopoly of some of the best dramas of 
 the period, including two or three of Jonson's. At 
 last, in 1626, acting came to be thought inconsistent 
 with a chorister's duties in church. A warrant granted 
 to Nathaniel Giles in that year, provides that the boys 
 enlisted by him for the Chapel Royal shall not be 
 employed as comedians, ' for that it is not fit or decent 
 that such as should sing the praises of God Almighty, 
 should be trained or employed in such lascivious and 
 profane exercises.'^ 
 
 A list of the boys who acted in ' Cynthia's Revels ' 
 shows that several lived to be distinguished members 
 of their profession. On one of them, Salathiel Pavy, 
 who died in early youth, Jonson wrote the beautiful 
 elegy beginning : 
 
 Weep with me, all you that read 
 
 This little story ; 
 And know, for whom a tear you shed. 
 
 Death's self is sorry. 
 'T was a child, that so did thrive 
 
 In grace and feature. 
 As Heaven and nature seemed to strive 
 
 Which owned the creature. 
 Years he numbered scarce thirteen. 
 
 When fates turned cruel ; 
 Yet three filled zodiacs had he been 
 
 The stage's jewel. 
 
 1 All the treatises against the stage dwell on the impropriety of boys 
 disguising as women, ahd learning to affect the manners and passions 
 of the female sex (see Third Blast, p. 147 I Gosson's Plays Confuted, 
 pp. 195-197 ; Short Treatise, p. 243). But none hint at any very scan- 
 dalous inconveniences resulting therefrom. 
 
302 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 
 Jonson specially commends young Pavy for his just 
 representation of old men ! The Children of Black- 
 friars were very popular, and had their partisans 
 among the poets and the public, who preferred them to 
 any company of adult actors. In a tract attributed to 
 Thomas Middleton (date 1604), they are mentioned as 
 ' a nest of boys able to ravish a man.' Shakspere 
 thinks it worth while to run them down in ' Hamlet ; ' 
 where Rosencrantz is made to speak of ' an aery of 
 children, little eyasses,' who ' are now the fashion, 
 berattle the common stages,' and carry away ' Hercules 
 and his load too ' — an allusion, perhaps, to the sign of 
 the Globe Theatre. The Children of Paul's were not 
 less in request. Their singing-room had the advantage 
 of cleanliness and a select audience. A personage in 
 'Jack Drum's Entertainment' (date 1 601) is made to 
 say : 
 
 I like the audience that frequenteth there 
 With much applause. A man shall not be choked 
 With the stench of garlic, nor be pasted 
 To the barmy jacket of a beer-brewer. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive how complex and passion- 
 ate action can have been adequately represented by 
 these boy-players of the age of thirteen. The con- 
 jecture might perhaps be hazarded, that plays expressly 
 written for them — those of Jonson for example — took a 
 certain fixity of type and hardness of outline from the 
 exigencies under which the poet worked. Compared 
 with Shakspere's art, that of Jonson is certainly distin- 
 guished by formality. Instead of persons, he presents 
 incarnate types and humours. Has this to do with the 
 fact that while Shakspere wrote for his own company 
 
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING. 303 
 
 of men, Jonson knew that he was writing for boys ? 
 From this point of view, it would be interesting to 
 collect and analyse the plays which were composed for 
 boy-actors by the boys' poets. 
 
 However this may be, it cannot be questioned that 
 the dramatic training of young men furnished the 
 English theatre with an admirable body of players. 
 Professionals like Nat Field, who had been reared 
 among the Children of Blackfriars, were acquainted from 
 the cradle with the business of their craft. After a like 
 fashion, the Court and domestic fools of a previous age 
 had founded a tradition of broad comic acting, which 
 rose by degrees above buffoonery, retaining its raci- 
 ness of homespun humour, and rendering the Clowns 
 of Shakspere possible. Pursuing the same train of 
 thought, we are led to note how the musical ability of 
 choristers, accustomed to sing anthems and madrigals, 
 encouraged the poets to introduce those lyrics into plays 
 which form so effective an element in their scenes. 
 On all sides, the more we study its conditions, the 
 better we perceive how workmanlike and businesslike 
 a thing our Drama was. It had nothing amateurish 
 about it. And though we may attribute some of its 
 shortcomings to this cause, we must also reckon it 
 among the most serious advantages possessed by our 
 theatre in the Elizabethan age. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Actors were usually partners in the business of a 
 theatre. They were classified as sharers, three-fourths 
 sharers, one-half sharers, and hired men. This system 
 
304 shakspere's predecessors. 
 
 of payment connected the pecuniary interests of the 
 performers directly with those of the theatre, and re- 
 lieved the manager of much personal responsibility. 
 Henslowe's Diary informs us that 15/. was paid by an 
 actor for a whole share in bad times, and 9/. for half a 
 share in more favourable circumstances. How the pro- 
 fits were divided, we do not exactly know. Henslowe, 
 who took care as a capitalist to secure the lion's share 
 in all his ventures, pocketed the large sum of 4/. after 
 one performance of ' The Jew of Malta,' and on another 
 occasion, when ' Woman Hard to Please ' was played, 
 he netted 61. Js. M. Besides his share, a celebrated 
 actor might also receive a salary. Nat Field took 6^. a 
 week in addition to his portion of the profits. Hired 
 men were under the control of the proprietors or 
 lessees of the theatre. They worked at fixed wages, 
 and had no direct interest in the business. Lads of 
 ten entered into articled engagements. Their masters, 
 usually actors, sometimes managers of theatres, taught 
 them their trade and pocketed their earnings. Hart, 
 we have already heard, was Robinson's apprentice. 
 Beeston, a famous player at the Cockpit, had for his 
 apprentices Burt, Mohun, and Shatterel, who went on 
 playing after the Restoration. Henslowe records the 
 purchase of a boy from William Augustine for 8/. 
 Augustine must have trained the boy, holding under 
 indentures the right to use him for his own profit. 
 
 Performances at Court were a source of considerable 
 gain to acting companies. After 1574, 10/. was the 
 regular sum paid by her Majesty for a performance. 
 Like rewards were given by noblemen and gentry, at 
 whose houses the players attended. This we gather 
 
 AA 
 
STROLLING COMPANIES. 305 
 
 from a poor comedy called ' Histriomastix,' which 
 contains a curiously realistic altercation between the 
 Usher and Steward of a great house and a company of 
 actors on the tramp, about the payment of a play : 
 Ten pounds a play, or no point Comedy ! 
 
 To perform without licence from the local authorities, 
 or without the badge of some known magnate, was 
 strictly forbidden by statutes. These regulations, how- 
 ever, were commonly avoided, and players took what 
 name they pleased : 
 
 But whose men are we all this while ? 
 
 exclaims a clownish actor in ' Histriomastix,' who does 
 not know that he is being passed off as a member of 
 Sir Oliver Owlet's company. 
 
 Large London troops not unfrequently dispersed 
 in time of plague. They would then tramp ' upon the 
 hard hoof from village to village,' receiving small pay 
 unless they chanced upon some hospitable noble's 
 house in holiday, but carefully distinguished from the 
 ' roguish players ' who travelled without licence. The 
 Induction to Shakspere's ' Taming of the Shrew ' fur- 
 nishes a pretty instance of such acquaintance as might 
 well subsist between a lord and an actor. On this point 
 it must be added that James I. in 1603 put an end to 
 the noblemen's privilege of licensing players as their 
 servants. Henceforward, companies endeavoured to 
 obtain patents from the Crown or licences from royal 
 personages. All others strolling the country were 
 liable to arrest as ' wandering rogues.' In London 
 the regular actors gave tone to Bohemian society. 
 Taverns frequented by the best of them, the Mermaid 
 
 X 
 
3o6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 and the Triple Tun for example, were sought out by 
 men of fashion. Young fellows, who wished to cut a 
 figure in society, aped the manners of these artists and 
 repeated their jokes. Play-going citizens pursued them 
 with tiresome but profitable adulation. To be an actor's 
 Ingle, or intimate and crony, was the ambition of many 
 a foolish saddler or cordwainer's prentice. 
 
 It is certain that acting reached a very high pitch of 
 excellence in the days of Burbage and Alleyn, Summer 
 and Tarlton. Shakspere could not have written for in- 
 ferior players those parts which at the present time tax 
 histrionic talent beyond its faculty. As the absence 
 of theatrical machinery helped playwrights to be poets, 
 so the capacity of actors stimulated literary genius to 
 the creation of characters, which the author knew 
 beforehand would be finely and intelligently rendered. 
 Yet, in spite of the elevation which the playwright's 
 and the actor's arts attained at the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century, a permanent and persistent dis- 
 honour attached to the stage. This was due to the 
 local surroundings of the theatres in London, to the 
 habits of a largely popular audience, and to the old re- 
 ligious abhorrence which gathered virulence together 
 with the spread of Puritan opinions.^ 
 
 X. 
 
 In the origins of the stage, theatres were closely 
 connected with houses of public entertainment — inns, 
 hostelries, places of debauch, and brothels. The Cor- 
 poration forced companies to seek permanent establish- 
 
 ^ Jonson in the Poetaster ssXvns&s all this system in the person of Histrio. 
 
MANNERS AT THEATRES. 307 
 
 ment in suburbs, where the Court and City ahke sought 
 questionable recreation. What a tavern was in those 
 days, may be gathered frorti the gross outspoken 
 dialogues of ' The Prodigal Son ; ' a play cast back on 
 us from Germany without the benefit of censure.^ Such 
 taverns were the first homes of the public drama. 
 When theatres came into existence, drinking-shops of 
 the old sort and houses of ill-fame sprang up around 
 them. They formed a nucleus for what was vile, 
 adventurous, and hazardous in the floating population. 
 This explains and justifies the opposition of the civic 
 dignitaries. The actual habits of the audience in a 
 London theatre may be imagined from more or less 
 graphic accounts given by contemporary satirists. 
 Gosson, in ' The School of Abuse,' writes as follows : 
 
 ' In our assemblies at plays in London, you shall see 
 such heaving and shoving, such itching and shouldering 
 to sit by women ; such care for their garments, that 
 they be not trod on ; such eyes to their laps, that no 
 chips light in them ; such _pillows to their backs, that 
 they take no hurt ; such masking in their ears, I know not 
 what ; such giving them pippins, to pass the time ; such 
 playing at foot-saunt without cards ; such ticking, such 
 toying, such smiling, such winking, and such manning 
 them home when the sports are ended, that it is a right 
 comedy to mark their behaviour, to watch their conceits, 
 as the cat for the mouse, and as good as a course at the 
 game itself to dog them a little, or follow aloof by the 
 print of their feet, and so discover by slot where the 
 deer taketh soil.' 
 
 Stubbes, in his ' Anatomy of Abuses,' may be quoted 
 
 ' School of Shakspere, vol. ii. 
 X 2 
 
3o8, SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 to like purpose : ' But mark the flocking and running 
 to Theatres and Curtains, daily and hourly, night and 
 day, time and tide, to see Plays and Interludes, where 
 such wanton gestures, such bawdy speeches, such laugh- 
 ing and fleering, such kissing^and bussing, such clipping 
 and culling, such winking and glancing of wanton eyes 
 and the like is used as is wonderful to behold. Then 
 these goodly pageants being ended, every mate sorts to 
 his mate, every one brings another homeward of their 
 way very friendly, and in their secret conclaves covertly 
 they play the sodomites or worse.' 
 
 The private rooms in neighbouring taverns, where 
 girls were taken for seduction, or young men led astray 
 by wanton women, had been specially denounced under 
 the Orders of the Common Council.^ Gosson, in his 
 ' Plays Confuted in Five Actions,' says : ' It is the fashion 
 of youths to go first into the yard, and to carry their eye 
 through every gallery ; then, like unto ravens, where 
 they spy carrion thither they fly, and press as near to 
 the fairest as they can. Instead of pomegranates, they 
 give them pippins ; they dally with their garments to 
 pass the time ; they minister talk upon all occasions ; 
 and either bring them home to their houses on small 
 acquaintance, or slip into taverns when the play is done.' 
 Players are accused by Prynne of being go-betweens, 
 and playhouses of being the purlieus of corruption. 
 ' Our common strumpets and adulteresses, after our 
 stage-plays are ended, are oftentimes prostituted near 
 our playhouses, if not in them. Our theatres, if they 
 are not bawdy-houses, as they may easily be, since many 
 players, if reports be true, are common panders, yet 
 ' See above, p. 271. 
 
CHARGES OF IMMORALITY. 
 
 309 
 
 they are cousin-germans, at leastwise neighbours to 
 them.' In ' The Actors' Remonstrance,' 1643, this 
 abuse of the player's vocation is ingenuously admitted : 
 ' We have left off for our own parts, and so have com- 
 manded our servants to forget that ancient custom 
 which formerly rendered men of our quality infamous, 
 namely the inveigling in young gentlemen, merchants' 
 factors, and prentices to spend their patrimonies and 
 masters' estates upon us and our harlots in taverns. . . 
 We shall for the future promise never to admit into 
 our sixpenny rooms those unwholesome enticing har- 
 lots that sit there merely to be taken up by apprentices 
 or lawyers' clerks.'^ Young men came to find their 
 partners for, the evening there, as some do now at 
 Music-halls. Cockaine, in a prologue, certifies : 
 
 If perfumed wantons do, for eighteenpence, 
 Expect an angel, and alone go hence, 
 We shall be^Iad. 
 
 Women of loose life frequented them, as they do 
 contemporary places of public recreation . A personage 
 in one of Glapthorne's comedies makes protest : 
 
 We are 
 Gentlemen, ladies ; and no city foremen. 
 That never dare be venturous on a beauty. 
 Unless when wenches take them up at plays. 
 To entice them to the next licentious tavern. 
 To spend a supper on them. 
 
 Girls of good character scarce dared to enter a play- 
 house. From ballads of the period we learn what was 
 the peril to their reputations : 
 
 1 Roxburghe Library, issue for 1869, pp. 260, 265. 
 
-310 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Thither our city damsels speed, 
 
 Leaving their mistress' workXundone, 
 
 To meet some gallant, who indeed 
 
 Doth only seek, when they are won, 
 Away from them eftsoons to run : 
 
 When they are served, they are content 
 
 To scorn their seely instrument. 
 
 Another ballad-writer lays it down that a modest 
 wife should eschew theatres : ^ 
 
 I would not have her go to plays. 
 To see lewd actors in their parts, 
 
 And cause the men upon her gaze. 
 
 As they would sigh out all their hearts : 
 
 Methinks a wife it ill becomes 
 
 To haunt their prologue trump and drums. 
 
 This aspect of theatres, considered as the snares of 
 prentices, the gins where women lost and sold their 
 characters, has been vividly delineated in the ' Amanda,' 
 of Thomas Cranley (date 1 635). The author is address- 
 ing a woman of the town : 
 
 The places thou dost usually frequent 
 
 Is to some playhouse in an afternoon, 
 
 And for no other meaning and intent 
 
 But to get company to sup with soon ; 
 
 More changeable and wavering than the moon. 
 
 And with thy wanton looks attracting to thee 
 
 The amorous spectators for to woo thee. 
 
 Thither thou com'st in several forms and shapes 
 To make thee still a stranger to the place 
 
 And train new lovers, like young birds, to scrapes. 
 And by thy habit so to change thy face : 
 At this time plain, to-morrow all in lace : 
 
 Now in the richest colours may be had ; 
 
 The next day all in mourning, black and sad. 
 
 ' In support of this extract see the curious story about a citizeri's wife 
 and the players Richard Burbage and William Shakspere, quoted from 
 The Barrister's Diary by Collier, i. 319. The Actors' Remonstrance is 
 eloquent upon the subject of amours between handsome young players 
 and women partial to the theatre. 
 
'AMANDA AND 'THE YOUNG GALLANT.' 311 
 
 In a stuff waistcoat and a petticoat, 
 
 Like to a chamber-maid thou com'st to-day : 
 
 The next day after thou dost change thy note ; 
 
 Then Uke a country wench thou com'st in grey, 
 And sittest like a stranger at the play : 
 
 To-morrow after that, thou com'st again 
 
 In the neat habit of a citizen. 
 
 The next day rushing in thy silken weeds, 
 
 Embroidered, laced, perfumed, in glittering show ; 
 
 So that thy look an admiration breeds, 
 Rich like a lady and attended so, 
 As brave as any countess dost thou go. 
 
 Thus Proteus-like strange shapes thou venturest on. 
 
 And changes hue with the cameleon. 
 
 XI. 
 
 A poem published by the old Shakespeare Society 
 graphically depicts the habits of a young man about 
 town, and his humours at the theatre. It was written 
 by Francis Lenton, and printed under the title of 
 'The Young Gallant's Whirligig' in 1629. The lad 
 has been sent up to study law at one of the Inns of 
 Court. But the money which his parents provide for 
 the purchase of books, he spends on ' fencing, dancing, 
 and other sports.' 
 
 No, no, good man, he reads not Littleton, 
 But Don Quix-Zot, or else the Knight of the Sun. 
 Instead of Perkins' pedlar's French, he says 
 He better loves Ben Jonson's book of plays, 
 But that therein of wit he finds such plenty 
 That he scarce understands a jest of twenty. 
 
 As the terms fly past, his father sends him more 
 money to defray the expenses of his studies and his call 
 to the bar. This he lays out upon fine clothes : 
 
312 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 This golden ass, in this hard iron age, 
 
 Aspireth now to sit upon the stage ; 
 
 Looks round about, then views his glorious self, 
 
 Throws money here and there, swearing Hang pelf ! 
 
 He gets entangled in love-affairs, treats penny-a- 
 lining poets to pots of ale for sonnets, which he sends 
 to his mistress, and frequents the cheaper playhouses 
 in search of new adventures : 
 
 Your theatres he daily doth frequent. 
 Except the intermitted time of Lent, 
 Treasuring up within his memory 
 The amorous toys of every comedy 
 With deep delight ; whereas, he doth appear 
 Within God's temple scarcely once a year. 
 And that poor once more tedious to his mind 
 Than a year's travail to a toiling hind. 
 
 This gives the satirist occasion for a diatribe against 
 the stage : 
 
 Plays are the nurseries of vice, the bawd 
 That through the senses steals our hearts abroad ; 
 Tainting our ears with obscene bawdery, 
 Lascivious words, and wanton ribaldry ; 
 Charming the casements of our souls, the eyes, 
 To gaze upon bewitching vanities. 
 Beholding base loose actions, mimic gesture 
 By a poor boy clad in a princely vesture. 
 These are the only tempting baits of hell. 
 Which draw more youth unto the damned cell 
 Of furious lust, than all the devil could do 
 Since he obtained his first overthrow. 
 Here Idleness, mixed with a wandering mind. 
 Shall such variety of objects find 
 That ten to one his will may break the fence 
 Of reason, and embrace concupiscence. 
 Or, if this miss, there is another gin, 
 Close-linked unto this taper-house of sin, 
 That will entice you unto Bacchus' feasts, 
 'Mongst gallants that have been his ancient guests. 
 There to caro se it till the welkin roar. 
 Drinking full bowls until their bed's the floor/ 
 
LIFE ABOUT TOWN. 313 
 
 The gallant's father dies ; and he inherits the paternal 
 lands. Then he plunges into new extravagance ; 
 buys coach and horses ; maintains mistresses ; decks 
 himself taut in silks and satins and Bristol diamonds, 
 bought by him for Oriental gems. His former haunts 
 are abandoned for more fashionable places of resort : 
 
 The Cockpit heretofore would serve his wit, 
 But now upon the Friars' stage he '11 sit : 
 It must be so, though this expensive fool 
 Should pay an angel for a paltry stool. 
 
 As might be expected, our gallant's whirligig runs 
 round to ruin. His costly wardrobe has to be sold : 
 
 His silken garments, and his satin robe, 
 , That hath so often visited the Globe, 
 And all his spangled, rare, perfumed attires, 
 Which once so glistered in the torchy Friars, 
 Must to the broker's to compound his debt, 
 Or else be pawned to procure him meat. 
 
 I have only selected those lines from the satire 
 which illustrate the manners of the theatre. With 
 regard to the habit of carrying fine clothes to the stage, 
 for exhibition and effect, a parallel passage might 
 be quoted from Ben Jonson's 'The Devil is an Ass' 
 (Act I. sc. 3). One of the personages in the play, 
 Fabian Fitzdottrel, a squire of Norfolk, is speaking : 
 
 Here is a cloak cost fifty pound, wife. 
 Which I can sell for thirty, when I have seen 
 All London in 't, and London has seen me. 
 To-day I go to the Blackfriars playhouse. 
 Sit in the view, salute all my acquaintance, 
 Rise up between the acts, let fall my cloak, 
 Publish a handsome man and a rich suit ; 
 As that 's a special end why we go thither, 
 All that pretend to stand for \ on the stage ; 
 The ladies ask. Who 's that ? for they do come 
 To see us, love, as we do to see them. 
 
314 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 That 50/., though an extravagant, was no extra- 
 ordinary price for a cloak, is certain from the items 
 paid out of the privy purse for masquing dresses.^ 
 In one bill the wife of Charles I. discharged 1,630/. for 
 embroidery alone. No wonder the old dramatists so 
 frequently exclaim that gentlemen and city madams 
 carried farms and acres on their backs, and stowed 
 estates away in their wardrobes. 
 
 It is not to be imagined — putting these direct 
 witnesses aside — that the theatres of Elizabethan were 
 much purer than the theatres of Victorian London. 
 Customs in that epoch were far more strongly marked ; 
 manners coarser; vice more open and avowed. There- 
 fore we may well believe that City scruples, Court 
 restrictions, and Puritan prejudices were in a measure 
 justified. It is also certain that an appreciable social 
 stigma — the stigma under which his sonnets show 
 that Shakspere smarted, the stigma of which Jonson 
 bluntly speaks in his ' Hawthornden Coriversations ' — 
 attached to poets who wrote for the stage, and to 
 players who interpreted their works.^ When the 
 Puritans took the upper hand, scruples, restrictions, and 
 prejudices became persecution, prohibition, and crusade. 
 The theatre was then summarily and abruptly put an 
 end to. 
 
 XII. 
 
 T hese were the conditions under which our Drama 
 came to its perfection. This was the theatre for 
 
 ' See details in the following chapter on Masques. 
 * This fact is proved by the curious character of the Player drawn in 
 The Rich Cabinet, 1616, republished in Roxburghe Library, 1869, p. 228. 
 
ENGLISH AND ATTIC DRAMAS. 315 
 
 which Shakspere wrote, where Shakspere acted, where 
 Shakspere gained a livelihood and saved a competence. 
 In slums and suburbs, purlieus and base quarters of the 
 town, stood those wooden sheds which echoed to the 
 verses of the greatest poet of the modern world. 
 Disdainfully protected by the Court, watched with 
 disfavour by the City, denounced by Puritans and 
 preachers, patronised by prentices and mechanics, the 
 Muse of England took her station on the public boards 
 beneath a misty London daylight, or paced, half- 
 shrouded in tobacco smoke, between the murky torches 
 of the private stage. Compare her destiny with that of 
 her Athenian elder sister. In the theatre of Dionysos, 
 scooped for a god's worship from the marble flanks of 
 the Acropolis, ringed with sculptured thrones of priests 
 and archons, entertained at public cost, honoured in its 
 solemn ceremonials with crowns and prizes worthy of 
 the noblest names, the Muse of the dramatic art in 
 Athens dwelt a Queen confessed. To serve her rites 
 with costly liturgies, conferred distinction on the fore- 
 most citizens. To attend her high-tides, was the privi- 
 lege and pleasure of a congregated nation. To compete 
 for her rewards was the glory of warriors, ambassadors, 
 men of birth and fashion, princes — of .^schylus, of 
 Sophocles, of Agathon, of Dionysius. Religion, national 
 enthusiasm, public expenditure, private ambition, com- 
 bined with the highest genius in art and literature to 
 dignify, consecrate, enrich, immortalise the clients of 
 the Attic stage. For scenery, there were the sea and 
 mountains, the Parthenon and Propylsea, over-arched 
 with skies of Hellas. For audience, the people of 
 Athens, 'ever dehcately marching through most pel- 
 
3i6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 lucid air.' It is not to be wondered that a monumental 
 splendour and sublimity distinguishes what still survives 
 of Attic tragedy and comedy. It is not to be wondered 
 that the works of our Elizabethan playwrights should 
 be incomplete and fragmentary, grandiose by accident, 
 perfect only 'n portions, imposing in their mass and 
 multitude more than in single masterpieces. The 
 marvel rather is that on such a theatre as that of 
 London, Shakspere should have risen like a sun, to 
 give light to the heavens of modern poetry. The 
 marvel is that round him should be gathered such a con- 
 stellation — planets of Marlowe's, Jonson's, Webster's, 
 Fletcher's magnitude, each ruling his own luminous 
 house of fame. In the history of literature, the 
 Elizabethan Drama is indeed a paradox and problem. 
 Nothing so great and noble has emerged elsewhere 
 from such dishonour. Those who seek to harmonise 
 this paradox, to solve this problem, find their answer 
 in the fact that England's spirit, at that epoch, pene- 
 trated and possessed the stage. The fact itself is 
 scarcely explicable. Yet the fact remains. At some 
 decisive moments of world-history, art, probably with- 
 out the artist's consciousness, gives self-expression to a 
 nation. One of these moments was the age of Elizabeth 
 and James. One of these elect nations was England. 
 The art whereby we English found expression, was the 
 Drama. 
 
ii'i 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MASQUES AT COURT. 
 
 I. Definition of the Masque — Its Courtly Character — Its Partial Influence 
 over the Regular Drama. — II. Its Italian Origin. — III. Masques at 
 Rome in 1474 — At Ferrara in 1502 — Morris Dances — At Urbino in 
 1 5 13 — Triumphal Cars. — IV. Florentine Trionfi — Machinery and 
 Engines — The Marriage Festivals of Florence in 1565 — Play and 
 Masques of Cupid and Psyche — The Masque of Dreams — Marriage 
 Festival of Bianca Capello in 1579. — V. Reception of Henri III. at 
 Venice in 1 574 — His Passage from Murano to San Niccol6 on Lido. 
 — VI. The Masque transported to England — At the Court of 
 Henry VIII. and Elizabeth — Development in the Reign of James I. — 
 Specific Character of the English Masque — The Share of Poetry in its 
 Success. — VII. Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones — Italian and English 
 Artists — The Cost of Masques. — VIII. Prose Descriptions of Masques 
 — Jonson's Libretti — His Quarrels with Jones — Architect versus Poet — 
 IX. Royal Performers — Professionals in the Anti-Masque. — X. Variety 
 of Jonson's Masques — Their Names — Their Subjects — Their Lyric 
 Poetry. — XI. Feeling for Pastoral Beauty — Pan's Anniversary. — 
 XII. The Masque of Beauty — Prince Henry's Barriers — Masque of 
 Oberon. — XIII. Royal and Noble Actors — Lady Arabella Stuart — 
 Prince Henry — Duke Charles — The Earl and Countess of Essex — 
 Tragic Irony and Pathos of the Masques at Court. — XIV. Effect of 
 Masques upon the Drama — Use of them by Shakspere and Fletcher 
 — -By Marston and Tourneur — Their great Popularity — Milton's 
 Partiality for Masques — The ' Arcades ' and ' Comus.' 
 
 I. 
 
 The Masque in England was a dramatic species, 
 occupying a middle place between a Pageant and a Play. 
 It combined dancing and music with lyric poetry and 
 declamation, in a spectacle characterised by magni- 
 ficence of presentation. It made but little demand 
 on histrionic talent. The persons who performed a 
 
3i8 SMAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Masque had only to be noble in appearance, richly 
 dressed, and dignified in movement. The real authors 
 and actors were the poet, who planned the motive ; the 
 mechanist, who prepared the architectural surroundings, 
 shifted the scenes, and devised the complicated engines 
 requisite for bringing cars upon the stage or lowering 
 a goddess from the heavens ; the scene-painter ; the 
 milliner ; the leader of the band ; the teacher of the 
 ballet. In the hands of these collaborating artists, the 
 performers were little more than animated puppets. 
 They played their parts sufficiently, provided their 
 costumes were splendid and their carriage stately. 
 Therefore the Masque became a favourite amusement 
 with wealthy amateurs and courtiers aiming at effect. 
 Since it implied a large expenditure on costly dresses, 
 jewels, gilding, candlelights, and music, it was an 
 indulgence which only the rich could afford. For its 
 proper performance, a whole regiment of various crafts- 
 men, each excellent in his degree and faculty, had to 
 be employed. We are thus prepared to understand 
 why the Masque was emphatically a branch of Court 
 parade, in which royal personages and the queens of 
 fashion trod the dais of Greenwich or Whitehall in 
 gala dress on festival occasions. The principal actors 
 posed upon this private stage as Olympian deities 
 or Personifications of the Virtues, surrounded by a 
 crowd of ballet-dancers, singers, lutists, and buffoons. 
 All the elements of scenic pomp — the Pageant, the 
 Triumph, the Morris-dance, the Tournament, the Pas- 
 toral, the Allegorical Procession — were pressed into 
 the service of this medley. And to make a perfect 
 Masque after the English fashion, accomplished actors 
 
DEFINITION OF THE MASQUE. 319 
 
 from the open stage and musicians had to lend their 
 aid, who played the comic parts and sang the lyrics 
 written for them by a poet capable of mastering and 
 controlling the spirit of a hybrid so peculiar. 
 
 On public theatres there was but little scope for 
 Masques. Yet the species influenced our dramatic 
 style in many important points. Shows which mimicked 
 Masques at Court were often introduced into the regu- 
 lar drama, both as motives in the plot, and also for 
 spectacular effect. To what an extent they imposed 
 upon imagination, appears in the language of the 
 poets. Marston uses this striking simile in one of his 
 tragic plays : 
 
 Night, like a Masque, is entered heaven's great hall 
 With thousand torches ushering her way. 
 
 Milton, in his ' Ode on the Nativity,' describes the 
 descent of Peace to earth, in a stanza which paints a 
 common episode of such performances : 
 
 But he, her fears to cease, 
 Sent down the meek-eyed Peace ; 
 She, crowned With olive green, came softly sliding 
 Down through the turning sphere. 
 His ready harbinger. 
 With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing ; 
 And, waving wide her myrtle wand. 
 She strikes an universal peace through sea and land. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Masque came to England from Italy. In the 
 first historical mention made of it. Hall writes : ' On the 
 Day of Epiphany at night, the king with eleven other 
 were disguised after the manner of Italy, called a 
 
326 SHAKSPERE'S PkEDECESSORS. 
 
 Mask, a thing not seen before in England.' The date 
 was 15 12-13. The king was Henry VIII. Up to 
 this time we read in the Court records of pageants, 
 morices, disguisings, interkides, plays, revels. The 
 Masque was recognised as a new thing, combining and 
 absorbing other previous State-shows. After the same 
 date, the terms of ' maskelyn ' and ' masculers ' occur 
 in ' Records of the Revels,' pointing clearly to ' Mas- 
 chera ' and ' Mascherati,' possibly pronounced in dia- 
 lect by the Italian servants of the king.^ Thus there 
 is no doubt at all about the Italian origin of the 
 Masque. Marlowe puts these lines into the mouth of 
 Gaveston, when that favourite looks forward to his life 
 at Court : 
 
 I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits, 
 Musicians, that with touching of a string 
 May draw the pliant king which way I please : 
 Music and poetry is his delight ; 
 Therefore I '11 have Italian masks by night. 
 Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows ; 
 And in the day, when he shall walk abroad. 
 Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad ; 
 My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns. 
 Shall with their goat-feet dance the antic hay. 
 
 The point is so clear, and at the same time so im- 
 portant for the comprehension of the subject, that a 
 digression on the Triumphs and Ballets of the Italians 
 may be allowed to serve as introduction to Ben Jonson, 
 Chapman, Fletcher, Beaumont, and Milton. 
 
 ' Compare the Florentine Mandragola for Mandragora. 
 
MASQUES AT ROME. 321 
 
 III. 
 
 The first great festival bearing on the history of 
 Masques in Italy, was that provided for Leonora of 
 Aragon, the daughter of King Ferdinand of Naples, 
 when she passed through Rome in 1474 to mate with 
 Ercole d' Este. A nephew of Pope Sixtus IV., the 
 Cardinal Pietro Riario, converted the Piazza de' Santi 
 Apostoli into a temporary palace for her use. The 
 square was roofed with curtains, and partitioned into 
 rooms communicating with the Cardinal's own resi- 
 dence. These were hung with tapestries of silk and 
 velvet, and furnished with the costliest utensils. The 
 servants of the Cardinal's household were dressed in 
 liveries of satin and embroidery. The seneschal 
 changed his costume four times in the course of the 
 banquets. Nymphs and centaurs, singers and buffoons, 
 drank wine from golden goblets at side tables. The 
 air was refreshed with perfumed fountains and cooled 
 by punkahs. Cooks and confectioners vied, one with 
 another, in producing fantastic dishes. It is recorded 
 that the histories of Perseus, Atalanta, and Hercules, 
 wrought in pastry, gilt and sugared, adorned the boards 
 at which the Papal, Royal, and Ducal guests assembled. 
 To entertain their eyes and ears, shows from classical 
 and Biblical history were provided, of which the 
 following extract from Corio will give sufficient details : 
 ' After the banquet there came upon the dais some 
 eight men, with other eight attired like nymphs, who 
 were their loves. Among these came Hercules leading 
 his Deianira by the hand, Jason with Medea, Theseus 
 
 Y 
 
322 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 and Phaedra, each man accompanied by his mistress 
 and dressed according to their characters. When they 
 had all entered, fifes and many other instruments began 
 to sound, and they to dance and dally with their 
 nymphs ; in the which while leaped forth certain others 
 in the shape of Centaurs, bearing targets in the one 
 hand, and in the other clubs, who would have robbed 
 Hercules and his companions of their Nymphs. Thence 
 arose a combat between Hercules and the Centaurs, at 
 the end of which the hero drove them from the dais. 
 There was besides a representation of Bacchus and 
 Ariadne, with many other spectacles of the greatest 
 rarity and most inestimable cost' These shows in 
 Rome, when a Cardinal, the favourite and nephew of a 
 Pope, turned his palace and the adjacent piazza into a 
 scene of revel for the entertainment of a royal bride, 
 marked an epoch in the evolution of the Masque. But 
 the echo of those picturesque rejoicings sounds too faintly 
 across four centuries to captivate the ears of our ima- 
 gination. We only gather from the notices of Italian 
 annalists that artistic genius played its part upon that 
 transitory stage in the Eternal City. 
 
 The Venetian Diary of Sanudo gives a detailed 
 history of the festivities which followed the marriage of 
 Lucrezia Borgia to Alfonso d' Este at Ferrara in 1502. 
 The chief feature in the entertainments was the recita- 
 tion of five plays of Plautus in Latin upon five suc- 
 cessive nights. These gems of classical literature 
 were set in a rich framework of Renaissance arabesque ; 
 masques and ballets being interpolated between each 
 scene. It is noticeable that the name Moresco, whence 
 our Morris-dance, was already used for these interludes. 
 
MASQUES AT FERRARA. 323 
 
 They were throughout accompanied by music. One 
 hundred and ten actors formed the troop, who, on the 
 first night, saluted the Ducal party in their dresses of 
 taffety and camlet, cut after the Moorish fashion. It 
 will suffice to indicate the motives of the rarer or more 
 striking dances. On one occasion ten men appeared 
 upon the stage, with long hair, in flesh-coloured tights, to 
 represent nudity. Each held a cornucopia, containing 
 four torches filled with turpentine, which flamed. A 
 damsel went before them in alarm, pursued by a dragon. 
 The dragon was vanquished and driven off the stage 
 by a knight. His squire caught up the damsel, and 
 the whole troop moved away, surrounded by the 
 salvage men shaking flames from their torches. The 
 next ballet was' of maniacs, who danced with frantic 
 gestures. On another evening there appeared a Masque 
 of Cupid, who shot arrows and sang madrigals. He 
 was attended by ten actors cased in tin and covered 
 with lighted candles ; they carried looking-glasses on 
 their heads, and in their hands were paper lanterns also 
 filled with tapers. Again, upon the fifth evening, six 
 men of the wild woods drew forth a globe upon the 
 stage, out of which, when it was opened, emerged 
 the four Cardinal Virtues, singing appropriate songs. 
 Ballets of armed men in the antique habit, of German 
 lansknechts, of Moors, of hunters, of husbandmen, of 
 goats, and of gladiators fighting with darts and daggers, 
 filled up other intervals in the Plautine comedies. 
 
 It is clear, from the foregoing summary, that the 
 shows at Ferrara in 1502 contained in embryo the 
 chief constituents of the Masque as it was after- 
 wards developed. The same may be said about the 
 
 y 2 
 
324 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 first exhibition of Bibbiena's ' Calandria.' The poet, 
 Castiglione, has left an interesting account of this 
 performance, which took place at Urbino in 1513. 
 The Comedy was divided into five acts. Consequently, 
 there were four interludes, here also called Moresche. 
 The first was on the tale of Jason, who yoked a couple 
 of fire-breathing bulls to his plough, and sowed the 
 dragon's teeth. Then from traps in the stage emerged 
 a double band of antique warriors, who danced a wild 
 Pyrrhic, and slew each other. The second was a 
 Masque of Venus, drawn along in her car by a couple 
 of doves, and surrounded by a bevy of Cupids tossing 
 flame from lighted tapers. They set fire to a door, 
 out of which there leaped eight gallant fellows, all in 
 flames, careering round the stage in a fantastic figure. 
 The third was a Masque of Neptune. His chariot 
 was drawn by sea-horses, with eight huge monsters of 
 the deep surrounding it and gambolling grotesquely to 
 the sound of music. The fourth was a Masque of 
 Juno, seated on a fiery car, drawn by peacocks. Her 
 attendants were birds of different sorts, eagles, ostriches, 
 sea-mews and party-coloured parrots. This oddly 
 selected troupe executed a sword-dance, says Cas- 
 tiglione, with indescribable, nay incredible, grace ! 
 When the Comedy ended. Love entered and explained 
 the allegory of the interludes in a concluding epilogue. 
 The whole performance terminated with a piece of 
 concerted music from behind the scenes, ' the invisible 
 music of four viols, accompanying as many voices, who 
 sang, to a beautiful air, a stanza of invocation to 
 Love,' 
 
MASQUES AT URBINO. 325 
 
 IV. 
 
 The special point about these ballets at Urbino 
 was the introduction of chariots, which gave a pro- 
 cessional character to the Masques, and made them 
 equivalent to Triumphs. Each interlude had its Car, 
 attended by a choir of dancers. To enlarge upon the 
 Carri and Trionfi of Florentine Carnivals during the 
 Medicean rule, is hardly necessary. I have already 
 elsewhere copiously illustrated them ; and those who 
 are curious in such matters, may study Signorelli's 
 Triumph of Cupid, or old engravings of Petrarch's 
 Trionfi, in order to obtain some notion of their arrange- 
 ment. Yet it is worth alluding here to the Triumph 
 of Bacchus and Ariadne designed by Lorenzo the 
 Magnificent about the year 1485 ; to the Triumph of 
 Death devised by Piero di Cosimo in 1 5 1 2 ; and to 
 the Pageant of the Golden Age which greeted Leo X. 
 in 1 5 1 3.^ These processional shows exercised a distinct 
 influence over the form assumed by the Masque. No- 
 where did they take richer and more complicated 
 shapes of beauty than in Florence. iThe inventions 
 ascribed by Vasari to Filippo Brunelleschi, by means 
 of which vast aureoles were raised aloft into the air, 
 with saints and goddesses enthroned amid cherubic 
 creatures, clouds and candles, must also be reckoned 
 among the most important contributions to the appa- 
 ratus of the Masque.^ / The Florentines called them 
 Ingegni, and we find them largely used in London 
 under the Italian influence of Inigo Jones. The rare 
 
 ^ Renaissance in Italy, vol. iv. pp. 389-398. * Ibid. p. 318. 
 
326 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 artistic genius of the Florentines amused itself on all 
 occasions with such shows ; combining architecture, 
 sculpture, painting, and music, with tableaux expressed 
 by living actors. Thus Vasari, in his life of Francesco 
 Rustici, describes the recreations of a private club of 
 artists, called the Compagnia della Cazzuola. Once a 
 year they met for a sumptuous banquet, which was 
 followed by a Comedy and Masque. Phineus and the 
 Harpies ; the dispute of theologians upon the Trinity, 
 with an incomparable heaven of angels ; Tantalus in 
 hell ; Mars, surrounded with mangled human limbs ; 
 Mars and Venus, caught naked in the net by Vulcan 
 and exposed to the laughter of all the gods ; were 
 among the motives of these bizarre entertainments, 
 each worked out with varied and capricious inventions 
 of gardens, wildernesses, fireworks, monsters, emble- 
 matical figures and allegories. 
 
 The climax of Florentine ingenuity in the produc- 
 tion of costly and artistic spectacles was reached in two 
 entertainments designed to celebrate the two weddings 
 of Francesco dei Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. 
 Of each of these we possess the fullest possible accounts, 
 written by contemporaries with a wealth of detail which 
 enables the historian to view them once again in the 
 pallid light of the imagination.^ In the year is 15 
 Francesco married his first wife, Joan of Austria. 
 After making a triumphal entry into Florence the 
 Queen, as she is always styled, was conducted to the 
 palace on the Ducal Square. The hall, constructed 
 for the meetings of the Great Council in the days of the 
 
 ' See Descrizione delt Entrata, del Convito Reale e del Canto d^ 
 SognL Firenze. Gvix^A, i^dd, Feste mile Nozze, Si.c. Giunti 1570 
 
MASQUES AT FLORENCE. 337 
 
 Republic, had been turned into a theatre. At one end was 
 the stage, concealed from view by a drop-scene painted 
 with a hunt. In front of this stage were seats provided 
 for the gentlemen of the Court and city. Further back, 
 on a raised dais, covered with the finest carpets, stood 
 the thrones of the princely couple, with chairs for 
 ambassadors and German nobles of the Queen's retinue. 
 Behind, and on a higher plane, swept a semicircular 
 tribune in six tiers. This was filled with noble ladies, 
 whose dresses of a hundred hues and sparkling jewels 
 blent with the sober tones of frescoes on the walls 
 around them. The hall was lighted by candles set on 
 branches issuing from masks, and so arranged as to 
 present the figures of Imperial, Papal, Royal, and 
 Grand-Ducal crowns — alluding to three Emperors 
 of the Austrian Dynasty, three Medicean Pontiffs, a 
 Queen whom the Medici had given to France, and the 
 five Dukes of their line who had reigned in Italy. 
 Overhead, ran the level Florentine ceiling, carved out 
 of solid oak, embossed with armorial emblems, heavy 
 with gold, rich with vermilion and ultramarine. It 
 seemed impossible that the stage should rival or surpass 
 the hall in radiance of effect. When the curtain rose, 
 the scene represented the Piazza of Sta. Trinita in 
 Florence, viewed in perspective through a triumphal 
 arch flanked by the river-gods of Danube and Arno. 
 Giorgio Vasari was responsible for these decorations, 
 and for the engines which now introduced the Masque. 
 That, together with the play embedded in it after the 
 Italian fashion, had been arranged from the Myth of 
 Psyche, by Messer Giovambattista Cini. Out of a 
 heaven of clouds, which opened to the sound of music, 
 
328 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Venus appeared in her gilded chariot drawn by swans. 
 Three Graces, naked save for their veils of yellow 
 hair, were grouped around her. The Four Seasons 
 appropriately clad, with wings of butterflies upon their 
 shoulders (as Raphael has imaged forth the Hours 
 in his Farnesina frescoes), followed in her train. 
 While they descended to the stage, Cupid issued 
 from the background. He was naked, as the poets 
 have described him ; and his wide wings fluttered in 
 the wind of perfumes. Hope and Fear and Grief and 
 Gladness bore his bow and quiver, net and torches, 
 scattering inextinguishable flame. Thus the Masque 
 began. To follow it through all its scenes would weary 
 curiosity. Else I might tell how all the Legend of Psyche 
 was set forth ; how pleasant groves appeared ; how 
 Hades threw wide his iron portals, and the three-headed 
 Cerberus howled, and the Furies shook their twisted 
 whips ; and how the show was closed with Hymen on 
 the summit of the Heliconian Mount. 
 
 This Comedy of ' Psyche' was recited at Florence on 
 S. Stephen's Day. On the second of February in the 
 same winter, a second Masque of even greater rarity 
 and beauty was exhibited. It is called ' II Canto de' 
 Sogni,' or the Music-Masque of Dreams. ' The soul or 
 conceit of the Masque,' as our ancestors would have 
 expressed it, was both subtle and imaginative. The 
 poet conceived all human life, with its various passions 
 accidents, and humours, as a Dream, beneath the empire 
 of the great god Morpheus. Love, Beauty, Glory, 
 Wealth, Ambition, Madness passed before his vision 
 as the shapes which vex a sick man's slumbers. And 
 as he viewed them, so he brought them on the stag-e 
 
MASQUES OF DREAMS. 329 
 
 making the pomp of that arch-ducal theatre subserve 
 
 the lesson that : 
 
 We are such stuff 
 As dreams are made of ; and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep. 
 
 The thought was ingenious. The execution was 
 gorgeous and varied beyond all power of description. 
 One hundred and sixty-eight performers took part in 
 the Masque ; some on horseback, and some seated in 
 cars. It was set forth in a series of processions ; a central 
 chariot in each division of the show being designed 
 with appropriate emblems and paintings, crowded 
 with figures picturesquely grouped together, attended 
 by outriders, and accompanied by the performers of 
 concerted music. Love, Fame, Plutus, Bellona, and 
 Madness, surrounded by their several genii and minis- 
 ters, sat enthroned upon the chariots. Their qualities 
 were indicated by marked and unmistakable allegory. 
 All the personages who composed their several trains, 
 however else they may have been attired, wore bat's 
 wings on their shoulders ; to symbolise the dreams 
 that fly abroad through brains of sleeping folk by 
 night. The Triumph of Love displayed the usual 
 myths of Hope and Fear ; but the car was followed 
 by a band, which detached itself in quaintness from 
 the common elements of Masquerade. The leader 
 of this band was Narcissus, dressed in blue velvet 
 embroidered with the flowers that bear his name. 
 The beautiful young men who waited on him, called 
 i belli, wore doublets of silver tissue worked with all 
 the blossoms of the spring, and breeches of blue 
 velvet sewn in gold and silver with narcissus flowers. 
 
330 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 When Madness appeared, her company were Bac- 
 chantes and Satyrs, pair by pair, twined with ivy 
 and vine branches. The whole procession moved 
 across the scene in studied groups, preceded and di- 
 vided from each other by detached allegories— Mercury 
 and Diana, Witches and Priestesses, Phantasy and 
 Silence, Night and Dawning. Classical mythology 
 was racked to furnish forth the several emblems of these 
 personifications — their attendant beasts of elephants 
 and dolphins, tortoises and tigers, unicorns and falcons. 
 Blooming youth and wrinkled age, the grisly ugliness 
 of witches and the lucid beauty of Olympian gods, 
 human forms and bestial monsters, were blent together, 
 interchanged, contrasted and combined in the slow- 
 moving panorama. 
 
 When the Duke of Florence made his second 
 marriage with Bianca Capello in 1 5 79, these Triumphs 
 were repeated on a scale of similar magnificence, and in 
 very much the same artistic fashion. The descriptive 
 work published upon that occasion is valuable, since it 
 is illustrated with engravings in outline, which, though 
 they do no more than suggest the leading motives of 
 the shows, enable us to form some conception of their 
 general effect. We learn how the high-piled chariots 
 were adorned with statues, set with flaming cressets, 
 and drawn by birds or beasts ; how the allegorical 
 personages towered on high above them, grouped with 
 subordinate genii. Monsters of the deep wallow- 
 ing in mimic oceans, huge sea-shouldering whales, 
 Tritons blowing horns, gilded conchs crowded with 
 naked nymphs and Cupids waving torches, a vast four- 
 headed dragon vomiting flames, a galley preceded by 
 
HENRI III. AT VENICE. 331 
 
 sea-horses, seem to have formed the main attractions of 
 this entertainment. By what means these bulky erec- 
 tions m,oved along upon their gilded wheels, does not 
 appear. But Florence, from of old, was well furnished 
 with mechanical contrivances ; and the artistic genius of 
 the people enabled them to conceal what must have 
 been grotesque in presentation, under forms of ever 
 fresh invention. •• f) /^ h 
 
 Beiore quittmg Italy for the grey metropolis of the U.in. U- 
 North, with its clouded skies and colder festivals, let ,*. ' 
 us shift the scenes from Florence to Venice, and see lAr-X.1' 
 what the Republic of S. Mark could furnish, when her^j^^ ^^ 
 Doge and Senators gave entertainment to a king,'^^'^^ ^ 
 Henry, Duke of Anjou, was the last male scion of they. ,;Zi 
 House of Valois, by Henry the Second's marriage with /W^-i 
 Caterina de' Medici, the daughter of Lorenzo, Duke of 
 Urbino. During early manhood this prince had distin- 
 guished himself in the Huguenot wars, and had been 
 elected King of Poland. The death of his brother, 
 Charles IX., made him King of France. In 1574 he 
 was hastening from Warsaw back to his ancestral 
 throne — back to the French palace, where a monk's 
 knife was destined, after a few years, to terminate the 
 craziest career which ever closed a brilliant dynasty in 
 sanguine gloom. At this moment fortune seemed to 
 smile upon his youth and twofold crown. Cynical phy- 
 siognomists might perhaps have cast no favourable 
 horoscope for the slim and delicate young man, of pale 
 complexion, with a few black hairs upon the sallow 
 chin, who stepped from his carriage at Malghera on to 
 
332 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 the shores of the lagoon. But sixty Senators of Venice, 
 arrayed in crimson, at the place of embarkation, 
 thought less of Henry's tarnished character and 
 dubious blood than of the fact that he was King of 
 Poland, King of France, Italian by his mother, and 
 now guest of the Republic. Cap in hand, they at- 
 tended him to his state-barge.^ There they divided 
 his followers between them, and embarked upon their 
 several galleys. The splendid flotilla, on an afternoon 
 of July, spread canopies of silks and satins on the 
 mirror of that waveless lake. Saluted by the roar of 
 cannon from the islands, this noble convoy oared its 
 passage to Murano. There the palace of Barto- 
 lommeo Capello had been hung with cloth of gold 
 and embossed leather to receive the King. Sixty 
 halberdiers, attired in the French colours of orange 
 slashed with blue, were drawn up at the water stair- 
 case. Eighteen trumpeters and twelve drummers, in 
 the same livery, ' sounded a military welcome. Fort}'^ 
 of the noblest youths of Venice, habited in doublets of 
 shot silk, attended as a royal body-guard. The King 
 passed through this gorgeous train ; his sober suit 
 of mourning and the pale face above the ruffles 
 round his neck showing dark against that painted 
 background. That night he spent upon the island. 
 Next day, the Doge and all the State of Venice 
 waited on him with a galley manned by four hundred 
 oarsmen, dressed in the colours of the House of 
 France. High on the poop, beneath a canopy of cloth 
 of gold, he took his station. At his right hand sat 
 
 ^ There is a picture of mediocre performance in the Ducal Palace 
 representing this embarkation at Malghera. 
 
PROCESSION TO THE LIDO. 333 
 
 the Dukes of Mantua, Nevers, Ferrara, and the Car- 
 dinal Legate of San Sisto. At his left, the Doge 
 and the Ambassadors. Fourteen galleys followed 
 with the Senators of Venice, trailing their robes of 
 purple silk on Oriental carpets. The aristocracy and 
 gentry of Venice brought up the rear, lashing the 
 waters with the oars of a thousand glittering gondolas. 
 Through the summer afternoon they swept, round 
 San Pietro di Castello to Sant' Elena, and from Sant' 
 Elena to San Niccolo on Lido. At every point the 
 guns from battlement and bastion thundered salutes, 
 and the church towers showered their tocsins on the 
 startled air. Between Venice and Lido the lagoon 
 swarmed with boats. The whole city seemed to be 
 afloat that day. Each of the great Guilds had mounted 
 a brigantine with emblematic pomp and quaint mag- 
 nificence. That of the Silk- weavers was one heaven- 
 pointing pyramid of costly stuffs and banners waving 
 to the wind ; that of the Goldsmiths glittered with 
 chased plate and jewels ; that of the Mercers, manned 
 by a crew in purple and yellow liveries, burned like a 
 pyre of crimson cloth upon the waves ; the Mirror- 
 makers hung their masts and gunwale thick with 
 glasses, which flashed back sunlight, as the galley 
 moved, in dazzling lightnings ; the Swordsmiths 
 bristled at every point with arms and instruments of 
 war. Upon each of these brigantines and on the 
 gondolas around them were stationed players upon 
 instruments of music, trumpeters and drummers and 
 blowers of the Turkish horn, whose wild barbaric din 
 commingled with the rush of oars and the roar of that 
 vast multitude. 
 
334 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 So the procession swept away toward Lido, where 
 the art of Venice was to add a crowning consecration 
 to this pomp. On the shore Palladio had built an 
 arch of triumph leading to a temple. Tintoretto, 
 Paolo Veronese, and Antonio Aliense, the three 
 famous painters of the day, had lavished on this ephe- 
 meral masterpiece their matchless colours married to 
 august design. The Patriarch of Venice waited at 
 the temple porch to greet the King of France, who, 
 after praying at the altar, was conducted once more to 
 the sea. This time he entered the state-barge of the 
 Republic.^ The Bucentaur conducted him from Lido, 
 past the Riva, past San Giorgio, past the Ducal 
 Palace, past the Campanile, down the Grand Canal. 
 It was late in the evening when he reached the 
 Palazzo Foscari, which, together with adjacent 
 houses of the Giustiniani, had been placed at his dis- 
 posal. The costliest tapestries, embroideries of silk 
 and satin, hangings of velvet and stamped leather, 
 draped the chambers, which were filled with choicest 
 furniture and pictures. A table was daily spread there 
 for five hundred persons. Every night the palaces were 
 illuminated with lamps and torches ; and every night 
 the waterways beneath resounded to the strains of 
 singing choirs and stringed orchestras. Regattas, mock- 
 fights between the Nicolotti and Castellani, banquets 
 in the Great Hall of the Ducal Palace, visits to the 
 Arsenal, visits to the Fuggers of Augsburg in the Fon- 
 daco dei Tedeschi, visits to the glass-works, a musical 
 drama in the Palace, a dress ball in the room where 
 
 1 It is said that Tintoretto contrived to get on board the galley 
 disguised as a groom, and to make a portrait of the King in transit. 
 
HENRI'S LIFE AT VENICE. 335 
 
 Tintoretto's ' Paradise ' now hangs, followed in be- 
 wildering succession. When Henry left his lodgings, 
 the Bucentaur transported him to the piazza. The 
 pavement was carpeted with crimson cloth ; the win- 
 dows hung with blue and orange draperies ; the capi- 
 tals and cornices festooned with laurel wreaths and 
 ivy. At the entrance of the Sala del Gran Consiglio, 
 two hundred ladies of the Golden Book stood waiting 
 for him in their white silk robes of state, with ropes 
 of pearls around their throats and twisted in their 
 yellow hair.^ Venice, through those days of festival, 
 exhibited the scene of one vast Masque — the most 
 imperially mounted and played on the most splendid 
 theatre that earth can show. It is satisfactory to read 
 that Henry, in the midst of all this regal pomp and 
 official parade, found time to enjoy the pleasures 
 which the city offers to more ordinary mortals. At- 
 tended by one or another of the forty noble youths 
 who kept him company, he disguised himself and took 
 the humours of the town, buying a jewelled sceptre in 
 one shop of the Rialto, and sighing at the feet of an 
 accomplished courtesan, the famous Veronica Franco. 
 Michelet is, perhaps, justified in saying that the last 
 Valois left in Venice such remnants of virility as he 
 brought with him from Poland. On his return to 
 France, Henry affected the habits and costume of a 
 woman, and sacrificed his kingdom's interests to the 
 detested Epernon. Fifteen years of civil warfare, 
 ruined finances, unpopularity, bad health, and eccentric 
 pleasures, diversified by the melodramatic murder of 
 
 ' As we may see them painted by Gentile Bellini in his picture ol 
 the Miracle of Santa Croce. 
 
336 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 the Guise in his own bedroom, brought this hero of 
 the Venetian Masque to death by the hand of an 
 assassin at Saint Cloud. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Transported from Italy to England, the Masque, as 
 will be readily imagined, was shorn of much of its artistic 
 splendour. The Courts of Henry and Elizabeth could 
 boast no architects like Giorgio Vasari and Palladio, no 
 painters like Pontormo and Bronzino, Tintoret and 
 Veronese. English music had not reached the perfec- 
 tion of Italian art, either in the excellence of stringed 
 instruments or the practised skill of vocalists. Instead 
 of the Cars and Triumphs of Florentine Carnivals, in lieu 
 of the Processions of S. John's Day, and the Venetian 
 festivals of Marriage with the Adriatic,, the traditions 
 of scenical parade in England were restricted to City 
 Pageants and the shows of Miracle plays, mummings 
 at Christmas and disguisings at Shrovetide. Climate, 
 scenery, and architecture were alike less favourable to 
 theatrical display upon the banks of the Thames than 
 on the shores of Arno or the waves of the Lagoons. 
 It must further be observed that the Italian artists who 
 visited our island, whether sculptors or painters, archi- 
 tects or musicians, were men of the second or third rank. 
 Those only who found no employment at home, or who 
 had special reasons for abandoning their country, exiled 
 themselves to England. In this respect, the English 
 Court was even less fortunate than the French. Cellini 
 and Andrea del Sarto, Primaticcio and Rosso, settled 
 for a time in Paris ; Lionardo da Vinci died at Amboise. 
 
MASQUES IN ENGLAND. 337 
 
 But Torrigiani was the most notable Italian who took 
 up his abode in London. 
 
 Under these conditions, the Masque received no 
 adequate treatment in England during the reigns of our 
 Tudor sovereigns, Elizabeth was too economical to 
 spend the large sums requisite for a really magnificent 
 Masque at Court, when a simple play could be acted at 
 so much less expense. On one occasion, indeed, she 
 sent a sumptuous embassy of Masquers from London to 
 Edinburgh, as a compliment to James on his accession 
 to the throne of Scotland. Nor was she displeased by 
 the costly pageants prepared for her amusement at 
 Kenilworth. But the sums which a subject and a 
 favourite, like Leicester, could afford for his sovereign's 
 entertainment, the Queen herself was unwilling to 
 expend upon the ordinary pleasures of the Court. 
 
 The accession of James I. marked an epoch in the 
 development of the Masque. This king and his son 
 Charles I. were both of them inordinately fond of 
 pageants, and willing to disburse considerable sums of 
 money yearly on such trifles. Whitehall, during these 
 reigns, vied with the Ducal Palaces of Florence, Urbino, 
 and Ferrara, in the pomp and beauty of its Masques. 
 The Drama had attained full growth ; and what the 
 English Masque might still lack upon the side of pictorial 
 art, was fully compensated by poetical invention. The 
 distinctive features of the Masque in Italy, as we have 
 seen, were these. It had been used either as a kind of 
 ballet-interlude, to relieve the graver attractions of a 
 formal comedy, or it had assimilated the type of pro- 
 cessional pageantry upon occasions of public rejoicing. 
 In neither case had the poet played a very prominent 
 
338 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 part in its production. To raise the libretto to the 
 dignity of literature, to compose words for Masques 
 which should retain substantial value as poetry, was 
 reserved for playwrights of our race. The English 
 Masque was characterised by dramatic movement and 
 lyrical loveliness, far superior to anything of the kind 
 which had appeared in Italy. In the hands of Ben 
 Jonson, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, Thomas 
 Hey wood, and George Chapman, it assumed a new 
 form, consonant with the marked bias of the national 
 genius at that epoch to the theatre. The Masques of 
 these eminent poets can still be read with satisfaction. 
 They appeal to our literary sense by the beauty of their 
 songs and by the ingenuity of their dramatic motives. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Two great artists combined to fix the type of the 
 English Masque. These were Ben Jonson, who applied 
 his vast erudition, knowledge of theatrical effect, and 
 vein of lyric inspiration to the libretto ; and Inigo 
 Jones, the disciple of Palladio and architect of White- 
 hall, who contributed the mechanism and stage scenery 
 needed for bodying forth the poet's fancy to the eye. 
 They were assisted by an Italian composer, Alfonso 
 Ferrabosco, who wrote the music ; and by an English 
 choreograph, Thomas Giles, who arranged the dances 
 and decided the costumes. The Court establishment 
 of musicians at this epoch numbered some fifty-eight 
 persons, twelve of whom were certainly Italians. 
 Money was not spared either by the Royal Family or 
 by the courtiers on these ceremonial occasions. At 
 
CdST OF MASQUi:S. 339 
 
 Christmas and Shrovetide it was customary for the 
 King and the Queen, each of them, to present a 
 Masque. The Inns of Court vied in prodigaHty with 
 the Crown, when circumstances prompted them to a 
 magnificent display. Noblemen, again, were in the 
 habit of subscribing at their own expense to furnish 
 forth a complimentary pageant on the occasion of a 
 distinguished marriage or the arrival of illustrious 
 guests in England. 
 
 The payments made for the Queen's Masque at 
 Christmas 1610-11 enable us to estimate the cost of 
 these performances in detail. The total amounted to 
 720/. ; of which Jonson and Inigo Jones received 40/. 
 apiece, the ballet-master 50/., and five boy-actors 2/. 
 each. When the ' Hue and Cry after Cupid ' was 
 presented at the wedding of Lord Haddington in 
 1608 by twelve English and Scottish lords, it was 
 computed that this would stand them in about 300/. a 
 man. Chapman's ' Memorable Masque,' played at 
 Whitehall in 16 13, by the Middle Temple and 
 Lincoln's Inn, cost the latter Society alone upwards of 
 1,000/. Jonson's ' Masque of Blackness ' in 1609, cost 
 the Court 3,000/. ; Daniel's ' Masque of Tethys ' in 
 161 1, may be reckoned at 1,600/ ; Jonson's ' Oberon ' 
 in 161 1, at 1,000/; Daniel's 'Hymen's Triumph' in 
 1613, at 3,000/ ; the Queen's Masque in 1637, at 
 1,550/ ' The Triumph of Peace,' designed by 
 Shirley and Inigo Jones, and presented by the Inns of 
 Court in procession to Whitehall in 1634, was one of 
 the most expensive and magnificent. 1,000/ was spent 
 on music alone ; and on the costumes of the horsemen 
 the vast sum of 10,000/ The total paid by the Inns on 
 
340 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 this occasion was estimated at over 20,000/. Having 
 a fixed musical establisliment, which even in the time 
 of Elizabeth cost over 600/. a year in salaries, the 
 Court was able to mount a Masque at a somewhat 
 cheaper rate than private adventurers, such as com- 
 panies of noblemen or Gentlemen of Lincoln's Inn. 
 The average disbursements during the reigns of the 
 first Stuarts may be estimated at about 1,400/. for 
 each Masque. Of this, perhaps 400/. was spent on 
 dresses, and 1,000/. on the apparatus. When we take 
 into account the difference between the value of money 
 at that time and this, and multiply in round numbers 
 by four, we obtain very considerable amounts ex- 
 pended by the Court and gentlemen of England upon 
 pageantry. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 It was part of the poet's duty to prepare for pub- 
 lication a detailed account of the whole Masque ; de- 
 scribing the scenes, costumes, and dances ; introducing 
 the libretto he had written for the actors, and paying 
 tribute to his several collaborators. The names of the 
 principal performers, if they were royal or noble 
 persons, were printed in their proper places. The little 
 book, we may imagine, was prized as a souvenir by 
 those who had taken part in so august and so ephemeral 
 a pageant. It also found numerous purchasers among 
 those who had assisted at the representation, or such 
 as were curious to read of what they had not been for- 
 tunate enough to witness. A solemn Masque at Court 
 was an event of public importance. Grave personages, 
 like Sir Francis Bacon, took interest in the arrange- 
 
LIBRETTI. 341 
 
 ment of the shows ; and all the town was eager to be 
 present at their exhibition. Bacon, it will be remem- 
 bered, wrote an essay upon Masques, which, coming 
 from his pen, is curious, though it furnishes but little 
 useful information. He also accepted Beaumont's 
 dedication of the ' Masque of Thamesis and Rhine,' 
 of which he himself is said to have been ' the chief 
 contriver.* 
 
 To this custom of printing the description of 
 Court Masques, we owe the preservation of more than 
 thirty pieces by Ben Jonson, not to mention those of 
 Marston, Beaumont, Heywood, Chapman, Daniel, 
 Campion, Ford, Shirley, and other poets of less note. 
 All these were composed after James's accession to the 
 throne of England, at which time Jonson's connection 
 with the Court and aristocracy commenced. From 
 that date forward, he preferred this form of invention 
 to play- writing. No wedding or tilting match, no 
 reception of a foreign prince, or Shrovetide festival, 
 was considered perfect without something from the 
 Laureate's pen. 
 
 Jonson threw his whole spirit into the work. His 
 Masques are not only infinitely varied, witty, tasteful, 
 and ingenious ; but vast erudition is exhibited in the 
 notes with which the poet has enriched them. The 
 ' Masque of Queens,' for example, contains a well- 
 digested and exhaustive dissertation upon witchcraft in 
 antiquity. Jonson chafed at the precedence in popular 
 esteem which was very naturally given to the architect, 
 scene-painter, and ballet-master, upon these occasions. 
 He thought that the poet, whose invention was the 
 soul of such splendid trifles, deserved the lion's share 
 
342 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 of fame. And certainly, were it not for Jonson's 
 lyrics, we should pay them slight attention now. In 
 his prefaces he was, however, careful to assign what 
 he considered their due share of credit to his several 
 collaborators. Having described the landscape scene 
 devised for his ' Masque of Blackness ' in long and 
 detailed paragraphs, he adds : ' So much for the bodily 
 part, which was of Master Inigo Jones's design and 
 act.' Again, in the Masque of Queens he says : 
 ' The device of their attire was Master Jones's, with 
 the invention and architecture of the whole scene and 
 machine.' The master of the dances, Thomas Giles ; 
 the composer of the music, ' my excellent friend, 
 Alfonso Ferrabosco ; ' and the principal soloist, ' that 
 most excellent tenor voice and exact singer, her 
 Majesty's servant, Master John Allin ; ' received com- 
 pliments upon appropriate occasions. But the poet 
 always reserved for himself the chief honours of each 
 piece. His lofty introduction to the ' Hymeucei ' opens 
 thus : pit is a noble and just advantage that the things 
 subjected to understanding have of those which are 
 objected to sense ; that the one sort are but moment- 
 ary, and merely taking ; the other impressing and 
 lasting: else the glory of all these solemnities had 
 perished like a blaze, and gone out, in the beholders' 
 eyes. So short-lived are the bodies of all things, in 
 comparison of their souls.^ 
 
 Master Inigo Jones was no less imperious and in- 
 tolerant of rivalry than Master Benjamin Jonson. Heby 
 no means relished this assignment of the merely bodily 
 and transient part to him, whereas the poet claimed an 
 immortality of art and learning. ' Well-languaged 
 
JONSON AND JONES. 343 
 
 Daniel ' showed him properer respect, r In these things,' 
 runs the preface to the ' Masque of Tethys,' ' wherein 
 the only life consists in show, the art and invention of 
 the architect gives the greatest grace, and is of the 
 most importance, ours' (i.e. the poet's) ' the least part, 
 and of least note in the time of the performance there- 
 of/! Chapman, Jonson's rival in poetry and erudition, 
 placed his own name below Jones's on the title-page 
 of their ' Memorable Masque,' adding : ' Invented and 
 fashioned, with the ground and special structure of the 
 whole work, by our kingdom's most artful and ingenious 
 Architect, Inigo Jones ; supplied, applied, digested, and 
 written by George Chapman.' Thus both Daniel and 
 Chapman acknowledged themselves to be the mere ex- 
 positors in words of the great builder's thought ; while 
 Jonson treated the builder as the lackey waiting on his 
 Muse. They humbly regarded their own work as the 
 necessary illustration of fair spectacles which passed 
 away and were forgotten with the pleasure they 
 afforded. He proudly expected the suffrage of pos- 
 terity, when all the torches of Whitehall should be 
 extinguished, the royal actors dead and buried, the 
 groves and cars and temples of the mechanician turned 
 to dust. In this clash of opinions, Jonson, conscious 
 of his own poetical achievement, was indubitably right. 
 Had Inigo Jones left us no Banqueting Hall to 
 grace the shore of Thames, his fame would now have 
 vanished with the fairy world evoked by him on winter 
 nights ' upon that memorable scene.' But even if 
 the Tragedies and Comedies and Underwoods had 
 perished, Jonson would still occupy an honourable 
 place among our poets on the strength of his Masques, 
 
344 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Entertainments, Barriers, and Marriage Triumphs 
 alone. So true is it that while the present life of such 
 things throbbed In their bodily presentment to the 
 senses, their indestructible soul was in the poet's 
 words. 
 
 Discord ensued between these two irascible artists, 
 whom we must regard as the main founders and 
 supporters of the Masque in England. Jones managed 
 to supplant Jonson in the favour of the Court. Jonson 
 retaliated by sneering at the architect's ' twice-con- 
 ceived, thrice-paid-for imagery,' and by lampooning 
 him in a comedy. The ' Tale of a Tub ' originally 
 contained a satirical portrait of Inigo Jones under the 
 name of Vitruvius Hoop. This part was struck out by 
 the Master of the Revels ; ' exception being taken 
 against it by the Surveyor of the King's Works, as a 
 personal injury to him.' 
 
 IX. 
 
 Too much time has been spent, perhaps, upon the 
 history of this insignificant and uninteresting quarrel 
 between Jones and Jonson. It serves, however, to 
 explain the conditions under which Masques were pro- 
 duced at Court, and the state of contemporary opinion 
 on this topic. Before proceeding to survey the work 
 of Jonson, I must repeat that the Masque itself was 
 presented by royal and noble personages. On their 
 performances the architect lavished his costliest inven- 
 tions. But this magnificence required some foil. An 
 Antimasque was consequently furnished ; and for this, 
 some grotesque or comic motive had to be selected. 
 
MASQUE AND ANTIMASQUE. 345 
 
 For the Antimasque, actors from the public theatres 
 were hired. We consequently find that, while the 
 Masque assumes the form of a Triumph or Ballet, 
 the Antimasque is more strictly and energetically 
 dramatic. The latter gave scope to dialogue and 
 action ; the former to processions, dances, and accom- 
 paniments of music. In the Antimasque, Hecate 
 led the revels of witches round her cauldron. In the 
 Masque, queens attended Anne of Denmark in her 
 passage across the stage, on chariots of gold and jewels ; 
 lutes and viols sounded ; Prince Henry and Duke 
 Charles stepped the high measures of the galliard or 
 coranto. To combine the contrasted motives of the 
 Masque and Antimasque into one coherent scheme, 
 was the poet's pride. And it is just here that Jonson 
 showed his mastery. The antithesis of scenical effect 
 enlivened the whole exhibition, and enabled him to 
 vary his caprices. 
 
 At the same time Jonson's robust and logical intel- 
 lect saved him from merely setting one show against 
 another. There is always method in the madness of 
 his fancy, which makes some of his Masques true 
 gems of solid and ingenious workmanship. It may be 
 parenthetically noticed that this antithesis survives in 
 the Italian Ballo and the English pantomime of the 
 present day. The latter may, indeed, be fairly re- 
 garded as a lineal descendant from the Masque, with 
 additions from the Ballo and clown's jig of our an- 
 cestors. 
 
346 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 X. 
 
 The very names of Jonson's Masques reveal their 
 strangeness and variety. There is a Masque of Black- 
 ness, answered by a Masque of Beauty ; a Welsh 
 Masque, and an Irish Masque ; a Masque of Queens, 
 and a Masque of Owls ; a Masque of Christmas, and 
 a Masque of Lethe ; a Masque of Augurs, and a 
 Masque of Time. Neptune and Love had each his 
 Triumph. Pan gave his title to a pastoral Masque, 
 and Hymen to a Masque of Marriage. In one 
 extravaganza of the poet's fancy the Golden Age was 
 restored to earth ; in another the Fortunate Isles 
 were visited ; a third revealed the wonders of a 
 world discovered in the moon ; a fourth was called 
 ' The Vision of Delight.' Sometimes this capricious 
 Muse assumes a loftier tone, and rescues Love from 
 Ignorance and Folly, or reconciles the wanton boy 
 with Virtue. Sometimes she stoops to rustic mirth ; 
 camps with gipsies on their roadside bivouac ; dances 
 with woodland nymphs and shepherds round Pan's 
 altar ; sports with young Satyrs in the brake ; or leads 
 the fairies in a ring round Oberon their prince. Some- 
 times she dons Bellona's casque of war, and sounds 
 the clarion for tilts and barriers. But when her 
 mood is serious, the Antimasque is sure to raise a 
 smile; and when she deigns to wanton, the scene is 
 closed with ceremonious hymns and compliments to 
 Majesty. 
 
 These Masques, in the perusal, stripped of their 
 
VARIETY OF JONSON'S MASQUES. 347 
 
 'apparelling,' as Jonson aptly styled the apparatus, 
 make severe demands on the imagination. It is still 
 possible, however, to read them with pleasure ; espe- 
 cially if the student brings a scholar's memory to the 
 task. He will wonder at the fullness and extent of 
 learning employed on these fantastic toys, no less than 
 at the ease with which the poet moves beneath its 
 ponderous weight. Jonson is nowhere seen to more 
 advantage than when he reproduces erudition in some 
 form of lyric beauty. His best song, ' Drink to me 
 only with thine eyes,' is a close paraphrase from 
 Philostratus ; yet who can deny the delicacy of its 
 beauty, or the originality which places it in the first 
 rank of English lyrics ? The same faculty for alche- 
 mising a scholar's knowledge into poetry is displayed 
 at large in the Antimasque of Witches ; ' Macbeth ' sug- 
 gested the miotive, and the whole range of classical 
 literature furnished the details. But the motive is 
 handled in a style so masterly, and the details are 
 applied with such artistic freedom, that we rise from 
 the perusal of those wild incantation scenes with a keen 
 sense only of the poet's command of weird and ghastly 
 imagery. The Masque of Hymen combines the eru- 
 dition of Roman bridals with the epithalamial hymns 
 of Catullus, in choruses and scenes and speeches of 
 ' linked sweetness long drawn out.' ' The Masque of 
 Augurs ' converts the pious rites of ancient Rome into 
 a modern pageant. The ' Hue and Cry after Cupid' 
 dramatises an Idyll of Moschus in verse that has the 
 sharp-cut clearness of a Greek intaglio. The induc- 
 tion to ' Neptune's Triumph ' turns several fragments 
 from the Attic playwrights to account in a controversy 
 
 7u ^^ (fix iir^ir\iL ■ foL 'T^c-v , <^^^ Trrr im- 
 
348 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 between the poet and the cook upon their several 
 arts. ' The Masque of Oberon ' is introduced by a dia- 
 logue of Satyrs, Sylvans, and Silenus, starting from 
 Virgil's sixth Eclogue, and interweaving the mythology 
 of Pan and Bacchus with that of Northern fairyland in 
 a work of chastened art which can be only paralleled 
 from Landor's poetry. 
 
 Such are the dainty delights which Jonson, ' at his 
 full tables,' has provided for the lover of literature. 
 It is true that a scholar's appetite must be brought to 
 the repast ; else some ' fastidious stomachs,' as he 
 phrases it, may prefer to ' enjoy at home their clean 
 empty trenchers.' But no one who has a true sense of 
 verse will fail to be rewarded by a cursory perusal of 
 those lyrics, upon which even Milton deigned to found 
 his pastoral style. In support of this somewhat bold 
 assertion, I must beg my reader's leave to go astray 
 awhile at random through these paths of poetry. 
 Imagine, then, that Venus has descended with her 
 Graces from the heavens. She complains that Cupid 
 has run away from home. None of the Graces know 
 what has become of him. Then his mother turns to 
 the ladies of the Court assembled in the hall before 
 her. Perhaps, the truant is hidden in their laps or 
 nestling in their bosoms. She bids the Graces cry 
 him. This they do in nine responsive stanzas : 
 
 Beauties, have you seen this toy, 
 Called Love, a little boy. 
 Almost naked, wanton, blind ; 
 Cruel now, and then as kind ? 
 If he be amongst ye, say ! 
 He is Venus' runaway. 
 
POE TR Y OF JONSON '5j MA SQ UES. 349 
 
 So the one voice sings ; and a second voice takes up 
 the chaunt : 
 
 He hath marks about him plenty ; 
 You shall know him among twenty. 
 All his body is a fire, 
 And his breath a flame entire, 
 That, being shot, like lightning, in, 
 Wounds the heart, but not the skin. 
 
 The Masque, from which I have borrowed these 
 two stanzas, concludes with an Epithalamion. It is 
 not equal to Spenser's sublime hymns in lyric rapture, 
 nor yet in warmth and wealth of imagery to Herrick's ; 
 but it is composed of stuff like this : 
 
 Love's commonwealth consists of toys ; 
 His council are those antic boys. 
 
 Games, Laughter, Sports, Delights, 
 That triumph with him on these nights : 
 
 To whom we must give way, 
 For now their reign begins, and lasts till day. 
 
 They sweeten Hymen's war, 
 And, in that jar. 
 
 Make all, that married be, 
 Perfection see. 
 Shine, Hesperus, shine forth, thou wished star ! 
 
 On rare occasions, Jonson's lyric touch reminds us 
 of the style of very modern singers. Here is a stanza 
 from ' The Fortunate Isles,' which has an air of 
 Wordsworth : 
 
 The winds are sweet, and gently blow ; 
 But Zephyrus, no breath they know. 
 
 The father of the flowers : 
 By him the virgin violets live. 
 And every plant doth odours give 
 
 As fresh as are the hours. 
 
350 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 The complicated choric passages in this Masque, 
 written for three men's voices, with question and 
 answer, echo and antiphony, melting into harmony or 
 unison upon the close, must have been singularly sweet 
 to hear. But, alas ! their music, whether by Ferrabosco 
 or by Harry Lawes, is lost. We only know, through 
 Madrigals composed about that time by Gibbons, how 
 pure the outline of their cadence may have been. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Jonson, stout and rugged as he was undoubtedly, 
 Dryasdust as some conceive him, had yet an exquisite 
 sense of rural beauty. This he showed in the fine 
 fragment of his ' Sad Shepherd.' But the Masques 
 abound in passages of no less delicacy. ' Pan's Anni- 
 versary ' opens with a trio of Nymphs, carrying prickles, 
 or open wicker baskets, and strewing several sorts of 
 flowers before the altar of the god. Each sings, as she 
 performs her task. The third carries a basket of violets, 
 which she showers upon the ground to these verses : 
 
 Drop, drop your violets ! Change your hues, 
 
 Now red, now pale, as lovers use ! 
 
 And in your death go out as well 
 
 As when you lived, unto the smell ! 
 
 That from your odour all may say : 
 
 This is the shepherd's holyday ! 
 
 There is no crabbed erudition here ; but rather a 
 faint evanescent scent of Shelley's lines upon the violet. 
 When the Nymphs have done singing, an old Shepherd 
 addresses them : 
 
PASTORAL MASQUES. 351 
 
 Well done, my pretty ones ! rain roses still, 
 Until the last be dropped : then hence, and fill 
 Your fragrant prickles for a second shower. 
 Bring corn-flag, tulips, and Adonis' flower, 
 Fair ox-eye, goldy-locks, and columbine, 
 Pinks, goulands, king-cups, and sweet sops-in-wine, 
 Blue harebells, pagles, pansies, calaminth. 
 Flower-gentle, and the fair-haired hyacinth ; 
 Bring rich carnations, flower-de-luces, lilies. 
 The checked, and purple-ringfed daifodillies. 
 Bright crown imperial, king-spear, hollyhocks, 
 Sweet Venus-navel, and soft lady-smocks ; 
 Bring too some branches forth of Daphne's hair. 
 And gladdest myrtle for these post^ to wear. 
 With spikenard weaved and marjoram between, 
 And starred with yellow-golds and meadows -queen. 
 That when the altar, as it ought, is dressed, 
 More odour come not from the phcenix nest, 
 The breath thereof Panchaia may envy. 
 The colours China, and the light the sky ! 
 
 It may well be wondered, when the poet has sent 
 his Shepherd with this flourish off the stage, whether 
 he could himself have pointed out each herb amid that 
 prodigality of quaint-named blossoms in some actual 
 garden at one same and certain season of the year. 
 The effect, however, is rich ; and those who care to 
 reconstruct old English flower-beds in their imagina- 
 tion, may learn from Gerard's Herbal what goldy- 
 locks and goulands, sops-in-wine and pagles, lady- 
 smocks and calaminth and purple-ringed daffodillies 
 really were. 
 
352 SHAICSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 XII. 
 
 In the Masque of Beauty, Jonson sounds a higher 
 lyric note than this. To judge by the description he 
 has furnished of the show, the ' bodily presentment ' 
 must have been magnificent and exquisite. Harmonia 
 was seated on a throne, adorned with painted statues, 
 and approached by six steps, which were ' covered with 
 a multitude of Cupids (chosen out of the best and most 
 ingenious youths of the kingdom, both noble and 
 others) that were the torch-bearers.' Around the 
 throne were ' curious and elegant arbours appointed.' 
 Behind it spread ' a grove of grown trees laden with 
 golden fruit, which other little Cupids plucked, and 
 threw at each other, whilst on the ground leverets 
 picked up the bruised apples, and left them half eaten.' 
 Into this pleasance, on a floating island, came the 
 Masquers ; and when they had ' danced forth a most 
 curious dance, full of excellent device and change,' 
 they stood in the figure of a diamond, " and so, 
 standing still, were by the musicians with a second 
 song, sung by a loud tenor, celebrated : ' 
 
 So Beauty on the waters stood, 
 When Love had severed earth from flood ! 
 So when he parted air from fire, 
 He did with concord all inspire ! 
 And then a motion he them taught. 
 That elder than himself was thought ; 
 Which thought was, yet, the child of earth. 
 For Love is older than his birth. 
 
 In the libretto of ' Prince Henry's Barriers,' Jonson 
 attacks history, and summons Merlin from his grave 
 
HISTORICAL MASQUES. 353 
 
 within the lake to marshal forth the glories of 
 Plantagenets and Tudors. Henry, on the day pre- 
 ceding this trial of arms, had been created Prince of 
 Wales with extraordinary pomp. He was a youth 
 of singular beauty and athletic grace, an adept in 
 chivalrous sports, and a pursuivant of love, though 
 only in his fifteenth year. To greet him on this great 
 occasion with the muster-roll of England's potent 
 Edwards and heroic Henrys, was a compliment no less 
 instructive than effective. First come the builders-up 
 of English greatness ; then the Crusaders ; next the 
 
 Black Prince : 
 
 That Mars of men, 
 The black prince Edward, 'gainst the French who then 
 At Cressy field had no more years than you. 
 
 After him, the hero of Agincourt : 
 
 Yet rests the other thunderbolt of war, 
 Harry the Fifth, to whom in face you are 
 So like, as fate would have you so in worth. 
 Illustrious prince ! 
 
 Lastly, Elizabeth, before whose auspices fled shattered 
 the Invincible Armada : 
 
 That covered all the main, 
 As if whole islands had broke loose, and swam, 
 Or half of Norway with her fir-trees came 
 To join the continent. 
 
 The young prince, so lately consecrated heir of Eng- 
 land, must have had churl's blood in his veins if he 
 blushed and thrilled not to the martial music of these 
 verses. He could not know to what a timeless death 
 his adolescence was devoted. Nor could any of the 
 Court then present have predicted how the splendours 
 
 A A 
 
354 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 of the House of Stuart would be merged in two grim 
 
 revolutions. Strangely enough, as though the poet 
 
 were also prophet, Jonson reserves the last lines of his 
 
 panegyric for a princess of the Stuart line — Elizabeth, 
 
 the wife of the Elector Palatine, from whom the 
 
 Empress-Queen of England at our epoch draws her 
 
 blood. Of her he says : 
 
 She shall be 
 Mother of nations ! 
 
 In this prediction lurks a deep poetic irony While 
 intending a compliment, the Laureate wrote a motto for 
 America and Canada, for Australia and New Zealand, 
 for the Colonies of Africa and China, for the South-Sea 
 Islands, and the Empire of the Eastern Indies. 
 
 Young Henry proved himself not unworthy of these 
 royal honours. Upon the morrow of the Masque, he 
 held the lists together with his chosen champions against 
 their chivalrous assailants. That day, he gave and 
 received thirty-two pushes of pikes, and about three 
 hundred and sixty strokes of swords. Allowing for the 
 fact that this was a toy-tournament, in which a Prince of 
 Wales was no doubt well regarded, we may still repeat 
 Sir George Cornwallis's comment on his prowess with 
 national pride : ' the which is scarce credible in so young 
 years, enough to assure the world that Great Britain's 
 brave Henry aspired to immortality.' On the evening 
 of the day following these Barriers, the Prince ap- 
 peared as Oberon among his fairies in a new and still 
 more splendid entertainment. They danced until the 
 night was well-nigh spent, when Phosphor, rising, 
 bade them all, like duteous fays, speed home to bed : 
 
PRINCE HENRY. 355 
 
 To rest, to rest ! The herald of the day, 
 
 Bright Phosphorus, commands you hence ! Obey ! 
 
 The moon is pale, and spent ; and wingfed night 
 
 Makes headlong haste to fly the morning's sight. 
 
 Who now is rising from her blushing wars, 
 
 And with her rosy hand puts back the stars : 
 
 Of which myself the last, her harbinger. 
 
 But stay to warn you that you not defer 
 
 Your parting longer ! Then do I give way. 
 
 As Night hath done, and so must you, to Day. 
 
 This warning from the morning star may well be 
 taken as a warning for the modern scribe, sitting late 
 into the night with Jonson, who feels the exploration 
 of the beauties scattered through those Masques to be 
 an infinite quest. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Thus far, I have confined attention to the scenic 
 splendour of our Masques ; to the flowers of lyric 
 poetry adorning them ; and to the deep subsoil of learn- 
 ing, from which those radiant blossoms sprang. But 
 there is a dark and ominous shadow cast by history 
 upon their brightness. The last word spoken must 
 concern the actors, must disclose the tragic irony of 
 their appearance on that courtly stage. Let us recall 
 the English beauties who attended Anne of Denmark 
 — Belanna, as her Laureate styled the Queen — in her 
 triumphal progress through the Masque of Beauty. 
 Countesses of Arundel and Derby, of Bedford and 
 Montgomery ; Ladies Guilford, Petre, Winsor, Winter, 
 Clifford, Neville, Hatton, Chichester, and Walsingham. 
 Many of these women had sad tales to tell in days of 
 coming troubles. But the saddest tale of all was that 
 of the Lady Arabella Stuart. Heiress of the House 
 
 A A J 
 
356 SHAKSPJ^li^'S PREbECESSORS. 
 
 of Lennox, she was watched with jealousy alike by 
 Tudor and by Stuart sovereigns. To prevent her 
 marriage, was the policy of Scotch and English Courts. 
 Yet she held a dazzling place, so near the throne, in 
 both ; and love makes pastime for himself with cour- 
 tiers' hearts. Her intimacy with a cousin, Esm6 Stuart, 
 was forbidden. The suit of a Percy was frosted in 
 the bud. The King of France thought of her for a 
 moment, but rejected her ' on better judgment making,' 
 as too distant from the crown of England. Then, it 
 seems, her feelings were engaged for William Seymour, 
 grandson of the Earl of Hertford. State interference 
 in this matter compromised her woman's fame. She 
 was imprisoned at Lambeth ; he was committed to the 
 Tower. They both escaped, and took their flight to 
 Flanders. But the Lady Arabella was captured at 
 Calais, and brought back to London. She had played 
 her part at Whitehall in the ' Masque of Beauty,' in 
 1608. She died in the Tower, a raving lunatic, in 1615. 
 Turn to ' Prince Henry's Barriers,' and the Masque 
 of Oberon. In these, the heir apparent shone before 
 his people and the Court in 16 10. He was a youth 
 heroic, beautiful, and brave, a nation's darling. From 
 her lethargy of age he roused the Dame of Chivalry, 
 brought Merlin from his grave, and unsphered Arthur 
 from the skies. The poet hailed him as a second 
 Harry, fit for Agincourt in form and feature. Scholars 
 dubbed him Moeliades, Lord of the Isles, and out of 
 this mysterious name made anagrams — A Deo Miles. 
 None then could know that he was the Marcellus of a 
 kingdom. But round him, as he danced among his 
 fairies, floated shades of Death and Hades. 
 
TRAGIC IRONY OF WHITEHALL MASQUES. 357 
 
 Egregium forma juvenem et fulgentibus armis, 
 Sed frons laeta parum, et dejecto lumine vultus. 
 
 Scatter lilies and roses! Henry will have died before 
 three years are over, and the poets will be shedding 
 tears for Moeliades in Hawthornden and London. 
 
 And the little Duke Charles, who danced so bravely 
 with the fairies in his brother's festival ; the Prince 
 Charles, who, when he came from Spain, led forth the 
 revels of ' Time Vindicated ; ' what shall be said of him ? 
 The Prince's Masque of 1623 was followed by a very 
 different pageant at Whitehall in 1649. And what had 
 passed between those dates — what death-throes of a 
 dynasty, divisions of a nation ! 
 
 He nothing common did or mean 
 Upon that memorable scene, 
 
 But with his keener eye 
 
 The axe's edge did try ; 
 Nor called the gods, with vulgar spite, 
 To vindicate his helpless right ; 
 
 But bowed his comely head 
 
 Down as upon a bed. 
 
 Pass, once again, to the Masque of Hymen. 
 Through those epithalamial hymns which sounded 
 in the ears of Essex and his bride in 16 16, who does 
 not hear the mutterings of destiny and dire disgrace .'' 
 The Lady Frances Howard was in her fourteenth 
 year. The heir of Elizabeth's and the nation's darling, 
 the young Earl of Essex, was hardly fifteen. Jonson, 
 in his marriage chorus for these children, sang : 
 
 And wildest Cupid waking hovers 
 With adoration 'twixt the lovers. 
 
 The girl-wife lived to seek a dishonourable divorce, 
 
358 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 and to wed the Earl of Somerset, that Carr who made 
 his fortunate dSbut in James's favour on the morning of 
 ' Prince Henry's Barriers.' Tried and condemned for 
 the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, the lives of this 
 guilty couple were spared by the King's terror of de- 
 tection. They ended their days in separation, the ob- 
 jects of universal horror. The boy-husband of Jonson's 
 hymeneal pageant was destined to lead the armies of 
 the Parliament against his sovereign, and to sink at 
 last before the power and popularity of Cromwell. 
 
 With the advance of years, the tragic irony of these 
 Masques at Court deepens. The last great entertain- 
 ment of this kind, of which we have any detailed in- 
 formation, was a Masque presented by Charles and 
 Henrietta Maria at Shrovetide 1640. The usual sum 
 of 1,400/. had been granted for the mounting of the 
 piece ; and an additional sum of 1 20/. was expended on 
 the King's costume. What the subject was, or who 
 wrote the libretto, is not known. But we may believe 
 that Whitehall presented to the outer eye on this, as on 
 so many previous occasions, a pageant of undimmed 
 magnificence, a scene of undisturbed security. The 
 Monarchy of England, indeed, was tottering already 
 to its fall ; the foundations of society were crumbling. 
 Yet, as usual, the hall was crowded with noble men 
 and noble women, exchanging compliments beneath 
 the torches, dancing brawls or galliards, as though 
 there were no Pym and Hampden in existence. Those 
 brilliant and bejewelled cavaliers, innocent as yet of 
 civil strife, unstained with fratricidal slaughter, were 
 soon to part, with anger in their breasts and everlasting 
 farewell on their lips, for adverse camps. Gazing in 
 
THE MASQUE AND THE DRAMA. 359 
 
 fancy on the women at their side, that voice which 
 De Quincey heard in vision thrills our ears : ' These 
 are English ladies from the unhappy times of Charles I. 
 These are the wives and daughters of those who met 
 in peace, and sat at the same tables, and were allied 
 by marriage or by blood ; and yet, after a certain day 
 in August 1642, never smiled upon each other again, 
 nor met but on the field of battle ; and at Marston 
 Moor, at Newbury, or at Naseby, cut asunder all ties 
 of love by the cruel sabre, and washed away in blood 
 the memory of ancient friendship.' 
 
 XIV. 
 
 It remains to note the effects of Masques at Court 
 upon the Drama. Like everything which formed a 
 prominent part of the national life, the Masque was 
 adopted and incorporated into the popular art of the 
 theatres. Shakspere in ' The Tempest ' has left us an 
 example of its most judicious introduction, as a brief 
 interlude, in the conduct of a serious play. A similarly 
 successful instance might be cited from Fletcher's 
 ' False One,' where the Masque of Nilus forms a 
 splendid and agreeable episode. The Bridal Masque 
 in his ' Maid's Tragedy ' is not less beautiful and 
 rightly placed. Cupid's Masque in 'A Wife for a 
 Month ' presents the mere silhouette or sketch in 
 outline of a courtly pageant. On the public stage, it 
 was of course necessary that the Masque, exhibited 
 within a play, should be simple in its theme and 
 capable of quick despatch. Webster used a Masque 
 of Madmen with terrible effect at the climax of his 
 
36o SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Duchess' tragedy. Marston, Tourneur, and other play- 
 wrights of the melodrama, as they abused Ghosts for 
 purposes of stage-effect, so did they stretch this motive 
 of the Masque within the Drama beyond just limits. 
 It became the customary device in their hands for dis- 
 posing of a tyrant. 
 
 From the dramatists themselves we learn how City 
 folk and petty gentry crowded to Whitehall on 
 masquing nights.^ Men forgave their debts, and 
 women sold their honour, to obtain a seat. To have a 
 friend at Court among the Ushers or the Porters was the 
 heart's wish of those aspiring citizens who panted to 
 gaze on royalty and aristocracy performing actors' parts 
 upon the stage of a palace. The ante-rooms and 
 galleries of Whitehall became on those occasions a 
 scene of indescribable debauchery and riot. ' The 
 masques and plays at Whitehall,' writes Sir Edward 
 Peyton in his ' Divine Catastrophe of the Stuarts,' ' were 
 used only for incentives to lust ; therefore the courtiers 
 invited the citizens' wives to those shows on purpose to 
 defile them in such sort. There is not a lobby nor 
 chamber (if it could speak) but would verify it.' The 
 passages cited from Fletcher and Jonson in a note 
 appended by Dyce to this paragraph, fully corroborate 
 the Puritan's assertion. 
 
 Jonson told Drummond at Hawthornden, that 
 ' next himself, only Fletcher and Chapman could make 
 a Masque.' Jonson did not live to welcome Milton's 
 Muse, or he might have added that a fourth Masque- 
 
 ' See, in particular, the Induction to Fletcher's Four Plays in One 
 the opening of his Humorous Lieutenant, the Maid's Tragedy (act i. sc 2) 
 A Wife for a Month (act ii. sc. 4), and the introduction to Jonson's Love 
 Restored. 
 
MILTON'S MASQUES. 361 
 
 maker had arisen, who combined the art of Fletcher 
 with his own in a new style of incomparably higher 
 poetry. It is clear from indications scattered through 
 Milton's works, that the Masques which in his boy- 
 hood reached their height of splendour, had powerfully 
 affected his imagination. Both the songs and the 
 discourse of his ' Arcades ' reveal, to my mind at least, 
 a careful study on the youthful poet's part of Jonson's 
 work ; and I find the influence of Fletcher no less 
 manifest in the lyrics of ' Comus.' The meditative 
 music of the Genius' speech, the incomparable touches 
 of nature-painting scattered through the ' Arcades,' and 
 the heightened dignity of language which raises this 
 little piece into the region of classical art, place 
 Milton already above his masters. But his immeasur- 
 able superiority becomes only unmistakable in 'Comus.' 
 This exquisite composition, in which poetry of the 
 loftiest is blent with philosophy of the purest and the 
 sweetest, bears upon its title-page the name of Masque. 
 But except in the antithetical treatment of the Spirit 
 and the Genius of sensual pleasure ; except in the 
 lyrics scattered with a hand not over-liberal through 
 its scenes ; ' Comus ' challenges no comparison in any 
 ponderable qualities of craftsmanship with those sturdy 
 works of art in which James's Laureate strove with 
 James's architect for fashionable laurels. In the his- 
 tory of English literature, ' Comus ' remains to show 
 how the scenic elements of the Masque, touching the 
 fancy of a great poet, became converted into flawless 
 poetry beneath his hand. Nominally a Masque, it has 
 really nothing in common with entertainments which 
 demanded 'bodily presentment' and 'apparelling' upon 
 
362 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 the stage. Yet it would probably have never issued 
 from the poet's brain but for shows at Court. Masque 
 and Antimasque, sweeping before his sense, had left 
 their impress upon Milton's fancy. The memories of 
 those fair scenes, whether actually witnessed, or studied 
 in a printed page, dwelt in his mind, emerging later to 
 evoke that fairy fabric of romantic allegory which he 
 called the Masque of Comus. Had the ' Midsummer's 
 Night's Dream ' been composed by Shakspere for 
 courtly theatricals, or the ' Faithful Shepherdess ' by 
 Fletcher for like purpose, this name might with equal 
 propriety have been given to those two pieces. 
 
363 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 I. The Chronicle Play is a peculiarly English Form — Its Difference from 
 other Historical Dramas — Supplies the Place of the Epic — Treatment 
 of National Annals by the Playwrights. — II. Shakspere's Chronicles 
 — Four Groups of non-Shaksperian Plays on English History. — 
 
 III. Legendary Subjects — ' Locrine' — 'The History of King Leir.' — 
 
 IV. Shakspere's Doubtful Plays — Principles of Criticism — ' The Birth 
 of Merlin.' — V. Chronicle- Plays Proper — 'Troublesome Reign of 
 King John' — 'True Tragedy of Richard III.' — 'Famous Victories of 
 Henry V.' — ' Contention of the Two Famous Houses.' — ^VI. ' Ed- 
 ward III.' — The Problem of its Authorship — Based on a Novella and 
 on History — The Superior Development of Situations. — VII. Mar- 
 lowe's ' Edward II.' — Peele's ' Edward I.' — Heywood's ' Edward IV.' — 
 Rowley's Play on Henry VIII. — VIII. The Ground covered by the 
 Chronicle Plays — Their Utility — Heywood's ' Apology ' quoted. — IX. 
 Biographies of Political Persons and Popular Heroes — ' Sir Thomas 
 More ' — ' Lord Cromwell' — ' Sir John Oldcastle ' — Schlegel's Opinion 
 criticised — ' Sir Thomas Wyatt ' — Ford's ' Perkin Warbeck ' — Last 
 Plays of this Species. — X. English Adventurers — ' Fair Maid of the 
 West '— ' The Shirley Brothers '— ' Sir Thomas Stukeley '—His Life 
 — Dramatised in ' The Famous History,' &c. — ' Battle of Alcazar.' — 
 XI. Apocryphal Heroes — ' Fair Em ' — ' Blind Beggar of Bethnal 
 Green ' — Two Plays on the Robin Hood Legend — English Partiality 
 for Outlaws — Life in Sherwood — ' George a Greene ' — Jonson's ' Sad 
 Shepherd ' — Popularity in England of Princes who have shared the 
 People's Sports and Pastimes. 
 
 N.B. The Historical Plays discussed in this chapter will be found as 
 follows : ' Locrine,' ' The Birth of Merlin,' ' Lord Cromwell,' in the 
 Tauc hnitz edition,,o£-- Shakespeare's 'Doubtful Plays ; ' 'King Leir,' 
 ' Troublesorne Reign of King John,' 'true Tragedy of Richard III.,' 
 ' Famous Victories of Henry V.,' ' Contention of the Two Houses,' in W. 
 C. Hazlitt^sJ^hakesp£Are's Library ;' ' Edward III.' in DeJiu^_iPseudo- 
 Shakspere'sche Dramen ; ' Marlowe's, Peele's, Heywood's Chronicles in 
 Dyce's^editions of Marlowe and Peele and Peaigon's reprint of Heywood ; 
 Rowley's ' When You See Me, You Know Me,' in KarLElze's reprint ; 
 ' Sir Thomas More,' in the Old Shakespeare Society's Publications ; 
 
364 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 'Sir Thomas Wyatt,' in Dyce's 'Webster,' and 'Perkin Warbeck ' in 
 Gifford's ' Ford ; ' ' The Famous History of Sir Thomas Stukeley ' in 
 Simpson's 'School of Shakspere,' and 'The Battle of Alcazar' in Dyce's 
 ' Peele ; ' ' Fair Em' in Delius ; ' The Blind Beggar' and ' The Shirley 
 Brothers' in Bullen's 'Day;' 'Dick of Devonshire' in Bullen's 'Old 
 Plays;' the two plays on 'Robert, Earl of Huntingdon,' in Hazlitt's 
 ' Dodsley,' vol. viii. ; ' George a Greene ' in Dyce's ' Greene.' 
 
 I. 
 
 The Chronicle Play is peculiar to English literature. 
 The lost tragedy by Phrynichus, entitled ' The Capture 
 of Miletus,' which is said to have cost the poet a con- 
 siderable fine from the Athenian people, and the 
 triumphal pageant of ' The Persae,' in which jiEschylus 
 sang the paean of the Greek race over conquered Asia, 
 cannot be reckoned in the same class as the Chronicles 
 of Shakspere and his predecessors. Nor do the few 
 obscure plays produced by Italian authors upon events 
 in their national history, whether we take into account 
 Mussato's ' Eccelinis ' or the popular Representation 
 of ' Lautrec,' deserve this title. Coleridge has re- 
 marked that our Chronicle Play occupies an inter- 
 mediate place between the Epic and the Drama. It 
 is not, like the ' Wallenstein ' of Schiller or Victor 
 Hugo's ' Roi s'amuse,' an episode selected from the 
 national annals, and dramatised because of its peculiar 
 tragic or satiric fitness. Its characteristic quality is the 
 dramatic presentation in a single action of the lead- 
 ing events of a reign. The Chronicle Plays, which in 
 the Elizabethan age probably covered the whole field 
 of English history, had for their object the scenic 
 exposition of our annals to the nation. If we pos- 
 sessed that series intact, we should see unrolled before 
 us, as in a gigantic and unequal epic, the succession 
 
The chronicle plaV. 365 
 
 of events and vicissitudes from mythic Brute to the 
 defeat of the Armada. 
 
 English literature possesses no national epic. The 
 legends of Arthur formed, it is true, a semi-epical body 
 of romance. But these legends were not purely Eng- 
 lish in their origin ; nor were they digested into the 
 ' Mort d' Arthur,' by Sir Thomas Malory, until a com- 
 paratively late period. When our language attained 
 the proper flexibility for poetical composition, the 
 age of the heroic Epic had passed away. The great 
 events of our annals, whether mythical or historical, 
 instead of being sung by rhapsodists, were acted by 
 tragedians, in accordance with the prevalent dramatic 
 impulse. But the epical instinct was satisfied by the 
 peculiar form which the Chronicle Play assumed. The 
 authors of these works combined fidelity to facts and 
 observance of chronology with their effort after a 
 certain artistic unity of effect. They fixed attention on 
 tragic calamities and conflicting passions, endeavouring, 
 so far as in them lay, to bring the characters of men in 
 action into striking prominence.. As the scientific 
 historian seeks to investigate the laws which underlie 
 a nation's growth, regarding men as agents in the pro- 
 cess of evolution ; so, by a converse method, our drama- 
 tists fixed their eyes upon the personal elements of 
 history, and kept out of sight those complex influences 
 which narrow the sphere of individual activity. The 
 one process presents us with the philosophy of history, 
 the other with its poetry. Neither mode of treatment 
 is dishonest, though the whole truth is not to be found 
 in either result : for the history of the world, as Hegel 
 remarked, has a double aspect ; and the highest aim of 
 
366 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 the historian is to place the heroes who seem to resume 
 the spirit of their several epochs, in proper relation to 
 the world-spirit. As was right and necessary, the 
 authors of our Chronicle Plays made history subservient 
 to art, and character more potent than circumstance. 
 Yet they abstained from violating the general outlines 
 of the annals which they dramatised. They introduced 
 no figmentary matter of importance,and rarely deviated 
 from tradition to enhance effect. Their chief licence 
 consisted in altering the relative proportion of events, 
 in concentrating the action of many years within the 
 space of a few hours, and in heightening for tragic 
 purposes the intellectual and moral stature of com- 
 manding personages. Episodical incidents were freely 
 invented ; but always with the object of enforcing and 
 colouring the fact as they received it from the annalists. 
 Only here and there, as in Peele's dastardly libel on the 
 good Queen Eleanor, do we find a deliberate attempt 
 to falsify history for a purpose of the moment. I do 
 not of course mean to assert that any of our dramatists 
 were conscientious in the scientific sense of the word, 
 and that they did not share the common prejudices of 
 their age. What I wish to insist upon is that they 
 approached the historical drama from the epical point 
 of view, and that their main object was the scenic 
 reproduction of history rather than the employ- 
 ment of historical material for any further-reaching 
 purpose. 
 
FOUR GROUPS. ' ' 367 
 
 r ' ~ ' /-OW? GROUPS. ' ' ^67 ' 
 
 t^-iAC 
 
 II. 
 
 Were it not for Shakspere's Chronicle Plays, it 
 might be hardly needful to dwell at considerable length 
 upon this species. But these masterpieces are so unique 
 in their kind, combining as they do fidelity to the main 
 sources at the dramatist's command with perfect artistic 
 freedom in a harmony unparalleled, that it behoves us to 
 consider the crude work of his predecessors. In the 
 best plays of Shakspere's historical series, the heroes of 
 English annals are glorified, but not metamorphosed. 
 That grasp of character which enabled him to create a /- 
 
 Hamlet and a Lady Macbeth, was here employed in iio/^ - 
 resuscitating real men and women from their graves. *" " 
 He translated them to the sphere of poetry without 
 altering their personal characteristics. Only, instead of 
 flesh and blood, he gave in his scenes portraits of them, 
 such as Titian or Rubens might have painted, by 
 dwelling on their salient qualities, flattering without 
 sycophancy, and reveaUng the dark places of the 
 soul without animosity. 
 
 I propose to arrange the non-Shaksperian plays on 
 English history in four groups. The first consists of 
 dramas founded on mythical events. The second is 
 the body of Chronicle Plays, properly so called. The 
 third is a set of biographical dramas, bringing English 
 worthies or famous characters upon the stage. The 
 fourth group deals with semi-legendary heroes dear to 
 the English people, or with pleasant episodes in the 
 traditionary lives of their princes. 
 
36S SHAKSPERE'S PRE:b£CESSORS. 
 
 III. 
 
 We have seen, that the earHest tragedies of the 
 pseudo-classic school were founded on the legendary- 
 history of England — 'Gorboduc' and 'The Misfortunes 
 of Arthur.' A proper third to these two stilted plays 
 may be found in ' Locrine ;' the subject of which is 
 the death of Brutus, first king of Britain, with the sub- 
 sequent adventures of his three sons. This drama, 
 a piece of passable but wooden workmanship, has long 
 been included in the list of Shakspere's Doubtful Plays. 
 There is, however, no shadow of reason for supposing 
 that Shakspere had a hand in it.^ ' Locrine ' is written 
 throughout in a level style of vulgar and pedestrian 
 bombast, tumid with the metaphors and classical 
 mythology which Greene made fashionable, and which 
 Marlowe transfigured. Humber, described as ' King 
 of the Scythians,' wanders fasting through North 
 English deserts, and soliloquises : 
 
 Ne'er came sweet Ceres, ne'er came Venus here ; 
 Triptolemus, the god of husbandmen. 
 Ne'er sowed his seed in this foul wilderness. 
 The hunger-bitten dogs of Acheron, 
 Chased from the nine-fold Pyriphlegethon, 
 Have set their footsteps in this damnfed ground. 
 
 All the characters, Britons and Scythians, with the 
 exception of the comic personages, who are not totally 
 devoid of merit, talk this fine language. Such interest 
 
 ' It was printed in 1 595, as ' newly set forth, overseen and corrected 
 by W. S.' On this foundation the editor of the folio Shakspere, 1664, 
 included it in his collection. The best passages of the play, act iv. sc. 4 
 for example, are very much in the manner of Greene. 
 
'LOCRINE' AND 'KING LEIR.' 369 
 
 as the play possesses, is due to the fact that it consti- 
 tutes a hybrid between the type of ' Gorboduc ' and the 
 new romantic drama. The subject is treated roman- 
 tically ; but the author has freely indulged his pseudo- 
 classic partiality for ghosts. He introduces each 
 act with a dumb show, which is explained by Ate 
 'in black, with a burning torch in one hand, and a 
 bloody sword in the other.' He makes two heroes, 
 on the point of suicide, declaim Latin hexameters, and 
 puts Latin mottoes like ' Regit omnia numen' or ' In 
 pcenam sectatur et umbra,' into the mouth of his 
 spectres. There are no less than five suicides al- 
 together in the action, the poet being apparently unable 
 to make his personages kill each other. ' 
 
 'The History of King Leir and his Three 
 Daughters ' takes higher rank than ' Locrine.' The 
 unknown writer of the piece deals in the sober spirit 
 of an honest craftsman with the old English legend, 
 which gave to Shakspere material for the most terrific* 
 of all extant masterpieces. The style is plain and 
 sturdy ; free from the intolerable pedantries and pet- 
 tinesses of Greene's mythologising school. There is 
 considerable power in the characterisation of the three 
 sisters, and no little pathos in the situation of Leir and 
 Perillus. Leir, Gonorill, Ragan, Cordelia, and Perillus, 
 indeed, only awaited the magic-working hand of Shak- 
 spere to become the Lear, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, and 
 Kent of his tremendous tragedy. Yet it must not be 
 thought that the master owed anything considerable to 
 this old play ; for these characters, together with the 
 main situations of the drama, were clearly given in the 
 prose story. What he has added, in the episode of 
 " B B 
 
370 SHAKSPEiiE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Gloucester and his sons, in the Fool's part, and in the 
 tragic close, is Shakspere's own invention. The play- 
 wright of ' King Leir,' adhering to the letter of his 
 text, left Cordelia happy with her father at the drama's 
 ending. We shall never know what moved Shakspere 
 to drop that pall of darkness upon the mystery of in- 
 scrutable woe at the very moment when there dawned a 
 brighter day for Lear united to his blameless daughter. 
 For once, it would appear, he chose to sound the 
 deepest depths of the world's suffering, a depth deeper 
 than that of ^schylean or Sophoclean tragedy, deeper 
 than the tragedy of ' Othello,' deeper than Malebolge or 
 Caina, a stony black despairing depth of voiceless and 
 inexplicable agony. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The third play of this group brings us once more 
 face to face with the problem of inferior works doubt- 
 fully or falsely attributed to Shakspere. In dealing 
 with these so-called Doubtful Plays, we are ' wander- 
 ing about in worlds not realised,' with no sure clue to 
 guide us, tantalised by suspicious tradition. We 
 know that before Shakspere began his great series of 
 authentic and undisputed dramas, he spent some years 
 of strenuous activity as a journeyman for the Company 
 of Players he had joined. At this period he was cer- 
 tainly employed in revising earlier compositions for 
 the stage, and was probably engaged as a collaborator 
 with unknown poets in the preparation of new plays. 
 That fairly competent writers for the theatre, men 
 capable of plain dramatic handiwork, and not devoid 
 of skill to imitate the manner of superior masters, 
 
THE CANON OF SHAKSPERE. 371 
 
 abounded in London at this epoch, cannot be doubted. 
 Shakspere, moreover, as is clearly proved by the 
 gradual emergence of his final style, by his slow self- 
 disentanglement from rhyme, and by his lingering 
 love of prettinesses and conceits, did not start as a 
 dramatist with a manner so fixed and unmistakable as 
 that of Marlowe. When, therefore, there is any scin- 
 tilla of external evidence in favour of his authorship, 
 we are bound to weigh the question, and not to dis- 
 card a work because it seems to us palpably unworthy. 
 There is always the possibility that he may have had 
 a hand in it, either as a restorer or as a collaborator ; 
 or, again, that it may have been a trial essay in some 
 vein of work abandoned by him ' upon better judg- 
 ment making.' These possibilities or probabilities' 
 fall into three or four main categories. We have to 
 ask ourselves : Is the doubtful play in question a work 
 of considerable merit retouched by the master's hand ? 
 If so, it may be classified with the Second or Third 
 Parts of ' Henry VI.' Is it an old piece entirelj'^ re- 
 written and rehandled .? If so, it will take rank with 
 ' Romeo and Juliet.' Is it one on which Shakspere 
 engrafted fresh scenes of incontestable mastery and 
 beauty .■* If so, it finds its analogue in ' Pericles.' Is 
 it one in which he wrought with a collaborator ? If 
 so, we may compare it with ' The Two Noble Kins- 
 men,' or perhaps with ' Henry VIII.' There remains 
 the further possibility of trial-work or prentice-labour 
 in a style rejected by the mature artist. Some would 
 explain the difficulties of 'Henry VIII.' upon this 
 theory, ascribing the parts on which Fletcher seems to 
 have been engaged, to Shakspere's own experiments 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 in an afterwards abandoned manner. ' Arden of 
 Feversham,' if we accept this fine play as Shaksperian, 
 ■would stand upon nearly the same ground, as an early 
 effort. 
 
 Such are some of the preliminary questions which 
 the critic has to ask himself Yet having weighed 
 them in the balance of his judgment, he must face 
 another set of difficulties. These arise from the tribe 
 of imitators. It is comparatively easy for men of 
 talent in a fertile literary age to ape the men of 
 genius. Therefore, when we detect some note which 
 has in it the master's accent, but lacks the full clear 
 ring of his authentic utterance, we are forced to choose 
 between two hypotheses. Either the passage in ques- 
 tion is the product of his immaturity or weakness ; or 
 else it is the parrot utterance of a clever disciple. In 
 this perplexity a sound critic, if he arrives at any con- 
 clusion whatsoever, will do so by trusting his sense of 
 what the master would have felt and thought, quite as 
 much as by analysing language and rhythm — will ask 
 himself whether the real Shakspere conceived character 
 thus, or treated a situation in this way. He will be 
 cautious in drawing inferences from similarity, which is 
 not genuine identity, of style. He will form his final 
 judgment from a survey of the whole work in dispute, 
 not from a comparison of single passages. In some 
 cases he will rise from the perusal of a doubtful play, 
 as Swinburne rose from the study of 'Edward III.,* 
 with the conviction that he has before him the vigorous 
 performance of no mean man, who, having sat at the 
 feet of two great masters, has managed to reproduce 
 their manner, with only a moderate portion of their 
 
CRITIQUE OF DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 373 
 
 spirit. The fine anonymous ' Tragedy of Nero,' for 
 example, shows such enthusiastic study of both Marston 
 and Fletcher, that the ascription of certain passages to 
 either poet would be reasonable, were not the whole 
 work cast in the mould of a mind differing from 
 both. 
 
 There remains a further source of hesitation and 
 perplexity, which has to be taken into calculation. 
 This is the mangled condition in which plays, during 
 the whole Elizabethan period, were apt to issue from 
 the press — piratically seized upon by publishers who 
 had no access to the author's MS., but took on trust a 
 shorthand writer's notes. Many instances of deformed 
 versification, mutilated scenes, and confused grammar, 
 can be explained by the simple hypothesis of piracy ; 
 and it is therefore dangerous to reject a misshapen 
 piece of work, in the face of any external evidence, on 
 the mere score of imperfection or unworthiness. I 
 might cite the first issue of Shakspere's ' Henry V.' or 
 our sole text of Marlowe's ' Massacre at Paris,' as in- 
 stances of what I wish to indicate. 
 
 From this digression I return to ' The Birth of 
 Merlin.' It was printed in 1662 by the bookseller 
 Kirkman, a most untrustworthy caterer and angler for 
 the public, with an ascription to William Shakespear 
 and William Rowley. Little indeed is known about 
 this Rowley's life. But if he collaborated with Shak- 
 spere, it must have been in the full maturity of that 
 poet's powers. Nothing in the plan or style of the 
 play reminds us of the adult Shakspere. If therefore 
 we attach any value to Kirkman's title-page, we must 
 suppose that Rowley retouched an early piece in 
 
374 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 which Shakspere was known to have had some hand ; 
 or that Shakspere received this piece of Rowley's for 
 his theatre with approval. There are Shaksperian 
 qualities in ' The Birth of Merlin ; ' but these can be 
 accounted for by referring it to the post-Shaksperian 
 epoch, when the master's manner had helped to create 
 a current style 
 
 The play is by no means despicable, though far 
 too long, crowded with irrelevant dramatic stuff, and 
 confused in action. The intricacy of the warp, and 
 the intellectual vivacity of the woof woven over it, are 
 not altogether unlike the early work of Shakspere. 
 The cast of some soliloquies, with interjected philo- 
 sophical reflections, the contorted phrasing and occa- 
 sional pregnancy of thought, taken in combination with 
 the absence of Greene's mythological jargon, and with 
 a notable superfluity of motives and situations — the 
 very parbreak of a youthful poet's indigestion — mark 
 it out as, at the least, post-Shaksperian. It belongs, 
 indeed, in my opinion, to the category of plays suffi- 
 ciently imitative of the master's style to have suggested 
 the legend of his part-authorship. 
 
 ' The Birth of Merlin ' is the second play founded 
 on the Arthurian cycle. It combines the tale of Uther 
 Pendragon's wanderings and loves with the story of 
 Merlin's diabolical parentage. Under the form of a 
 Court-gallant, the devil begets a child on a peasant- 
 girl. When he is bom, this son, who enters the world 
 in full maturity and with more than a man's wisdom, 
 consigns his father to a prison in a rock, and addresses 
 himself to the State affairs of Britain. These super- 
 natural and romantic elements are, however, subordi- 
 
• THE BIRTH OF MERLIN: 375 
 
 nated to a medley of farce ; and the ill-constructed 
 drama leaves no clear impression on the mind. 
 
 Having touched upon the style of this play in the 
 foregoing remarks, I must proceed to quote some 
 specimens. Here is a speech in rhyming couplets : 
 
 O my good Sister, I beseech you hear me : 
 
 This world is but a masque, catching weak eyes. 
 
 With what is not ourselves, but our disguise, 
 
 A vizard that falls off, the dance being done. 
 
 And leaves death's glass for all to look upon. 
 
 Our best happiness here lasts but a night. 
 
 Whose burning tapers make false ware seem right ; 
 
 Who knows not this, and will not now provide 
 
 Some better shift before his shame be spied. 
 
 And knowing this vain world at last will leave him, 
 
 Shake off these robes that help but to deceive him ? 
 
 Prince Uther, in his love-lunes, exclaims : 
 
 O, you immortal powers. 
 Why has poor man so many entrances 
 For sorrow to creep in at, when our sense 
 Is much too weak to hold his happiness? 
 O, say I was born deaf : and let your silence 
 Confirm in me the knowing my defect. 
 At least be charitable to conceal my sin ; 
 For hearing is no less in me, dear brother. 
 
 A Hermit refuses to drink healths at a wedding feast : 
 
 Temperate minds 
 Covet that health to drink, which nature gives 
 In every spring to man. He that doth hold 
 His body but a tenement at will. 
 Bestows no cost but to repair what's ill. 
 
 The following soliloquy, with its curious blending 
 of redundant blank verse and rhyme, has a passable 
 vein of thought : 
 
376 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Noble and virtuous ! Could I dream of marriage, 
 
 I should affect thee, Edwin ! O, my soul, 
 
 Here 's something tells me that these best of creatures. 
 
 These models of the world, weak man and woman, 
 
 Should have their souls, their making, life and being. 
 
 To some more excellent use. If what the sense 
 
 Calls pleasure were our ends, we might justly blame 
 
 Great nature's wisdom, who reared a building 
 
 Of so much art and beauty, to entertain 
 
 A guest so far incertain, so imperfect. 
 
 If only speech distinguish us from beasts. 
 
 Who know no inequality of birth or place, 
 
 But still to fly from goodness — oh, how base 
 
 Were life at such a rate ! No, no, that Power 
 
 That gave to man his being, speech, and wisdom, 
 
 Gave it for thankfulness. To Him alone 
 
 That made me thus, may I thence truly know 
 
 I '11 pay to Him, not man, the debt I owe. 
 
 V. 
 
 The list of Chronicle Plays, properly so called, is 
 headed by Bale's ' King Johan,' of which brief notice 
 has been already taken. ' The Troublesome Reign of 
 King John,' in two parts, deals with the same period 
 of our history. It is, to all appearances, a piece of 
 work posterior to Marlowe's ' Tamburlaine,' written in 
 sustained but very rough blank verse, converting the 
 prose chronicle bluntly into scenes, and indulging in 
 but rare occasional diversions. A ribald episode in 
 rhyme, introduced into the first part, and containing a 
 coarse satire on monastic institutions, may be regarded 
 as a farcical interlude rather than an integral portion of 
 the play. When Shakspere set his hand to 'King 
 John,' he found the bastard's part blocked out with 
 swaggering vigour in the elder Chronicle, the formless 
 
'KING JOHN' AND 'RICHARD HI} 377 
 
 germ of Hubeit's character, and a bare suggestion of 
 the King's contrivance for his nephew's murder. In 
 the evolution of our theatrical literature, it is singularly- 
 interesting to notice the gradual development of this 
 historical drama in its three stages. Bale's perform- 
 ance marks the emergence of the subject, still encum- 
 bered with the allegorical personifications and didactic 
 purposes of the Morality. ' The Troublesome Reign ' 
 exhibits a dull specimen of solid play-carpentry in the 
 earliest and crudest age of blank-verse composition. 
 ' King John ' is a masterpiece belonging to the second 
 period of Shakspere's maturity. 
 
 'The True Tragedy of Richard III.' bears signs 
 of an elder origin and a more complex composition 
 than ' The Troublesome Reign.' In form it contains 
 remnants of old rhyming structure, decayed verses of 
 fourteen feet, and clumsy prose, pieced and patched 
 with blank verse of very lumbering rhythm. The 
 play, as we possess it, must have undergone several 
 processes of botching and bungling before it settled 
 down into the printed copy of 1594. Some traces of 
 the pseudo-classic style are discernible in the Induc- 
 tion, which introduces Truth and Poetry, ushered upon 
 the stage by the ghost of Clarence crying aloud : O 
 cito, cito, vindicta ! Setting apart the curiosity of this 
 obsolete conglomerate, the Chronicle has no points of 
 literary interest. It cannot be said to have helped 
 Shakspere in the production of his 'Richard III.,' 
 which, as Mr. Swinburne observes, is a study in the 
 manner of Marlowe. A still more singular dramatic 
 work upon the life of Richard is Dr. Legge's 
 ' Richardus Tertius,' a Latin Chronicle Play, in two 
 
378 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 parts, not modelled upon Seneca, but closely following 
 the English plan of such performances in regular 
 iambics. 
 
 'The Famous Victories of Henry V.' is another 
 piece of uncouth but honest old English upholstery. 
 It presents internal evidences of composition at a later 
 period than 'The True Tragedy of Richard III.' and 
 may be classed upon a somewhat higher level than 
 'The Troublesome Reign of King John.' When we 
 have said that Shakspere built upon its ground-plan 
 in his Chronicle' of ' Henry V.' all that can or need be 
 spoken in its commendation has been uttered. The 
 romance of Prince Hal's youth, the episode of his 
 imprisonment in the Fleet, the incident of his 
 abstracting the crown from his father's pillow, his 
 change of character, and his bluff wooing of the 
 French Princess, are touched with artless and sturdy 
 straightforwardness by the stage-carpenter of plays 
 who made it. But of poetry or passion there is dearth 
 throughout. 
 
 The first and second parts of ' The Contention 
 of the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster' 
 are obviously the originals on which the Second and 
 Third Parts of ' Henry VI.' are based. But they are 
 more than this alone implies. We have in these two 
 plays work in the process of formation ; new stuff 
 patched upon old, and materials re-moulded. It is 
 an open question whether Shakspere himself is 
 responsible for the part of Richard and for the scenes 
 of Jack Cade's insurrection in the elder plays ; or 
 whether, as I think more probable, we may ascribe 
 Richard to a poet of eminent tragic power, possibly 
 
'EDWARD III.' 379 
 
 to Marlowe, and leave Jack Cade in the rough 
 draft to some unknown craftsman who was not in- 
 capable of such a sketch. Taken together with 
 ' Henry VI.' these Chronicles present an interesting 
 but insoluble problem to the critic. It is impossible 
 to analyse their successive and interpenetrative strata 
 of style, or to name their several authors with any 
 approach to certainty. 
 
 VI. 
 
 'Edward III.' presents a different but hardly less 
 perplexing riddle. This anonymous play, founded on 
 Bandello's story of the Countess of Salisbury and 
 Holinshed's digest of Froissart, was printed in 1596, 
 after it had already enjoyed some popularity upon the 
 stage. No one thought of attributing it to Shakspere 
 until the critic, Edward Capell, did so in 1 760. There 
 is, therefore, in this case no spark of external evidence 
 in favour of Shaksperian origin. The Chronicle is 
 not, like the three parts of 'Henry VI.,' a composite 
 conglomerated piece of patchwork, but the finished 
 production of one author, or at most of two authors in 
 collaboration. It displays unity of style sufficient to 
 justify us in believing that it was written off as we 
 possess it ; and this style is of a high order, considering 
 the date of publication. It is indeed so good that we 
 are forced to think of Shakspere and of Marlowe, of 
 Shakspere in his period of lyrism, or of Shakspere 
 following the track of Marlowe. Our critical cock- 
 boat, in a word, is afloat upon a sea, without compass, 
 now blown by gales from Marlowe's genius, now by a 
 
38o SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 finer breath from Shakspere's early Muse. We are 
 left to wonder whether the wind be not wafted from 
 some spurious quarter of imitative inspiration, or 
 whether it peradventure be an authentic blast from 
 either of those mighty ones. The first two acts are 
 separated from the last three not only by subject, but 
 also by slight differences of manner. The play, 
 indeed, is defective in artistic unity; for the first 
 part is a dramatised love tale, the second a dramatised 
 chronicle of Cressy, Poitiers, and Calais. The work- 
 ing of the former part is more poetical and masterly. 
 In the latter, the author has crowded incidents to- 
 gether ; and though he touches some points with a 
 vigorous hand, he misses the true heroic ring, the 
 chivalry of his surpassing theme. On the supposition 
 of a single authorship by some unknown but not 
 ignoble follower of Marlowe and Shakspere, these 
 discrepancies are explicable ; for the love tale of the 
 Countess was ready-made for dramatisation by even a 
 feeble hand in the glowing scenes of the Italian Novella, 
 while the Chronicle demanded the full powers of a 
 mature and mighty master for its condensation and 
 theatrical expression. Those critics, on the contrary, 
 who would fain detect the veritable Shakspere in Acts 
 I. and II. have something plausible to say. Suppose 
 he wrote these acts, and turned the copy over to some 
 journeyman to finish ? This would not have been 
 inconsistent with the practice of contemporary play- 
 wrights, and would tally well with what Greene spite- 
 fully recorded of the method of Johannes Factotum. 
 The date of publication must also be taken into account. 
 This was the year 1596, after the piece had been 
 
QUESTION OF AUTHORSHIP. 381 
 
 ' sundry times played about the City of London.' Now 
 Shakspere's 'Richard III.,' a work decidedly written 
 in the style of Marlowe, was not printed until 1597 ; 
 and the Sonnets — though this is unimportant, since 
 they had been handed about in MS. — ^were not 
 published until 1609. It is not absolutely impossible 
 that Shakspere might have taken part in the compo- 
 sition of a Chronicle so good as 'Edward III.' at an 
 epoch when he certainly had not yet entered into full 
 possession of his style. 
 
 Still there remains the fact that we have no spark 
 of external evidence to support the Shaksperian hypo- 
 thesis ; and I think that the arguments so ably and 
 elaborately supported by Mr. Swinburne in his essay 
 on ' Edward III.' reduce its probability to almost zero. 
 But in this case, we are thrown back upon the supposi- 
 tion that before 1 596 there was a playwright equal to 
 the production of so excellent a piece ; that is to say, 
 a playwright superior to Greene, Peele, Nash, and 
 Lodge ; to all in fact but the two masters Shakspere 
 and Marlowe ; and one moreover who had deliberately 
 chosen for his model the Shaksperian style of lyrism 
 in its passage through the influence of Marlowe. That 
 such a supposition is not only maintainable, but also 
 in accordance with the anonymity of the play, is obvious. 
 Only we must remember what effect its adoption will 
 have upon the problem of other doubtful plays — of 
 •Arden of Feversham' for instance. We shall hardly 
 be justified in reasoning that no one but Shakspere 
 existed capable of the production of that drama, when 
 we have conceded a nameless author of ' Edward III.;' 
 for the Doint on which I am inclined to differ with Mr. 
 
382 smak:sp£r£1's predecessors. 
 
 Swinburne, is in rating 'Edward III.' considerably- 
 higher than he does. Not merely, in my opinion, have 
 we here to deal with a mocking-bird who makes a 
 clever imitation of the callow nightingale, but also with 
 a playwright who in his way of attacking situations, 
 seizing on turning-points and hinges in the action (as for 
 instance when Edward unfolds himself to Warwick, and 
 Warwick to the Countess ; when the sight of the Black 
 Prince sways Edward's resolution to one side, and the 
 sight of his mistress to the other), was more than merely 
 aping the method of a genuine dramatic poet. Yet, con- 
 sidering the extraordinary richness of the Elizabethan 
 age, the carelessness of playwrights for their work, and 
 the injuries of accident and time to which the literature 
 of that epoch has been exposed, is it not safer to postu- 
 late a score of unknown talents than to ascribe doubtful 
 compositions without external evidence to one or an- 
 other of the leading and acknowledged masters ? 
 
 Having dwelt at this length on the problem of 
 ' Edward III.' I shall transcribe what seems to me the 
 best, and is assuredly the most Shaksperian, scene in 
 the play. Any competent reader will perceive that he 
 is in the company of no ordinary poet such as a Greene 
 or a Peele, and also that the inspiration, if borrowed, is 
 not in this place Marlowe's : 
 
 Countess. Sorry I am to see my liege so sad : 
 What may thy subject do, to drive from thee 
 Thy gloomy consort, sullen melancholy ? 
 
 Edward. Ah, lady, I am blunt, and cannot strew 
 The flowers of solace in a ground of shame : — 
 Since I came hither, Countess, I am wronged. 
 
 Coun. Now, God forbid, that any in my house 
 Should think my sovereign wrong ! Thrice gentle king, 
 Acquaint me with your cause of discontent. 
 
THE COUNTESS AND TH£ KING. 383 
 
 Edw. How near then shall I be to remedy ? 
 
 Coun. As near, my liege, as all my woman's power 
 Can pawn itself to buy thy remedy. 
 
 Edw. If thou speak'st true, then have I my redress : 
 Engage thy power to redeem my joys. 
 And I am joyful, Countess ; else, I die. 
 
 Coun. I will, my liege. 
 
 Edw. Swear, Countess, that thou wilt. 
 
 Coun. By heaven, I will. 
 
 Edw. Then take thyself a little way aside ; 
 And tell thyself a king doth dote on thee : 
 Say, that within thy power it doth lie, 
 To make him happy; and that thou hast sworn 
 To give me all the joy within thy power : 
 Do this, and tell me when I shall be happy. 
 
 Coun. All this is done, my thrice dread sovereign : 
 That power of love, that J have power to give. 
 Thou hast with all devout obedience ; 
 Employ me how thou wilt in proof thereof 
 
 Edw. Thou hear'st me say that I do dote on thee. 
 
 Coun. If on my beauty, take it if thou canst ; 
 Though little, I do prize it ten times less : 
 If on my virtue, take it if thou canst ; 
 For virtue's store by giving doth augment : 
 Be it on what it will, that I can give 
 And thou canst take away, inherit it. 
 
 Edw. It is thy beauty that I would enjoy. 
 
 Coun. O, were it painted, I would wipe it off. 
 And dispossess myself, to give it thee : 
 But, sovereign, it is soldered to my life ; 
 Take one, and both ; for, like an humble shadow. 
 It haunts the sunshine of my summer's life. 
 
 Edw. But thou mayst lend it me, to sport withal. 
 
 Coun. As easy may my intellectual soul 
 Be lent away, and yet my body live. 
 As lend my body, palace to my soul, 
 Away from her, and yet retain my soul. 
 My body is her bower, her court, her abbey, 
 And she an angel, pure, divine, unspotted ; 
 If I should lend her house, my lord, to thee, 
 I kill my poor soul, and my poor soul me. 
 
 Edw. Didst thou not swear to give me what I would 
 
 Coun. I did, my liege ; so what you would, I could, 
 
384 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Edw. I wish no more of thee than thou mayst give : 
 Nor beg I do not, but I rather buy, 
 That is, thy love ; and, for that love of thine, 
 In rich exchange, I tender to thee mine. 
 
 Coun. But that your lips were sacred, O my lord. 
 You would profane the holy name of love : 
 That love you offer me, you cannot give ; 
 For Caesar owes that tribute to his queen ; 
 That love you beg of me, I cannot give ; 
 For Sarah owes that duty to her lord. 
 He that doth clip or counterfeit your stamp. 
 Shall die, my lord ; and will your sacred self 
 Commit high treason 'gainst the King of Heaven, 
 To stamp His image in forbidden metal. 
 Forgetting your allegiance and your oath ? 
 In violating marriage sacred law, 
 You break a greater honour than yourself : 
 To be a king, is of a younger house 
 Than to be married ; your progenitor. 
 Sole-reigning Adam on the universe. 
 By God was honoured for a married man. 
 But not by Him anointed for a king. ' 
 It is a penalty, to break your statutes. 
 Though not enacted by your highness' hand : 
 How much more, to infringe the holy act 
 Made by the mouth of God, sealed with His hand ? 
 I know, my sovereign in my husband's love. 
 Who now doth loyal service in his wars, 
 Doth but to try the wife of Salisbury, 
 Whether she '11 hear a wanton tale or no ; 
 Lest being therein guilty by my stay. 
 From that, not from my liege, I turn away. 
 
 \Exit Countess 
 
 Edw. Whether is her beauty by her words divine ; 
 Or are her words sweet chaplains to her beauty ? 
 Like as the wind doth beautify a sail. 
 And as a sail becomes the unseen wind. 
 So do her words her beauty, beauty words. 
 O that I were a honey-gathering bee. 
 To bear the comb of virtue from his flower ; 
 And not a poison-sucking envious spider. 
 To turn the vice I take to deadly venom ! 
 Religion is austere, and beauty gentle ; 
 
 ^ These lines read like Heywood. 
 
CHRONICLE PLAYS CONTINUED. 385 
 
 Too strict a guardian for so fair a ward. 
 
 that she were, as is the air, to me ! 
 
 Why, so she is ; for, when I would embrace her, 
 This do I, and catch nothing but myself 
 
 1 must enjoy her ; for I cannot beat 
 With reason and reproof fond love away. 
 
 A high conception of this poet's power of rhetorical 
 dramatisation will be formed by the reader, who, con- 
 tinuing the perusal of the original text, observes how 
 the situation is prolonged by the entrance of Warwick 
 at this moment, by the King's ensuing debate with his 
 subject, and Warwick's unwilling execution of the 
 odious commission to persuade his daughter. Dia- 
 logue follows dialogue in an uninterrupted scene, 
 unfolding a succession of emotions skilfully conducted 
 to a doubtful issue. Then comes an interpose, in 
 which the King's preoccupation with his passion is 
 strikingly exhibited, leading up to the final conflict 
 between him and the Countess, preluded by the master- 
 touch whereby the young Prince is made to sway 
 Kingf Edward's inclination. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The remaining Chronicle Plays, of which I pro- 
 pose to make a brief enumeration, offer no critical 
 difficulties regarding authorship. While this depart- 
 ment of the drama still laboured in the thraldom of 
 clumsy stage-carpentry, Marlowe's touch transfigured 
 it by the production of 'Edward II.' His play may 
 have been written as early as 1590 ; but it was only 
 entered on the Stationers' Books in 1593, and printed 
 in 1598. More will be said in the proper place about 
 
 c c 
 
386 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 this epoch-making Chronicle. Peele gave the public 
 a drama on the life of ' Edward I.' in 1593, which, 
 though it cannot be compared with Marlowe's, marks 
 a considerable advance upon such work as ' The 
 Troublesome Reign ' and ' The Famous Victories.' 
 Following a scurrilous ballad on Queen Eleanor, and 
 yielding to the popular prejudice against Spaniards, he 
 stained an otherwise meritorious composition with a 
 gi'oss and unhistorical libel on the wife of Longshariks, ' 
 In the same decade, Thomas Hey wood issued from 
 the press his two parts of the Chronicle of ' Edward IV.,' 
 a principal feature in which plays was the episode of 
 Jane Shore. In 1605 the same author sent to the 
 press his play upon the reign of Mary and the acces- 
 sion of Elizabeth. It had been acted several years 
 before, and bore the curious title of, 'If You know not 
 Me, You know Nobody.' Next year, the second part 
 of this Chronicle, dealing with Sir Thomas Gresham's 
 building of the Royal Exchange and the Defeat of 
 the Armada, appeared. The proper occasion for 
 estimating Hey wood's capacity as an author of 
 Chronicle Plays, will occur in the examination of his 
 essentially English art. Much in the same style, but 
 marked by inferior dramatic power, is the double 
 Chronicle Play by Samuel Rowley, entitled, ' When 
 You see Me, You know Me.' It was printed in 1605, 
 but was probably well known upon the stage before 
 that date. As Heywood treated some of the events 
 of Elizabeth's reign, so Rowley in this formless pro- 
 duction touched upon those of Henry VIII, But he 
 could not or dared not address himself seriously to 
 the real history of a period so recent and so full of 
 
bRAMATtSED HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 387 
 
 perilous matter. The best scenes in his superficial 
 work are comic — Henry's meeting with the thief 
 Black Will, his imprisonment in the Counter, and the 
 vicarious birching of his whipping-boy Ned Browne. 
 Plays of this description, which bring English princes 
 on the stage in merry moments, were highly popular, 
 as will be seen when we discuss the fourth section 
 mentioned at the opening of this chapter. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Adding to these inferior Chronicles the great 
 
 Shaksperian group, it will be seen that what remains 
 
 to us of this species includes plays on the reigns of 
 
 King John, Edward I., Edward II., Edward III., 
 
 Richard II., Henry IV., Henry V., Henry VI., 
 
 Edward IV., Richard III., Henry VIII., Mary and 
 
 Elizabeth — an almost continuous series of studies in 
 
 English history from 1199 to 1588 — embracing in 
 
 round figures four centuries, from the accession of 
 
 John to the Defeat of the Armada. The gaps in the 
 
 list of sovereigns are supplemented by Greene's 
 
 ' James IV. of Scotland ' and Ford's ' Perkin Warbeck,' 
 
 which deal with events of the reign of Henry VII., 
 
 and by Decker and Webster's ' Sir Thomas Wyatt,' 
 
 which forms a sequel to the reign of Edward VI. Very 
 
 unequal in artistic capacity, rising to the highest 
 
 in Shakspere and Marlowe, sinking to the lowest in 
 
 Rowley and the author of ' The Troublesome Reign,' 
 
 these dramatists of our old annals performed no petty 
 
 service for the nation, at a moment when the English 
 
 were growing to full consciousness of their high des- 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 tiny. ' Gildon,' to quote some words from Mr. Halli- 
 well's Introduction to ' The First Part of the Conten- 
 tion,' ' tells us of a tradition, that Shakespeare, in a 
 conversation with Ben Jonson, said that, " finding- the 
 nation generally very ignorant of history, he wrote 
 plays in order to instruct the people in that parti- 
 cular." ' This states, while it distorts, a truth. We 
 know quite well that Shakspere did not make, but 
 found the Chronicle Play in full existence. Yet he 
 and his humbler fellow-workers together undertook 
 the instruction of the people in their history. Nash, 
 in ' Pierce Penniless,' enables us to form a conception 
 of the effect produced by even such wooden work as 
 ' The Famous Victories of Henry V.' upon a public 
 audience. ' Tell them,' he writes, ' what a glorious 
 thing it is to have Henry the Fifth represented on the 
 stage, leading the French king prisoner, and forcing 
 both him and the Dolphin swear fealty.' And again, 
 referring probably to the rough draught of the First 
 Part of ' Henry VI.,' now lost : ' How would it have 
 joyed brave Talbot (the terror of the French) to think 
 that after he had lain two hundred year in his tomb, 
 he should triumph again on the stage, and have his 
 bones now embalmed with the tears of ten thousand 
 spectators at least, at several times, who, in the 
 tragedian that represents his person, imagine they 
 behold him fresh bleeding ? ' 
 
 Heywood, penning his 'Apology for Actors' twenty 
 years later, and in the maturity of the stage, touches 
 more directly upon the utility of these performances. 
 ' Plays have made the ignorant more apprehensive, 
 taught the unlearned the knowledge of many famous 
 
BIOGRAPHIES OF ENGLISH WORTHIES. 389 
 
 histories, instructed such as cannot read in the dis- 
 covery of all our English chronicles ; and what man 
 have you now of that weak capacity that cannot dis- 
 course of any notable thing recorded even from 
 William the Conqueror, nay from the landing of Brute, 
 until this day ? being possessed of their true use, for 
 or because plays are writ with this aim, and carried 
 with this method, to teach their subjects obedience to 
 their king, to show the people the untimely ends of 
 such as have moved tumults, commotions, and insur- 
 rections, to present them with the flourishing estate of 
 such as live in obedience, exhorting them to allegiance, 
 dehorting them from all traitorous and felonious strata- 
 gems.' 
 
 IX. 
 
 The third group of plays on subjects drawn from 
 English history includes those which dramatise the 
 biographies of eminent political characters or popular 
 heroes. The earliest in date of these is ' Sir Thomas 
 More,' which was probably first acted about 1590. 
 This is a pleasant composition, suggesting to our 
 mind the style of Heywood in the making. It deals 
 with More in his private rather than his public capacity, 
 drawing a homely but effective picture of the people's 
 idol ; the wise and merry Englishman ; the good- 
 hearted frank stout gentleman, who left the highest 
 office in the realm no richer than he entered it, and 
 who laid his life down cheerfully for conscience' sake. 
 Very inferior, both as a play and as a picture of 
 English character and manners, is 'The Life and Death 
 of Thomas Lord Cromwell.' Nothing need be said, 
 
390 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 indeed, about this lifeless and scamped piece of journey- 
 work, except to point out how, no less than ' Sir Thomas 
 More,' it proves the freedom of the English theatre, in 
 spite of censorship. More was beheaded in 1535, and 
 Cromwell in 1540, at the command of Henry VIII. 
 Yet about fifty years after these events, in the reign of 
 his daughter Elizabeth, these two victims of Henry's 
 policy were exhibited as heroes, on the stage of 
 London. In ' Sir John Oldcastle,' a play by Drayton 
 Wilson and Chettle, we possess the first part of a 
 similar work, rather superior in dramatic quality. It 
 deals with the life of Lord Cobham, the Lollard 
 martyr, who was burned in 1417. But for its false 
 ascription to Shakspere, and for the confusion between 
 its hero and Sir John Falstafif in the First Part of 
 ' Henry IV.,' we could well afford to consign ' Sir John 
 Oldcastle ' to oblivion. 
 
 The names at least of ' Lord Cromwell ' and ' Sir 
 John Oldcastle' must remain as danger-signals upon 
 the quicksands of oracular criticism. Schlegel fathered 
 ' Oldcastle,' the authors of which Malone had already 
 ascertained, on Shakspere. And, as though he wished 
 to prove that owls are not more purblind in the day- 
 light than a German in the noon of unmistakable 
 internal evidence, he proceeded to ascribe ' Cromwell ' 
 to the same hand. Concerning both plays, the one 
 correctly referred on good external grounds to three 
 inferior craftsmen, the other excluded by its style, no 
 less than by its prologue's sneer at Shakspere from 
 even the limbo of Doubtful Plays, Schlegel wrote with 
 magisterial self-confidence, they ' are not only unques- 
 tionably Shakspere's, but in my opinion they deserve 
 
POPULAR HEROES. 391 
 
 to be classed among his best and maturest works.' 
 ' Humanum est errare ; ' yet if something can be said in 
 favour of erring with Plato, all critics will pray to be de- 
 livered from erring after like fashion with Schlegel ! 
 
 Place might here be found for a rude and half- 
 articulate show, rather than play, upon Wat Tyler's 
 insurrection. It is entitled ' The Life and Death of 
 Jack Straw,' and may be referred to an early period of 
 the Drama. In its bearing upon Shakspere's handling 
 of Jack Cade, this piece has a certain archaeological 
 interest. But not one of its four acts, however much 
 they may have entertained the groundlings, will arrest 
 a literary student's attention. 
 
 Two extant plays of a later period belong to this 
 class. They are ' Sir Thomas Wyatt ' and ' Perkin 
 Warbeck.' ' Sir Thomas Wyatt ' is a selection of 
 scenes from an earlier_Ch£onicle in two parts, written 
 by Chettle, Heywood, Dekker, Smith, and Webster in 
 collaboration, upon the tragical history of Lady Jane 
 Grey. In its present form it bears the names of 
 Dekker and Webster on the title-page ; and the hands 
 of both poets may perhaps be traced in it. When 
 Guildford and Lady Jane, after her proclamation as 
 Queen, are lodged by Northumberland in the Tower, 
 they exchange these reflections : 
 
 Guildford. The Tower will be a place of ample state : 
 Some lodgings in it will, like dead men's sculls, 
 Remember us of frailty. 
 
 Jane. We are led 
 With pomp to prison. O prophetic soul ! 
 Lo, we ascend into our chairs of state, 
 Like several coffins, in some funeral pomp. 
 Descending to their graves ! 
 
392 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 This is somewhat in Webster's manner, though cer- 
 tainly not in his best. The following couplet may 
 possibly be assigned to Dekker : 
 
 An innocent to die, what is it less 
 
 But to add angels to heaven's happiness ? 
 
 Yet the whole texture of the play seems rather to 
 belong to another workman, perhaps to Chettle ; and 
 in one speech I am inclined to trace the touch of 
 Hey wood : 
 
 O, at the general sessions, when all souls 
 Stand at the bar of justice, and hold up 
 Their new-immortalisfed hands, O, then 
 Let the remembrance of their tragic ends 
 Be razed out of the bead-roll of my sins ! 
 Whene'er the black book of my crime 's unclasped, 
 Let not these Scarlet letters be -found there ; 
 Of all the rest only that page be clear ! 
 
 Let, however, the beacon of Schlegel warn a diffi- 
 dent critic off the perilous shoals of such assignments ! 
 The strongest part of the play, as we possess it, is the 
 character of Wyatt. His portrait is drawn and sus- 
 tained with spirit. Resisting Northumberland and 
 Suffolk in their attempt to enthrone Lady Jane, de- 
 claring Mary's right by lawful succession, but protest- 
 ing against her cruelty toward the innocent and un- 
 willing pretender, then breaking the bond of loyalty 
 and obedience in indignation at the baseness of her 
 Spanish match — he is shown in all the changes of his 
 action as a fearless, high-spirited, tender-hearted, but 
 hot-headed English gentleman. He disappears, how- 
 ever, from the scene ; and the tragedy concludes with 
 the execution of Lady Jane Grey and Guildford in the 
 
WYATT AND WARBECK. 393 
 
 Tower. If Dekker and Webster arranged this History 
 out of the materials of the elder Chronicle, they at- 
 tempted the impossible task of converting what had 
 been an episode, the part of Wyatt, into a complete 
 play ; and had to fall back upon the original cata- 
 strophe for their climax. Imperfect, however, as it is, 
 ' Sir Thomas Wyatt ' deserves honourable mention as 
 the best of these early biographical studies from recent 
 English history. 
 
 Ford's ' Perkin Warbeck ' takes a place apart, and 
 ought hardly to be treated in this connection. It 
 belongs to the period when dramatic composition had 
 become critical, and the playwright reflected on his 
 art. In his Dedication, Ford says that he was attracted 
 to the subject by ' a perfection in the story.' The 
 Prologue, after touching upon the neglect which had 
 recently fallen upon ' studies of this nature,' proceeds 
 as follows : 
 
 We can say 
 
 He shows a History, couched in a Play ! 
 
 A history of noble mention, known, 
 
 Famous, and true ; most noble, 'cause our own ; 
 
 Not forged from Italy, from France, from Spain, 
 
 But chronicled at home. 
 
 This is not the place to demonstrate with what 
 careful skill Ford wrought the materials derived from 
 Bacon's 'History of Henry VII.' into an elaborate 
 drama. His play might be styled the apotheosis of 
 a pretender ; for he has contrived to maintain the 
 princely dignity of Warbeck throughout, showing him 
 more kingly in his dubious fortunes than either the 
 crafty Tudor or the easy-going Stuart. The curtain 
 drops at last upon the courageous death of the 
 
 J 
 
394 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 adventurer, dauntless in overthrow, professing to be 
 convinced of his own right upon the scaffold : 
 
 Our ends, and Warwick's head, 
 Innocent Warwick's head (for we are prologue 
 But to his tragedy) conclude the wonder 
 Of Henry's fears ; and then the glorious race 
 Of fourteen kings, Plantagenets, determines 
 In this last issue male ; Heaven be obeyed ! 
 
 I have dealt only with extant plays on minor 
 characters in English history. But it appears from 
 various sources that many more were known to the 
 Elizabethan public. It is enough to mention a play 
 of 'Buckingham' (1593), Chettle's 'Cardinal Wolsey' 
 (1601-2), Middleton's tragedy of 'Randal, Earl of 
 Chester' (1602), a 'Duchess of Suffolk,' a 'Duke 
 Humphrey,' an ' Earl of Gloucester,' a ' Hotspur,' the 
 fragment of Jonson's ' Mortimer,' and the play of 
 ' Gowry,' which was represented in the reign of 
 James I. What these history plays really were, and 
 whether any of them were identical, in part at least, 
 with extant works, cannot be ascertained, unless, as is 
 possible, the MSS. of some of them exist. 
 
 X. 
 
 Closely connected with these biography plays 
 are a small set founded upon the marvellous ad- 
 ventures of English worthies. In an age which 
 produced men like Drake, Hawkins, Cavendish, 
 Frobisher, and Raleigh, half heroes and half pirates, 
 explorers of hitherto untravelled oceans, and harriers 
 of Spain on shore and sea, it was natural that a 
 
ENGLISH ADVENTURERS. 395 
 
 dubious undergrowth of speculators and adventurers 
 should spring up. The Queen herself not only tole- 
 rated buccaneering expeditions of a mixed military 
 and commercial nature; but she also went the length 
 of risking her own money upon undertakings hardly 
 differing from piracy. The best spirits of the age were 
 bent on schemes of glory and aggrandisement. Even 
 Sir Philip Sidney dreamed of winning new realms with 
 his sword for England, wresting colonies from Philip, 
 and returning from fabled El Dorado burdened with 
 laurels and gold. Political ambition and the greed for 
 wealth went hand in hand with the chivalrous passion 
 for adventure and the restlessness engendered in an old 
 sea-roving race by the discovery of continents beyond 
 the ocean. The glittering dross which Frobisher 
 brought back from North America, the bullion of the 
 Aztecs and the Incas which was dooming Spain to 
 beggary and famine, the brilliant exploits of Cortez 
 and Pizarro, those paladins of pioneering bravery, 
 combined to stir a ' sacred thirst for gold,' an ' un- 
 bounded lust of honour,' in English breasts. As 
 alchemy preceded chemistry, as astrology prepared 
 the way for astronomy, so the filibustering spirit of 
 this epoch was destined to inaugurate the solid work of 
 colonisation, exploration, and commerce, which has been 
 performed in the last three centuries by England. Its 
 first-fruits were the crippling blows inflicted upon Spain 
 in piratical descents on the West Indies and in 
 the ruin of the Invincible Armada. Its final result 
 was the formation of Greater Britain and the conquest 
 of India by the Anglo-Saxon race, solid achieve- 
 ments of wealth-extending industry and chivalrous 
 
396 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 audacity beyond the wildest dreams of Elizabeth's 
 freebooters. 
 
 That the drama of the period should reflect an im- 
 pulse, which agitated the whole nation, was inevitable. 
 Our chief surprise is to find that the plays which deal 
 with this aspect of English life, are so poor. In ex- 
 planation of their inferiority, we may call into account 
 the difficulty of dramatising tales of maritime adven- 
 ture and of representing Oriental magnificence. The 
 subject-matter offered no central point, excdpt in 
 episodes, to the playwright ; and the stage of that 
 epoch was deficient in spectacular resources. By far 
 the best portions of the plays which deal with the 
 biographies of Stukeley, Spencer, and the Shirley 
 brothers, are their introductions, when the scene is laid 
 in England. We are afterwards carried to the Courts of 
 the Sophy and the Sultan, to Indian islands, Turkish 
 dungeons, the palaces of European princes, the wilds 
 of Tartary, and battle-fields of Africa or Persia. But 
 however the shifting of these scenes may have amused 
 the fancy of a London audience, they offered no op- 
 portunities to the dramatic artist. He was forced back 
 upon a mere medley of disjointed pageants, through 
 which the bold English buccaneer moved, with an 
 arrogance peculiar to his age and nation. Hey wood, 
 perhaps, succeeded best in this species with a play in 
 two parts, called ' The Fair Maid of the West.' It is 
 in reality the dramatised version of a contemporary 
 legend of real life, the hero of which is Captain 
 Spencer, and the heroine a girl who follows his ajdven- 
 tures. Rowley, Day, and Wilkins sink below mediocrity 
 in their hastily written and unhistorical version of the 
 
HEYWOOD'S PLAYS. 397 
 
 famous travels of the three brothers, Anthony, Thomas, 
 and Robert Shh-ley, who sought divers fortunes in 
 Persia, Spain, and Turkey. Much might here be said in 
 commendation of an anonymous piece, entitled ' Dick 
 of Devonshire,' which its recent editor, Mr. A. H. 
 BuUen, is inclined^ to ascribe, on evidence of style, to 
 Thomas Heywood. This play sets forth with vigour 
 and simiplicity the doughty deeds and unassuming 
 courage of the English soldier, Richard Pike, who 
 won his freedom from captivity in Spain by challeng- 
 ing and defeating three champions in a duel before the 
 Spanish army. The arm he used on this occasion 
 was the quarter-staff, ' my own country's weapon,' as 
 he styles it. A romantic fable is somewhat inartificially 
 combined with Dick's adventures ; but the real interest 
 of the comedy centres in the fresh and homely portrait 
 of its hero. Hey wood's patriotism glows in the 
 following spirited panegyric of Sir Francis Drake : 
 
 That glory of his country and Spain's terror, 
 That wonder of the land and the sea's minion, 
 Drake of eternal memory. 
 
 More than a merely passing notice may be taken of 
 one popular hero, who earliest engaged the attention of 
 our dramatists, and whose authentic history, reclaimed 
 by Mr. Richard Simpson, furnishes all the ingredients of 
 a sixteenth-century romance. Sir Thomas Stukeley's 
 chequered career is so characteristic of the period in 
 which he played his part, that I may be excused for 
 borrowing some details regarding it from Fuller's 
 ' Worthies ' and from the careful records of his last 
 biographer. 
 
398 SHAKSPERE^S predecessors. 
 
 Thomas Stukeley, or Stucley, born about the year 
 1520, was the third son of a Devonshire knight. 
 There is a dim tradition to the effect that his real 
 father was Henry VIII. ; but of this no evidence is 
 forthcoming, beyond the somewhat unaccountable 
 acceptance he received at foreign coyrts, and the extra- 
 ordinary insolence of the style he used. Entering the 
 service of the Duke of Suffolk, and following the 
 party of the Lord Protector, he was forced by Somer- 
 set's downfall to take refuge in France, where he 
 fought in the campaigns of Henry II. against Charles V, 
 Henry gave him a strong letter of recommendation to 
 the English Court, relying upon which Stukeley re- 
 turned to London in 1552. He then disclosed to the 
 Privy Council a French plan for seizing Calais, and 
 using that port as the basis for an invasion of England. 
 There is good reason to believe that Stukeley's infor- 
 mation was genuine ; but, be that as it may, he was 
 consigned to the Tower for his pains. On his libera- 
 tion, being unable to return to France, he joined the 
 Imperial army, &nd served for some time under 
 Philibert of Savoy. Twice, at this period of his 
 career, he addressed letters to Queen Mary in a style 
 which takes his personal importance for granted, and 
 lends some colour to the fable of his royal illegitimacy. 
 In the autumn of 1554, Mary granted him free entrance 
 into England and security from arrest during the space 
 of six months. Accordingly, we soon find Stukeley back 
 again in London, where he married his first wife, Anne, 
 the granddaughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Curtis. 
 Shortly after this marriage, being now furnished with 
 funds, be engaged for the first time in piracy. What 
 
LIFE OF SIR THOMAS STVKELEY. 399 
 
 he did or failed to do, is far from clear. But during the 
 course of the next reign, his reputation as a freebooter 
 stood continually in the way of his advancement. It 
 should also be said that he remained a Catholic, 
 which may have been one reason why his peccadilloes 
 on the high seas were not more readily overlooked. 
 He held, however, a commission in the first years of 
 Elizabeth's reign as captain in the Berwick garrison, 
 gaining the goodwill of the soldiers, to whom he always 
 showed a royal generosity. In 1563, he planned his 
 expedition to Florida, concerning which so many anec- 
 dotes are told. Elizabeth favoured the scheme, and en- 
 gaged money in the venture. ' Lusty Stukeley,' as his 
 contemporaries loved to call him, aimed at nothing less 
 than sovereignty. ' I had rather be king of a molehill 
 than subject to a mountain,' was one of his favourite 
 speeches. And when the Queen asked ' whether he 
 would remember her when he was settled in his king- 
 dom ; " yes," saith he, " and write unto you also." " And 
 what style wilt thou use ? " " To my loving sister, as 
 one prince writes to another." ' If Stukeley started to 
 found a colony and rule a kingdom, he returned a pirate. 
 His Florida expedition ended in nothing but maraud- 
 ing exploits, which infuriated the Spanish Crown, in- 
 volved the English Governmentin diplomatic difficulties, 
 and brought the Captain loss of credit and but little 
 pecuniary gain. A new chapter in our hero's romance 
 opens with his semi-official mission to Ireland in 1564. 
 The distracted state of that island made it the fit scene 
 for the operations of an adventurer. Sir Henry 
 Sidney took him up, and used him in negotiations with 
 O'Neil. Meanwhile Stukeley, looking about for a per- 
 
4O0 SItAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 manent settlement, entered into treaty with Sir Nicholas 
 Bagnall for the purchase of his Irish estates and the 
 reversion of his post as Marshal. The Queen would 
 not hear of conferring important office on a man who 
 had discredited her Government by piracy. Stukeley, 
 however, adhered to his plan of an Irish career, and 
 next attempted to establish himself as Seneschal of 
 Wexford. He had already bought the estates and 
 office of Captain Heron, when he was dislodged, 
 accused of treason, and imprisoned in Dublin Castle. 
 He was a Catholic, and was probably concerned in 
 a Popish plot for making Philip king of Ireland. 
 Having lain seventeen weeks in prison, Stukeley was 
 released on parole ; and seeing that all hopes of a 
 national career were over, he threw himself boldly, 
 as a Catholic and traitor, into the arms of Philip. 
 ' Out of Ireland,' wrote Cecil in 1583, 'ran away 
 one Thomas Stukeley, a defamed person almost 
 through all Christendom, and a faithless beast rather 
 than a man, fleeing first out of England for notable 
 piracies, and out of Ireland for treacheries not pardon- 
 able.' In 1570, he set foot on Spanish soil, was 
 honourably entertained by the King, and began at once 
 to form a scheme for the conquest of Ireland. Philip 
 paid almost unaccountable attention at first to the pro- 
 jects of the English 'rake-hell.' Closer inquiry into 
 the matter made him, however, relinquish the under- 
 taking as too hazardous. But, in the meantime, 
 Stukeley enjoyed high favour and substantial privileges. 
 He swaggered about the Spanish Court in fine clothes, 
 airing his self-assumed title of the Duke of Ireland, 
 and preparing himself for knighthood in the Order of 
 
A FREE LANCE. 401 
 
 Calatrava, which Philip graciously bestowed upon him. 
 The Irish plan came to an end without, it seems, 
 seriously impairing Stukeley's creditatthe Spanish Court. 
 Yet his restless spirit could not brook an idle life of 
 compliment and ceremony. Passing through Flanders, 
 and intriguing on the way, he reached Rome in 1571, 
 where Pius V. gave him a splendid reception. After- 
 wards, he fought with bravery in the battle of Lepanto. 
 In spite of the comparative insignificance of his birth, 
 the ill success of his political projects, and his want of 
 estate, Stukeley had now created for himself a posi- 
 tion of some importance both at Madrid and Rome. 
 Whether he really passed for a royal bastard, or 
 whether he owed his elevation to address, audacity, and 
 the prestige of towering self-confidence, it is impossible 
 to say. I do not think it needed more than daring 
 and ambition, combined with a reputation for military 
 capacity and some specific touch on European politics, 
 to launch a man like Stukeley. The age of the Condot- 
 tieri was still remembered ; and the age of intriguing 
 diplomatists was at its height. Uniting the character 
 of Condottiere and political projector, and working 
 Ireland as his speciality, he climbed the ladder of dis- 
 tinction by personal ability and hardihood. There was a 
 place in sixteenth-century society for such adventurers ; 
 but how they contrived to support their station on the 
 slender doles of patrons and the meagre pay of war-cap- 
 tains, we find it difficult to comprehend. Gregory XIII. 
 treated Stukeley with even more consideration than 
 his Papal predecessor or the King of Spain. He was 
 seriously bitten with the Irish project, and was thought 
 to entertain a notion of making his own son king of 
 
402 StiAI^SP£RE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 that island. Stukeley, as a good Catholic, an English 
 rebel, an experienced pirate and captain of adventure, a 
 schemer who had lived in Ireland, and who understood 
 its people and its parties, seemed exactly the right in- 
 strument for the Pope's plan of conquest. Gregory 
 conferred upon his favourite many sounding titles — 
 Baron of Ross and Idron, Viscount of the Morough 
 and Kenshlagh, Earl of Wexford and Catherlough, 
 and Marquess of Leinster. Then, adding the com- 
 mission of General in his army, he sent Stukeley 
 to join the Portuguese King Sebastian's expedition 
 against Morocco. What followed is matter of history. 
 Stukeley breathed his last in the ill-conducted and fatal 
 battle of Alcazar in 1578. 
 
 By no means all the foregoing details were known 
 to Stukeley 's dramatic biographers ; nor did these con- 
 cern themselves with the political aspects of their 
 hero's career. The rebel disappears. The traitor to 
 his queen and country is forgotten. Only the bold 
 Englishman, climbing to the height of an adventurous 
 ambition, and dying chivalrously in conflict with the 
 Moors, survives. The first play on this subject is 
 entitled ' The Famous History of the Life and Death 
 of Captain Thomas Stukeley.' It was printed in 1605, 
 and was the work of an unknown author. The first 
 scenes are presented in a round clear English style of 
 portraiture. The old Devonshire knight, on a visit to 
 his son's chambers in the Temple, finding swords and 
 bucklers there in lieu of law-books — the scapegrace 
 hero's meeting with his father — the part of the page 
 between them-— the wooing and wedding of the rich 
 heiress, Mistress Anne Curtis— Stukeley's quarrel at the 
 
STUKELEY ON THE STAGE. 403 
 
 marriage feast with her former suitor Herbert, and the 
 payment of his bachelor debts with the bride's dowry- 
 money — and afterwards his exit on a fiHbustering ex- 
 cursion before three days of the honeymoon are over 
 — all these details form a pleasing bustling intro- 
 duction to a pageant of adventures, which had subse- 
 quently to be helped out hobbling on the crutches of a 
 chorus. There is one striking piece of braggadocio in 
 the desert of dull business, which concludes this history. 
 Stukeley has undertaken a mission from Philip to the 
 Pope of Rome. He sets forth on his journey, and is 
 followed by an envoy bearing a gift of five thousand 
 ducats, upon which a percentage has been discounted. 
 The interview between Valdes, the King's Commis- 
 sioner, and the English donatee must have brought 
 down the gallery : 
 
 Stukeley. How many ducats did the king assign ? 
 
 Valdes. Five thousand. 
 
 Stuk. Are they all within these bags ? 
 
 Val Well near. 
 
 Stuk. How near ? 
 
 Val Perhaps some twenty want. 
 
 \_The bags are set on the table. 
 
 Stuk. Why should there want a marmady, a mite ? 
 Doth the king know that any ducats lack ? 
 
 Val. He doth, and saw the bags would hold more, 
 And sealed them with his signet, as you see. 
 
 Stuk. Valdes, return them ; I will have none of them ; 
 And tell thy master, the great King of Spain, 
 I honour him, but scorn his niggardise, 
 
 \Casts the bags down. 
 
 And spurn abridged bounty with my foot. 
 Abate base twenty from five thousand ducats ! 
 I '11 give five thousand ducats to my boy ! 
 If I had promised Philip all the world, 
 D D 2 
 
404 smaicspeM's predecessors. 
 
 Or any kingdom, England sole excepted, 
 
 I would have perished or performed my word. 
 
 And not reserved one cottage to myself. 
 
 Nor so much ground as would have made my grave. 
 
 Peele, if Peele was author of the ' Battle of Alcazar,' 
 has given a distinguished place to Stukeley in the last 
 act of that play, dramatising the circumstances of his 
 death, and condensing the legend of his life in a long 
 dying speech. That the ' rake-hell,' as Cecil styled him, 
 was a favourite of the public, is proved by the fre- 
 quency of ballads and pamphlets touching on his story, 
 no less than by a casual reference which shows he was 
 a hero of the stage : 
 
 Bid theatres and proud tragedians. 
 
 Bid Mahomet, Hoo, and mighty Tamburlain, 
 
 King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley, and the rest 
 
 Adieu. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The plays of the fourth group, dealing with legend- 
 ary heroes and the apocryphal history of England, are 
 for the most part poor. It is, for instance, hardly 
 needful to mention such feeble performances as ' Fair 
 Em,' in which an unknown author of Greene's epoch 
 exhibited William the Conqueror in love at the Danish 
 Court ; or Day's and Chettle's worthless ' Blind Beggar 
 of Bethnal Green,' founded on the mythical adven- 
 tures of Lord Mumford and his daughter. Three 
 pieces drawn from the history of Robin Hood deserve 
 more attention. These are Anthony Munday's ' Down- 
 fall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon ; ' ' The Death of 
 Robert Earl of Huntingdon,' written by the same 
 
'ROBERT EARL OF HUNTINGDON.' 405 
 
 author with Henry Chettle's assistance ; and the 
 anonymous ' George a Greene, Pinner of Wakefield,' 
 attributed on somewhat slender evidence to Robert 
 Greene. Taken together, these three dramas form a 
 fairly comprehensive digest of the legend of England's 
 most popular medieval hero. 
 
 Whether the famous outlaw was a myth, as 
 Mr. Thomas Wright has been at pains to prove, or 
 whether he had a real historical existence, does not 
 concern the present study. What is certain is, that 
 Robin Hood, the ideal English robber, was a very dif- 
 fererit personage from a Greek Klepht or an Italian 
 bandit. He represented all the virtues of the national 
 character, and some of its absurdities. He was an 
 ' unfortunate nobleman,' deprived of his rights by 
 unjust relatives and a tyrannous usurper, whose only 
 fault in his more prosperous days had been over- 
 liberality, or love of generous living. Driven from his 
 home, he gathered jolly mates around him in Sherwood 
 forest, chasing the deer, and doing simple justice 
 ' under the greenwood tree.' He lived, as Stow 
 relates, ' by spoils and thefts ; but he spared the poor 
 and plundered the rich. He suffered no woman to 
 be oppressed, violated, or otherwise molested. Poor 
 men's goods he spared abundantly, relieving them with 
 that which he got by theft from abbeys and the houses 
 of rich carles.' Though he made free perforce with 
 the king's venison, he remained a loyal subject ; and 
 while wandering beyond the pale of society, he and his 
 merry men observed unwritten laws of natural justice, 
 charity, and mercy. His sweetheart, the daughter of an 
 earl, became Maid Marian, and dwelt a virgin huntress 
 
4o6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 in his company, until such time as marriage rites could 
 be performed. The Anglo-Saxon features of this 
 legendary character, law-abiding in outlawry, loyal in 
 resistance to authority, respecting Judge Lynch in the 
 desert, gentle to women, hospitable to the homeless, 
 generous to the needy, organising vigilance committees 
 to restrain indecency and outrage, unembittered by in- 
 justice, hopeful and self-helpful in adversity, exulting 
 in t^e freedom of field, fell, and forest, are unmistakable 
 and firmly traced. Robin Hood, as his myth presents 
 him to us, had probably no real existence. But the 
 spirit of the people which created him, has since 
 expressed itself in many a Western ranch and Rocky 
 M ountai n canj yon. 
 
 Nothing illustrates the wholesome and cheerful 
 tone of English popular literature more strongly than 
 the three Robin Hood plays which I have mentioned. 
 In the first of these, the Earl of Huntingdon is expel- 
 led from his fiefs and outlawed. He forms his republic 
 and gives laws to his followers. Little John declares 
 the articles : 
 
 First, no man must presume to call our master 
 By name of Earl, Lord, Baron, Knight, or Squire ; 
 But simply by the name of Robin Hood. 
 Next, 't is agreed, if thereto she agree, 
 That fair Matilda henceforth change her name, 
 And while it is the chance of Robin Hood 
 To live in Sherwood a poor outlaw's life. 
 She by Maid Marian's name be only called. 
 Thirdly, no yeoman, following Robin Hood 
 In Sherwood, shall use widow, wife, or maid ; 
 But by true labour lustful thoughts expel. 
 Fourthly, no passenger with whom ye meet 
 Shall ye let pass, till he with Robin feast ; 
 Except a post, a carrier, or such folk 
 
ROBIN HOOD LEGEND. 407 
 
 As use with food to serve the market towns. 
 Fifthly, you never shall the poor man wrong, 
 Nor spare a priest, a usurer, or a clerk. 
 Lastly, you shall defend with all your power 
 Maids, widows, orphans, and distressed men. 
 
 To this constitution, democratic in its essence, with a 
 touch of chivalry and of chivalrous hatred for the 
 lettered and moneyed classes, everyone agrees. Robin 
 turns to Marian, and draws a seductive picture of 
 woodland joys and pastimes : • 
 
 Marian, thou seest, though courtly pleasures want, / \ \ \ , 
 
 Yet country sport in Sherwood is not scant : 
 
 For the soul- ravishing, delicious sound 
 
 Of instrumental music we have found. 
 
 The wingfed quiristers with divers notes 
 
 Sent from their quaint recording pretty throats. 
 
 On every branch that compasseth our bower. 
 
 Without command contenting us each hour : 
 
 For arras-hangings and rich tapestry, 
 
 We have sweet nature's best embroidery : 
 
 For thy steel glass, wherein thou wont'st to look. 
 
 Thy crystal eyes gaze in a crystal brook: 
 
 At court a flower or two did deck thy head ; 
 
 Now with whole garlands is it circled ; 
 
 For what we want in wealth, we have in flowers. 
 
 And what we lose in hall, we find in bowers. 
 
 He only omits what the song in ' As You Like It ' 
 dwells upon in passing — ' winter and rough weather.' 
 The hero's portrait is completed in the speech of a 
 private enemy, who eventually procures his death by 
 poison : 
 
 I hate thy cousin, Earl of Huntingdon, 
 
 Because so many love him as there do, 
 
 And I myself am lovfed of so few. 
 
 Nay, I have other reasons for my hate : 
 
 He is a fool, and will be reconciled 
 
 To any foe he hath j he is too mild 
 
4o8 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Too honest for this world, fitter for heaven. 
 
 He will not kill these greedy cormorants, 
 
 Nor strip base peasants of the wealth they have. 
 
 He does abuse a thief s name and an outlaw's, 
 
 And is, indeed, no outlaw nor no thief : 
 
 He is unworthy of such reverend names. 
 
 Besides, he keeps a paltry whimling girl. 
 
 And will not bed, forsooth, before he bride. 
 
 I '11 stand to 't, he abuses maidenhead, 
 
 That will not take it being offered, 
 
 Hinders the commonwealth of able men ! 
 
 Another thing I hate him for again : 
 
 He says his prayers, fasts eves, gives alms, does good: 
 
 For these and such like crimes swears Doncaster 
 
 To work the speedy death of Robin Hood. 
 
 The second part opens with the death of Robin, 
 and proceeds with the romantic history of Marian. 
 She is pursued by King John, who woos her with law- 
 less violence till she finds relief in death. The play 
 becomes a chronicle of minor events in John's reign. 
 He is drawn as a detestable tyrant, cruel and lustful. 
 By far the most powerful episode of the piece is the 
 description of Lady Bruce and her son starved to death 
 in Windsor Castle. 
 
 ' George a Greene ' interweaves an incident in the 
 Robin Hood legend with the. valorous exploits of 
 another popular hero. The Pinner of Wakefield by his 
 personal strength and influence quells the rebellion of 
 Lord Kendal, forces Sir Gilbert Mannering to eat the 
 traitor's seal, and entraps James, King of Scotland, who 
 has crossed the Border on a foray. The Pinner's fame 
 reaches to Sherwood Forest; and Robin Hood, putting 
 himself at the head of his merry men, goes forth to 
 visit the Yorkshire champion at Wakefield. George 
 beats the merry men at their own weapons, and 
 
'GEORGE A GREENE' AND 'SAD SHEPHERD.' 409 
 
 fraternises with Robin. King Edward of England 
 and James of Scotland join the fun in disguise, carouse 
 with shoemakers, and after making known their royal 
 personages, wind the play up with a general jollifica- 
 tion. 
 
 Before quitting the dramatised versions of Robin 
 Hood's legend, I ought here to mention the fragment 
 of Ben Jonson's ' Sad Shepherd.' Whether the im- 
 perfect state in which that play has come down to 
 us, be due to the accident of death, intervening before 
 the poet had versified further than the opening of the 
 third act, or else to the carelessness of those who 
 undertook the charge of editing his manuscripts, 
 cannot be determined. But students will agree that 
 few of the many losses which English Dramatic 
 Literature has sustained, are comparable to that of ' The 
 Sad Shepherd.' This last offspring of Jonson's Muse 
 promised to be one of the most interesting and 
 entertaining, as it certainly would have been the most 
 complete and regular, of English Pastorals. Lacking 
 it, our Drama may be said to miss a mature and 
 purely national masterpiece, in the pastoral style. 
 Fletcher's ' Faithful Shepherdess,' however beautiful, 
 is still an echo from Italian literature. Jonson in his 
 ' Sad Shepherd ' interwove romantic fable with the 
 myth of an English hero, who, though he was localised 
 as an outlaw in Sherwood, may probably have been 
 a rustic deity, surviving from the dim antiquity of 
 Northern paganism. 
 
 History is, so to speak, nowhere in plays of this 
 description. Their authors sought to dramatise the 
 doughty deeds of common folk, and to exhibit English 
 
410 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 kings and princes mixing with simple people, sharing 
 their sports, making love to their daughters, receiving 
 hospitality from humble entertainers. Greene's ' Friar 
 Bacon,' of which some notice will be taken in the 
 proper place, represents this species fairly ; so do the 
 opening scenes of ' The Famous Victories of Henry V.' 
 Heywood worked the same vein in his 'Edward IV. ;' 
 while Shakspere, laying his golden touch on all that 
 lesser men made popular, bequeathed to us the highest 
 picture of this kind in his portrait of Prince Hal. 
 That the portrait has been proved mythical, when 
 tested by the touchstone of State documents, does not 
 signify. It owes its force, its permanent artistic value, 
 to the animating sentiment, a sentiment akin, though 
 different, to that which runs through Robin Hood's 
 conception. 
 
 The English working classes, loyal to the Crown, 
 in spite of civil wars and treasons, have always loved to 
 pat their princes on the back, to hob and nob with 
 nobles, and if possible with scions of the royal race. 
 Heirs apparent, who understood the secret of this 
 popularity, have not unwillingly infused a grain of 
 Bohemianism into their conduct. We may regard this 
 partiality for madcap princes as a settled factor in the 
 English Constitution. Based on a sound foundation — 
 upon the touch of nature which makes all men kin — 
 the willingness of royalty to sign its debt to vulgar 
 sympathies, the pleasure of the folk to see that debt 
 acknowledged — this sowing of wild oats in common by 
 the people and their beardless rulers constitutes a bond 
 of sentiment more forcible than statutes. It eliminates 
 the moneyed aristocracy, depreciates the courtier, ex- 
 
MADCAP PRINCES. 41 1 
 
 poses the squirearchy to ridicule, effaces the shams of 
 etiquette and caste. It brings the extremes of society, 
 those who in their several stations risk the most and 
 suffer most from the encroachments of the intermediate 
 classes, into fellowship. Meanwhile, in England, the 
 law-abiding instinct has been ever hitherto respected, 
 in legend no less than in fact. Prince Hal and Bluff 
 Harry go to prison for their scapegrace tricks, and 
 bear the Justice no ill-will. We might, perhaps, 
 attribute something in the failure of the Stuarts to 
 their non-recognition of this English idiosyncrasy, and 
 something also in the popularity of the present royal 
 family to their perception of the same. Be this as it 
 may, the dramatists of the great epoch, with their keen 
 sense of national characteristics, seized upon the point, 
 and left us a gallery of pictures in the style I have 
 attempted to describe. 
 
 In order to complete this study, it would have been 
 admissible to catalogue those plays which glorify the 
 several guilds, trades, and popular crafts of England — 
 to show how the City and Corporation, the King's 
 Jesters, prominent Clowns like Tarlton, the Prentices 
 of London, the Shoemakers, Thieves, and Jolly Beggars, 
 all of them representing English life under one or more 
 distinctive aspects, received due meed of dramatic cele- 
 bration. To carry out such analysis in detail might be 
 curious, but hardly interesting. Opportunity, more- 
 over, will be offered for resuming these points in the 
 course of further inquiries. 
 
412 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DOMESTIC TRAGEDY. 
 
 I. Induction to a 'Warning for Fair Women' — Peculiar Qualities of the 
 Domestic Tragedy — Its Realism — Its Early Popularity — List of Plays 
 of this Description — Their Sources. — II. Five Plays selected for 
 Examination — Questions of disputed Authorship — Shakspere's sug- 
 gested part in Three of these — The different Aspects of Realism in 
 them. — III. 'A Warning for Fair Women' — The Story — Use of Dumb 
 Show — Bye-Scenes — Handling of the Prose-Tale— Critique of the Style 
 and Character-Drawing of this Play — Its deliberate Moral Intention. 
 — IV. ' A Yorkshire Tragedy ' — The Crime of Walter Calverley — His 
 Character in the Drama — Demoniacal Possession. — V. 'Arden of 
 Feversham' — Difficulty of dealing with it — Its Unmitigated Horror — 
 Fidelity to Holinshed's Chronicle — Intense Nature of its Imaginative 
 Realism— -Character of Arden— Character of Mosbie — A Gallery of 
 Scoundrels — Two Types of Murderers — Michael's Terror — Alice 
 Arden — Her Relation to some Women of Shakspere — Development of 
 her Murderous Intention — Quarrel with Mosbie — The Crescendo of her 
 Passion — Redeeming Points in her Character — -Incidents and Episodes. 
 — VI. ' A Woman Killed with Kindness '—The Gentleness of this 
 Tragedy — The Plot — Italian Underplot adapted to English Life — Cha- 
 racter of Mr. Frankford — The Scene in the Bedchamber — Character 
 of Mrs. Frankford — Wendoll — Question regarding the Moral Tone of 
 the Last Act — Religious Sentiment. — VII. 'Witch of Edmonton' — 
 Its Joint-Authorship — The Story — Female Parts — Two Plays patched 
 together — Mother Sawyer — The Realistic Picture of an English Witch 
 — Humane Treatment of Witchcraft in this Play. 
 
 N.B. Of the Tragedies discussed in this chapter, the text of 'A 
 Warning to Fair Women ' will be found in Simpson's ' School of Shak- 
 spere,' vol. ii. ; that of ' A Yorkshire Tragedy,' in Tauchnitz's edition of 
 ' Six Doubtful Plays of William Shakespeare ; ' that of ' Arden of Fever- 
 sham ' in Delius' ' Pseudo-Shakspere'sche Dramen ; ' that of ' A Woman 
 Killed with Kindness,' in Collier's ' Dodsley,' vol. vii.; that of ' The Witch 
 of Edmonton ' in Gifford's ' Ford,' vol. ii. 
 
TRAGEDY, HIStORY, COMEDY. 413 
 
 I. 
 
 The Induction to a play, first published, without name 
 of author, in 1599, is a dialogue between History, 
 Tragedy, and Comedy, the three species at that epoch 
 recognised in English Drama. History enters at one 
 door of the stage, bearing a banner and beating on a 
 drum. Tragedy issues from the opposite door, carry- 
 ing a whip in one hand, and in the other a knife. 
 While these august rivals dispute the theatre, Comedy 
 advances from the back, rasping a fiddle's strings. 
 Tragedy calls on both her sisters to have done : 
 
 This brawling sheepskin is intolerable ! 
 
 I '11 cut your fiddle strings, 
 If you stand scraping thus to anger me ! 
 
 The place is hers : 
 
 I must have passions that must move the soul ; 
 Make the heart heavy and throb within the bosom ; 
 Extorting tears out of the strictest eyes : 
 To rack a thought, and strain it to its form. 
 Until I rap the senses from their course, 
 This is my office ! 
 
 History, feeling perchance her own affinity to Tragedy, 
 
 is not unwilling to retire. But Comedy replies with 
 
 taunts : 
 
 How some damned tyrant to obtain a crown 
 Stabs, hangs, imprisons, smothers, cutteth throats ? 
 And then a Chorus, too, comes howling in, 
 And tells us of the worrying of a cat: 
 Then, too, a filthy whining ghost, 
 Lapt in some foul sheet or a leather pilch, 
 Comes screaming like a pig half sticked. 
 And cries Vindkta /—Revenge, Revenge !— 
 With that a little rosin flasheth forth, 
 
414 SHAKSPEJRE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Like smoke out of a tobacco pipe, or a boy's squib. 
 Then comes in two or three more like to drovers, 
 With tailors' bodkins, stabbing one another ! 
 Is not this trim ? Is not here goodly things, 
 That you should be so much accounted of? 
 
 Tragedy is not to be daunted with sneers or criticisms. 
 She lays about her roundly with her whip, while 
 History, who plays the part of mediator, calls attention 
 to the hangings of the theatre : 
 
 Look, Comedy ! I marked it not till now ! 
 The stage is hung with black, and I perceive 
 The auditors prepared for Tragedy. 
 
 This is the Induction to ' A Warning for Fair Women,' 
 the second extant example of a peculiar species, which 
 may best be described as Domestic Tragedies. The 
 plays of this class were all founded upon recent 
 tragical events in real life. Tales of thrilling horror, 
 like those which De Quincey narrated in his appendix 
 to the essay on ' Murder considered as a Fine Art,' 
 supplied the dramatists with themes for sombre realistic 
 treatment. As in the History Play they followed 
 English Chronicles with patient fidelity ; so in the 
 Domestic Tragedy they adhered to the minutest details 
 of some well-known crime. Fancy found but little scope, 
 and poetical ornament was rigidly excluded. The 
 imagination exercised itself in giving life to character, 
 in analysing passion, laying bare the springs of hateful 
 impulses, and yielding the most faithful picture of bare 
 fact upon the stage. The result is that these grim and 
 naked tragedies are doubly valuable, first for their por- 
 traiture of manners, and secondly as powerful life-studies 
 in dramatic art. The auxiliary fascination of romance, 
 
Domestic tragedy. 41s 
 
 the charm of myth, the pathos of virtue in distress, the 
 glamour of distant lands and old heroic histories, are 
 lacking here. The playwright stands face to face with 
 sordid appetites and prosaic brutalities, the common 
 stuff of violence and bloodshed, lust and covetousness. 
 Yet such is his method of treatment in the best works 
 of this species which have been preserved to us, that 
 we learn from these domestic tragedies better perhaps 
 than from any other essays of the earlier period what 
 great dramatic gifts were common in that age. 
 
 That plays founded on these subjects of contem- 
 porary crime were popular throughout the flourishing 
 age of the Drama, is abundantly proved by their dates 
 and titles, preserved in several records. All classes of 
 society seem to have enjoyed them ; for among the 
 earliest of which we have any mention are ' Murderous 
 Michael ' and ' The Cruelty of a Stepmother,' per- 
 formed at Court in 1578. In 1592, the first domestic 
 tragedy, which exists in print, was published. This 
 was called ' The lamentable and true tragedy of 
 Master Arden of Feversham in Kent, who was most 
 wickedly murdered by the means of his disloyal and 
 wanton wife, who for the love she bare to one Mosbie, 
 hired two desperate ruffians, Black Will and Shagbag, 
 to kill him.' In 1598, appeared ' Black Bateman of the 
 North,' a narrative in two parts, enacted by Chettle, 
 Wilson, Drayton, and Dekker. The next year, 1599, 
 was fertile in plays of this description. Dekker and 
 Chettle worked together upon a ' Stepmother's Tra- 
 gedy ; ' Day and Haughton on ' The Tragedy of Merry ' 
 and ' Cox of CoUumpton ; ' Jonson and Dekker on the 
 murder of ' Page of Plymouth ; ' while ' Beech's 
 
41^ SHAKSPEkE'S pAeDECJSSSOHS. 
 
 Tragedy ' was acted by one of Henslowe's companies. 
 At the same time, the second extant tragedy, ' A 
 Warning for Fair Women,' ' containing the most tragical 
 and lamentable murther of Master George Sanders of 
 London, Merchant, nigh Shooter's Hill, consented unto 
 by his own wife, acted by M. Brown, Mistress Drury, 
 and Trusty Roger, agents therein,' was printed for 
 William Apsley. ' Two Tragedies in One,' by Robert 
 Yarrington, issued from the press in 1601. This curi- 
 ous piece, which we fortunately still possess, interweaves 
 two separate tales of horror, the one being the murder 
 of Master Beech by Thomas Merry, the other an Italian 
 version of the ' Babes in the Wood.' ' Baxter's Tragedy' 
 and ' Cartwright ' followed in i &02 ; ' The Fair Maid 
 of Bristol ' in 1 605 ; and ' The Yorkshire Tragedy ' in 
 1608. The last two are extant ; the former in a black 
 letter quarto, the other among Shakspere's Doubtful 
 Plays. In 1624 appeared two tragedies, the loss of 
 which is deeply to be regretted One of these was 
 called ' The Bristol Merchant,' and was written by 
 Ford and Dekker. The other bears this dreadful 
 title : ' A Late Murther of the Son upon the Mother.' 
 It was composed by Ford in collaboration with Web- 
 ster, the two most sinister and sombre spirits of our 
 drama, Saturn in conjunction with Mars. After this 
 date, the pure domestic tragedy seems to have gone 
 out of fashion. A lost play by George Chapman, 
 entitled ' The Yorkshire Gentlewoman and her Son,' 
 was, however, entered on the Stationers' Books in 1660 ; 
 and we still possess a piece by Rowley, Ford, and 
 Dekker, entitled ' The Witch of Edmonton,' which 
 combines the tragedy of Mother Sawyer, burned in 
 
SOURCES OF THESE DRAMAS. 417 
 
 162 1, with a wife-murder by one Francis Thorney. It 
 was acted in 1623, but not printed until 1658, To this 
 Hst I will add Hey wood's 'Woman Killed with Kind- 
 ness,' a masterpiece in its way, first acted so early as 
 1603 and printed in 1607, but whether founded on an 
 actual history or not, remains uncertain. 
 
 The sources chiefly drawn on by our playwrights in 
 the composition of these tragedies, were Stow's and 
 Holinshed's Chronicles, supplemented by special tracts 
 and pamphlets devoted to a fuller exposition of the 
 crimes in question. The author of ' Arden of Fever- 
 sham ' followed Holinshed ; the author of ' The York- 
 shire Tragedy ' worked on Stow ; the author of 
 ' A Warning for Fair Women ' took for his text a 
 detailed narrative of Sanders' murder, which appeared 
 in 1573.^ It will be noticed that the most prolific 
 writer in this kind was Dekker, and that Ford on three 
 occasions devoted his great talents to the task. Shak- 
 spere, if we could trust the title-page of the first quarto 
 of the ' Yorkshire Tragedy,' may have made at least one 
 experiment in domestic drama. Neither Jonson nor 
 Chapman nor yet Webster disdained the species ; and 
 it is probable that if the works of these men had come 
 down to us, our dramatic literature would have been 
 enriched with highly instructive objects of study. For 
 a note of the domestic drama is that here even great 
 artists laid aside their pall of tragic state, descending 
 to a simple style befitting the grim realism of their 
 subject. This consideration should make us cautious 
 in rejecting a tradition which ascribes to Shakspere one 
 of these homely plays. The same consideration will 
 
 ' A Brief Discourse of the late Murther of Master George Sanders, &c. 
 
 E E 
 
4i8 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 perhaps enable us to understand how Jonson may have 
 made those powerful additions to Kyd's ' Spanish 
 Tragedy ' which puzzled Lamb. 
 
 II. 
 
 I propose to examine five domestic tragedies, 
 beginning with the earliest and ending with the latest.^ 
 These are ' Arden of Feversham,' ' A Warning for 
 Fair Women,' ' A Yorkshire Tragedy,' ' The Witch of 
 Edmonton,' and ' A Woman Killed with Kindness.' 
 The first two were published anonymously, but have 
 been ascribed upon internal evidence by no mean 
 judges to Shakspere. Edward Jacob, in his reprint of 
 'Arden ' in 1770, was the first to suggest that the play 
 was Shakspere's. Tieck, who translated it in 1823, 
 adopted this view, and Goethe is said to have sup- 
 ported it. Mr. Swinburne in his recent 'Study of 
 Shakespeare ' pleads eloquently in favour of the Shak- 
 sperian authorship. Yet there is absolutely no external 
 evidence to rest upon ; and so far as internal evidence 
 from style must be considered, neither the diction, 
 though vigorous, nor the versification, though far from 
 despicable, can be closely paralleled with Shakspere's in 
 his youth or prime. The most substantial ground on 
 which we might assign this play to Shakspere, is the 
 dramatic skill, the tragic force, displayed in it. Was 
 there any other playwright capable of producing work 
 so masterly before the date of 1592 .? We may at 
 
 1 By earliest and latest, I mean in date of publication, which is, 
 however, no exact guide to date of composition. Arden of Feversham, 
 for instance, has all the signs of more mature workmanship than 
 A Warning. 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF ' ARDEN: 419 
 
 once eliminate Marlowe, whose marked style nowhere 
 shows itself in scene, soliloquy, or dialogue. Greene, 
 Peele, and all their school, are out of question. 
 Neither Heywood nor Dekker, both of them young 
 men of twenty-two, are admissible upon the score of 
 any similarity between their earliest extant work and 
 this. Middleton is equally improbable. There re- 
 mains Robert Yarrington, of whom we know nothing 
 except that he wrote one domestic tragedy ; and to 
 whom it might be indeed convenient, but far too fanci- 
 ful, to ascribe the three domestic plays which puzzle 
 us.^ ' Either,' says Mr. Swinburne, summing up the 
 case upon this point : ' Either this play is the young 
 Shakespeare's first tragic masterpiece, or there was a 
 writer unknown to us then alive and at work for the 
 stage who excelled him as a tragic dramatist not less — 
 to say the very least — than he was excelled by Marlowe 
 as a narrative and tragic poet.' The argument is 
 strongly stated ; and those who agree with Mr. Swin- 
 burne in rating ' Arden of Feversham ' among ' tragic 
 masterpieces,' must admit the full force of it. After 
 repeated study of the play, I am myself inclined to set 
 
 1 That is to say, of course, Arden, A Warning, and A Yorkshire 
 Tragedy. With regard to A Yorkshire Tragedy, it formed part oi Four 
 Tragedies in One, while Yarrington's known play on Beech's murder is 
 part of Two Tragedies in One. With regard to Ardeii and A Warning, 
 although there is a vast difference in the power of these two dramas, the 
 method of dealing with the prose text in each is strikingly similar, and is 
 in keeping with the method of Yarrington's acknowledged piece. I have 
 been both surprised and pleased to find this hazardous suggestion with 
 regard to Yarrington confirmed in a private communication made to me 
 by Mr. A. H. Bullen. He tells me that at one time he was inclined to 
 ascribe Arden and A Warning to the author of Two Tragedies in One. 
 About A Yorkshire Tragedy he says nothing ; and indeed, except upon 
 Fluellen's argument of an M in Monmouth and in Macedon, there is no 
 ground to group this with the other three. 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 only a slightly lower value on it than he does. Yet 
 how dangerous it is to build on arguments of exclusion, 
 to assign to Shakspere unclaimed work chiefly because 
 we judge it masterly, when we remember the wealth of 
 dramatic ability in that fertile age, I have already 
 pointed out ! ^ Cautious critics, whatever may be their 
 
 ' It may be well to try and state briefly the conditions under which, 
 if we incline to the Shaksperian hypothesis, we have to construct it. 
 (i) There is no external proof in its favour ; but there is the difficulty of 
 assigning the play to any known writer for the stage, combined with the 
 fact that it is the work of a first-rate dramatist. (2) We know that 
 Shakspere was the ' Johannes Factotum ' of the Globe Company, turning 
 his hand to the most various jobs. (3) The unrivalled power which he 
 finally acquired over both character and metre was slowly developed after 
 many tentative efforts. (4) What marks his earlier manner is a certain 
 shadowiness of character-drawing (e.g. in A Midsummer Nighffs Dream) 
 combined with humour, romantic luxuriance of fancy, e uphuisti c conceits, 
 and a partiality for rhymed verse. (5) What marks Ardeh of Feversham 
 s considerable grasp of character ; absence of humour, fancy, euphuism ; 
 baldness of blank verse, sparely relieved by decorative or impassioned 
 rhetoric. (6) But the Domestic Tragedy was a well-defined species, 
 aiming, as the Epilogue to Arden. states, at 'nakedness' and 'simple 
 truth ' without ' filfed points ' and ' glozing stuff.' Shakspere may there- 
 fore have deliberately suppressed his own early mannei; when he was 
 called upon to produce a Domestic Tragedy for the use of his company. 
 It is also possible that he had a previous version to rehandle ; for we 
 know that a play called Murderous Michael -vizs shown at Court in 1578. 
 (7) As regards the solid character-drawing which marks the piece, this 
 was practically supplied to the dramatist by Holinshed ; and the careful 
 use made of Holinshed is remarkably similar to that which Shakspere 
 made of his materials. (8) We might therefore plead that the species of 
 the play excluded the young Shakspere's poetry and fancy, binding him 
 down to a severe and naked style ; while the copious text on which he 
 had to work, drew forth his latent powers of character-delineation. 
 (9) There are many detached passages which forcibly recall the style of 
 Shakspere. Some of these will be noted in the analysis of the play given in 
 this chapter. See below, pp. 448, 452, 456, 458. (10) Lastly, the hypothesis 
 might further be strengthened by recourse to the always convenient theory 
 of piratical publication. This couldbeusedto explain the halting versifica- 
 tion of some scenes. But it is not very applicable to Arden 0/ Feversham, 
 which came to press perfect at least in all its parts, and not compressed 
 in any of its numerous incidents. It is certainly of the full length. 
 Oldys says : ' They have the play in manuscript at Canterbury.' If the 
 MS. is extant, a comparison with the printed text might go far to set this 
 point at rest. 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF 'A WARNINGS 421 
 
 personal bias of opinion, must be content to leave 
 ' Arden of Feversham ' among anonymous productions 
 until such time, if such time ever come, when light 
 may be thrown upon its authorship from documents. 
 Less can be urged in favour of ' A Warning for Fair 
 Women.' It was indeed first published as having 
 ' been lately divers times acted by the Right Honour- 
 able the Lord Chamberlain his Servants,' that is by 
 Shakspere's Company ; and Mr. Collier in his ' History 
 of the Stage ' goes so far as to exclaim that either 
 Shakspere or the Devil set his hand to certain passages. 
 No true critic who rejects ' Arden ' on internal evi- 
 dence, will, however, ascribe 'A Warning' on the 
 ground of style to Shakspere. Should he follow Mr. 
 Collier's opinion in the latter case, he would be forced 
 a fortiori to credit Shakspere with the former play; for 
 ' Arden ' is the ripe production of a dramatic artist, 
 while ' A Warning ' is hardly better than a piece of 
 soHd and sturdy journey-work. This tragedy may, 
 therefore, be relegated to the limbo of dSeo-TTora — things 
 masterless, without an author's or an owner's name. 
 
 The case is somewhat different with ' A Yorkshire 
 Tragedy.' This short play formed one of ' Four 
 Tragedies in One,' acted together in the same perform- 
 ance at the Globe. It alone of these four pieces was 
 selected for publication, and was printed with the name 
 of Shakspere. But the collectors of Shakspere's 
 dramatic works did not include it in the first folio ; and 
 we are met with the further difficulty that ■ it was pro- 
 duced at the very height of Shakspere's power and 
 fame, when ' Macbeth' and ' King Lear' had already 
 issued from his hands. Calverley's murder of his 
 
422 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 children took place in 1604; the play was published 
 with Shakspere's name in 1608 ; ' Anthony and Cleo- 
 patra ' may be referred with tolerable certainty to the 
 same year. That is to say, between the date of the 
 crime and the date of the play four years elapsed, 
 during which Shakspere gave to the world his ripest, 
 most inimitable masterpieces. Is it then conceivable 
 that this crude and violent piece of work, however 
 powerful we judge it — and powerful it most indubit- 
 ably is, beyond the special powers of a Hey wood or a 
 Dekker — can have been a twin-birth of the Master's 
 brain with ' Julius Caesar ' or with any one of the authen- 
 tic compositions of his third period ? ^ Have we not 
 rather reason to reject it, and to explain the publisher 
 Pavier's attribution, by the fact that it attracted great 
 attention on the stage for which Shakspere worked, and 
 which he helped to manage ? Judging merely by 
 internal evidence, there is, I think, rather less than no 
 reason to suppose that Shakspere did more than pass it 
 with approval for his acting company. A slight but 
 highly suspicious point is the insertion, at the very 
 climax, of a couplet from Nash's ' Pierce Penniless ' into 
 the hero's desperate ravings : 
 
 Divines and dying men may talk of hell, 
 But in my heart its several torments dwell. 
 
 ' The peculiar power displayed in the short and stabbing dagger- 
 thrusts of Calverley's furious utterance cannot, I think, be paralleled by 
 anything in Shakspere's known writing ; nor, on the other hand has 
 Shakspere ever drawn a female character so colourless and tame as that 
 of Mrs. Calverley. Neither the force of Calverley nor the feebleness of 
 his wife is Shaksperian. Mr. A. H. Bullen queries, while these sheets 
 are going through the press, whether it was perchance the work of 
 Tourneur. The suggestion is ingenious. But it seems idle to indulge 
 speculation of this kind on no solid basis. 
 
AUTHORSHIP OF 'A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY.' 423 
 
 This rings upon my ear even more falsely than the line 
 from Shakspere's Sonnets introduced into Edward III. : 
 
 Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. 
 
 Were the style of the whole drama, in either of these 
 cases, strongly marked as Shakspere's, or were the 
 dramatic power as unmistakable as it is in ' Arden of 
 Feversham,' then these lapses into petty larceny and 
 repetition would not be significant. But ' A Yorkshire 
 Tragedy ' has nothing in language or in character- 
 drawing suggestive of Shakspere. The one-sided force 
 of Calverley's portrait points to a different hand. There- 
 fore this line of argument cannot be maintained, and 
 the ' Yorkshire Tragedy ' must be left to share the fate 
 of ' Arden ' and ' A Warning.' 
 
 The two remaining tragedies upon my list of five, 
 present no such difficult problems as to authorship. 
 ' A Woman Killed by Kindness ' is Heywood's uncon- 
 tested property. ' The Witch of Edmonton ' was 
 printed as ' a Tragi-Comedy by divers well-esteemed 
 poets, William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, John Ford, 
 &c.' The ' &c.' is amusing. Though Rowley's name 
 takes the first place, a perusal of the piece will prove 
 that Ford and Dekker, collaborators on a second oc- 
 casion in domestic tragedy, were responsible for some 
 of the best parts of the drama.^ They, at any rate, 
 worked out the tale of Frank, Winnifrede, and Susan. 
 I am diffident of expressing an opinion that the whole 
 of Mother Sawyer's tale belongs to Rowley.^ Yet 
 
 1 Thtvc Bristol Merchant a.-p^taXtA m 1624; The Witch of Edmonton 
 was acted, according to Gifford, in 1623. 
 
 * The comic parts have, in my opinion, more affinity to .Rowley's 
 work in The Birth of Merlin than to Delcker's in The Virgi?t Martyr. 
 
424 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 this appears to me highly probable. It serves, more- 
 over, to explain the want of connection between the 
 two threads of dramatic interest, and the publisher 
 Blackmore's ascription of the Witch to Rowley. 
 
 Were I writing for professed students of English 
 dramatic literature, I should hardly venture to enter 
 into the detailed exposition of plays so well known as 
 these five. Still they are not easily accessible to 
 general readers ; and the importance of the group in 
 illustration of old English habits, no less than as form- 
 ing a distinct species of Elizabethan art, is so great, 
 that I shall not hesitate to deal with them at large. The 
 characteristic feature of domestic tragedy, as I have 
 already pointed out, is realism. These plays are studies 
 from contemporary life, unidealised, unvarnished with 
 poetry or fancy ; they are this too in a truer sense than 
 any play-work of the period, except perhaps some 
 comedies of bourgeois manners. But this realism 
 which gives the ground tone to their art is varied. ' A 
 Warning for Fair Women ' might be compared to a 
 photograph from the nude model. ' A Yorkshire 
 Tragedy ' is the same model treated in a rough sketch by 
 a swift fierce master's hand, defining form and character 
 with brusque chiaroscuro. ' Arden of Feversham ' 
 adds colour and composition to the study. It is a 
 picture, elaborated with scientific calculation of effect. 
 The painter relied on nature, trusted to the force in- 
 herent in his motive. But he interpreted nature, 
 passed the motive through his brain, and produced a 
 work explanatory of his artist's reading of a tragic 
 episode in human life. All this he contrived to do 
 without over-passing the limits of the strictest, the 
 
DEGREES OF REALISM. 425 
 
 most self-denying realism. 'A Woman Killed with 
 Kindness ' is also a picture, realistic in its mise en 
 scene and details, realistic in its character-drawing, 
 but tinctured with a touch of special pleading. The 
 painter did not stand outside his subject here. He 
 added something of his own emotion, and invited his 
 audience to share the pathos which he felt. Here, 
 then, we are upon the verge of idealistic art ; and this 
 infusion of idealism renders the work more ethically 
 dubious, akin to sentimentalism, tainted with casuistical 
 transaction. ' The Witch of Edmonton,' in its com- 
 position of two diverse plots, strays further from the 
 path of bare sincerity. There is no question here of 
 photographic nudity, of passionate life-study, of stern 
 interpretation, or of tear-provoking simplicity. The one 
 part, the part of the witch, is unconsciously didactic. 
 The other part, the part of the murderous husband 
 between his two wives, is romantic. Yet both didactic 
 and romantic elements are worked upon a ground of 
 sombre realism. The artists have drawn their several 
 effects from crude uncoloured homely circumstances. 
 No more than their predecessors, did Rowley, Ford, and 
 Dekker seek effect by rhetoric or by poetical embroidery. 
 We might compare these five stages in domestic 
 tragedy to the several qualities of realism exhibited by 
 a newspaper report, a scene from one of Zola's stories, 
 a novel by Tourguenieff, a tale like ' Manon Lescaut,' 
 and a piece of Eugene Sue's. These comparisons in 
 criticism do not lead to very much of solid value. 
 They serve their purpose if they remind the student 
 that what we discern as generically realistic contains 
 many species and gradations. 
 
rtviti! j/i niAK^fs^,^ A-y / 
 
 426 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 III. 
 
 In 'A Warning for Fair Women,' the hand- 
 some young Irishman, Captain Browne, meeting witl:^ 
 Master George Sanders and his wife. Mistress Anne, 
 at some civic entertainment, falls in love with the 
 latter at first sight. He notes a certain Widow Drury 
 in her company, on whom he fixes with a roup's in- 
 stinct as a proper go-between. This she is by nature 
 and profession. In their first interview the plan for 
 courting Mistress Sanders is agreed upon ; Widow 
 Drury's servant. Trusty Roger, is taken into con- 
 fidence, and Browne goes off to improve acquaintance 
 with his lady-love. He begins by walking past her 
 house, where she is sitting in the wooden porch await- 
 ing her husband's return from the Exchange. Browne's 
 suit does not prosper ; and when he takes his leave, 
 Anne exclaims : 
 
 These errand-making gallants are good men, 
 That cannot pass, and see a woman sit. 
 Of any sort, alone at any door, 
 But they will find a 'scuse to stand and prate. 
 
 The captain returns to Widow Drury, informs her 
 of his ill-success, and begs her to use some speedy 
 means for coaxing Mistress Sanders to his wishes. 
 The widow, who combines petty surgery and fortune- 
 telling with her other oblique trade, happens to find 
 the merchant's wife in a momentary fit of pique against 
 her husband. She soothes her down, flatters her, and 
 playing with her hand, exclaims, ' How is this ? You 
 are destined to be a widow ere long!' — 
 
CAP TAIN BRO WNE. 427 
 
 A widow, said I ? Yea, and make a change, 
 Not for the worse, but for the better far. 
 A gentleman, my girl, must be the next, 
 A gallant fellow, one that is beloved, 
 Of great estates. 
 
 With this she draws a seductive picture of her future 
 wealth and honours. But Anne replies : 
 
 Yet had I rather be as now 1 am ; 
 
 If God were pleasfed that it should be so. 
 
 ' Ay,' takes up the temptress : 
 
 Ay, marry, now you speak like a good Christian : 
 ' If God were pleased.' Oh, but He hath decreed 
 It shall be otherwise ; and to repine 
 Against His providence, you know 't is sin. 
 
 Then gradually she suggests the form and feature of 
 Browne to the credulous woman's recollection, pre- 
 tending to read the signs of him by palmistry : 
 
 Briefly, it is your fortune. Mistress Sanders ; 
 And there 's no remedy but you must have him. 
 
 Meanwhile, the widow urges, Anne need not be too 
 
 forward. The stars will bring about her marriage in 
 
 good season. For the present let her only use Browne 
 
 with common courtesy : 
 
 As one for whom 
 You were created in your birth a wife. 
 
 The plot is set, and the first part terminates. 
 
 Tragedy now makes her entrance upon the stage. 
 She tells the audience they have as yet only beheld 
 
 The fatal entrance to our bloody scene. 
 
428 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 A Dumb Show, which supplies a good example of the 
 employment of this device not only to explain but 
 also to advance the action, is introduced. Allegorical 
 figures of Lust and Chastity appear, attending Mistress 
 Sanders, who is led forth by Browne, while Widow, 
 Drury thrusts Chastity aside, and Trusty Roger follows 
 at her heels. We have to suppose that Browne has 
 made use of his opportunities, and by the aid of Drury 
 has succeeded in seducing Anne. The lovers have 
 determined to anticipate the slowly-working stars, and 
 to remove Sanders. At the beginning of the second 
 part Browne attempts the murder, and is interrupted. 
 The third part, introduced in like manner by Dumb 
 Show and Tragedy, is occupied with the murder itself. 
 Browne, attended by Trusty Roger, falls upon the 
 merchant and his servant, John Beane, in a wood near 
 Shooter's Hill, effects his purpose, and leaves the 
 servant for dead upon the ground.^ But Beane, though 
 wounded to the death, has strength to crawl away. 
 He meets with a country fellow and his daughter, the 
 latter of whom is Beane's own sweetheart. They 
 rescue and take him to their cottage, where he lies in 
 sick bed till the time arrives for giving evidence 
 against the murderer. Browne sends Roger back to 
 Mistress Anne with a handkerchief dipped in her 
 husband's blood, and makes his own way to the Court. 
 Conscience now strikes both guilty lovers. Anne, when 
 she sees her husband's blood, turns round upon herself 
 and her accomplices : 
 
 ' Mr. A. H. BuUen points out to me the similarity between the treat- 
 ment of this scene in the wood with a parallel scene in Arden of Fever- 
 sham. 
 
MURDER OF SANDERS. 429 
 
 Oh, show not me that ensign of despair ! 
 But hi'de it, burn it, bury it in the earth. . . . 
 What tell you me ? Is not my husband slain ? 
 Are not we guilty of his cruel death ? 
 Oh, my dear husband, I will follow thee ! 
 Give me a knife, a sword, or anything, 
 Wherewith I may do justice on myself — 
 Justice for murder, justice for the death 
 Of my dear husband, my betrothed love ! 
 
 And so forth through an animated scene of self- 
 reproach and desperation. Browne is hardly less 
 unmanned. He flies, heedless of the blood upon his 
 white satin doublet and blue silk breeches, to the 
 buttery of the Court, where he draws ale, and excuses 
 the stains upon his clothes by saying he had lately 
 shot a hare. Then he hastens to Mistress Anne ; but 
 as he approaches her house, he is met by the little son 
 of his victim playing in the street. In order to show 
 how the author of this tragedy worked the motives 
 supplied by his text, I will transcribe this incident 
 from the prose ' Brief Discourse,' and place the scene 
 beside it. 'He was so abashed afterward at the 
 sight of one of Master Sanders' little young children, 
 as he had much ado to forbear from swounding in the 
 street.' 
 
 Enter Brown and Roger. Brown spies the boy. 
 
 Roger. How now, Captain ? 
 Why stop you on the sudden ? Why go you not ? 
 What makes you look so ghastly towards the house ? 
 
 Brown. Is not the foremost of those pretty boys 
 One of George Sanders' sons ? 
 
 R. Yes, 't is the youngest. 
 
 Br. Both young'st and eld'st are now made fatherless 
 By my unlucky hand. I prithee, go 
 And take him from the door; the sight of him 
 
430 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Strikes such a terror to my guilty conscience 
 As I have not the heart to look that way, ' 
 Nor stir my foot until he be removed. 
 Methinks in him I see his father's wounds 
 Fresh bleeding in my sight ; nay, he doth stand 
 Like to an angel with a fiery sword 
 To bar mine entrance at that fatal door. 
 I prithee step, and take him quickly thence. 
 
 When Browne comes face to face with Anne, she 
 spurns him from her : 
 
 Ah, bid me feed on poison and be fat ; 
 Or look upon the basilisk and live ; 
 Or surfeit daily and be still in health ; 
 Or leap into the sea and not be drowned : 
 All these are even as possible as this, 
 That I should be re-comforted by him 
 That is the author of my whole lament. 
 
 Her lover tries to soften her : 
 
 Why, Mistress Anne, I love you dearly ; 
 
 And but for your incomparable beauty. 
 
 My soul had never dreamed of Sanders' death. 
 
 But she will have none of him ; and the scene suddenly 
 changes to the Council Chamber, where three lords are 
 taking evidence in the matter of the murder. Piece 
 by piece it is unravelled ; but the assassin, meanwhile, 
 has taken refuge in a house at Rochester. He, a 
 captain, ruffling in silks, goes to a butcher of the name 
 of Browne, and claims cousinship. The butcher is 
 flattered : 
 
 I love you for your name-sake, and trust me, sir. 
 Am proud that such a one as you will call me cousin. 
 Though I am sure we are no kin at all. 
 
 These bye-scenes, it may be said in passing — the 
 
BYE-SCENES. 431 
 
 scene before Anne's house-door, the scene in the Court- 
 buttery, the scene of Joan and her father driving their 
 cow home, the scene of the carpenters at Newgate — 
 are the salt of the play. It is their blunt unvarnished 
 portraiture of manners which gives value to a suffi- 
 ciently prosaic piece of work. In the butcher's house 
 Browne is arrested. Confronted with Beane, who is 
 brought bleeding on the stage, he mutters to himself : ^ 
 
 I gave him fifteen wounds, 
 Which now be fifteen mouths that do accuse me ; 
 In every wound there is a bloody tongue, 
 Which will all speak, although he hold his peace. 
 
 It is hardly needful to pursue the slow, relentless 
 exploration of the crime further. Not a jot or tittle of 
 the ' BriefJ>if»<=yurse ' is spared, from Browne's con- 
 viction and hanging, through the confession of Widow 
 Drury and Trusty Roger, to the final repentance of 
 Anne Sanders, and their several executions. One bye- 
 scene may, however, be dwelt upon. Anne Sanders 
 was hoping to the last to save her life. Browne had 
 died, manfully denying her complicity. His words 
 upon the scaffold prove him to have been no utter 
 scoundrel : 
 
 Have I not made a covenant with her [Aside. 
 
 That, for the love that I ever bare to her, 
 
 I will not sell her life by my confession ? 
 
 And shall I now confess it ? I am a villain. 
 
 I will never do it. Shall it be said Browne proved 
 
 A recreant ? And yet I have a soul. 
 
 Well : God the rest reveal ; 
 
 I will confess my sins, but this conceal. 
 
 ' This is one of the passages which are adduced to support the hypo- 
 thesis of Shaksperian authorship. 
 
432 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Upon my death she 's guiltless of the fact ! {Aloud. 
 
 Well, much ado I had to bring it out. [Aside. 
 
 My conscience scarce would let me utter it : 
 I am glad 't is past. 
 
 Widow Drury also promised to shield her. But, lying 
 in her cell in Newgate, she overheard a man in the 
 street outside, who ' happened to speak loud of the 
 gallows that was set up, and of the greatness and 
 strongness of the same, saying it would hold them 
 both or more.' This is how the playwright dramatised 
 the motive : 
 
 Enter two Carpenters under Newgate. 
 
 Will. Tom Peart, my old companion ? Well met. 
 
 Tom. Good morrow. Will Crow, good morrow ; how dost? I 
 have not seen thee a great while. 
 
 Will Well, I thank God ; how dost thou ? Where hast thou 
 been this morning, so early ? 
 
 To7n. Faith, I have been up ever since three a clock. 
 
 Will. About what, man ? 
 
 Tom. Why, to make work for the hangman ; I and another 
 have been setting up a gallows. 
 
 Will. O, for Mistress Drewry ; must she die to-day ? 
 
 Tom. Nay, I know not that ; but when she does, I am sure 
 there is a gallows big enough to hold them both. 
 
 Will. Both whom ? Her man and her ? 
 
 Tom. Her man and her, and Mistress Sanders too ; 't is a 
 swinger, ifaith. But come, I '11 give thee a pot this morning, for I 
 promise thee I am passing dry, after my work. 
 
 Will. Content, Tom, and I have another for thee ; and after- 
 ward I '11 go see the execution. 
 
 Their conversation, a faint echo from the vulgar work- 
 aday world piercing the prison walls, determines the 
 catastrophe, by stirring Mistress Anne's fears, and 
 bringing her to conference with Widow Drury, who 
 declares her intention of making a clean breast of the 
 
QUALITY OF 'A WARNING! 433 
 
 whole business. Anne thereupon gives up the game, 
 and dies in a penitent mood. 
 
 Little, on the score of art, can be claimed for 
 this tragedy. The only figure which stands out with 
 distinctness from the canvas is George Browne. Him 
 we readily invest with brawny form and lawless ap- 
 petites. We see him swaggering, an English bravo, 
 in his suit of white and blue. On the scaffold we 
 are touched by his feeling for the woman, to win 
 whom he committed murder in this world, and to 
 save whose life he leaves it with a lie upon his lips. 
 Widow Drury has also, in the first part at least 
 of the action, a definite and recognisable personality. 
 She is not vmskilfully portrayed as the human rep- 
 tile, squatting in slums and ill-famed haunts of vice, 
 whose secret nature only emerges into the light of 
 day to work mischief But though the play is a poor 
 specimen of dramatic art, its bare, indifferent pre- 
 sentation of a squalid crime may have been ethically 
 more effective and more drastic as a purge to a 
 burdened memory than a tragedy better qualified by 
 moving terror and pity to purify the emotions of the 
 audience. Lust and murder, the self-loathing which 
 follows guilt, the pitiful uselessness of bloodshed, the 
 sordid end of evil-doers, are unmasked with surgical 
 brutality. We readily conceive that what apologists 
 for plays were fond of urging in their defence, namely, 
 that they wrought upon the conscience of criminals in 
 the audience, may have been true of such a play as 
 this. One of the magistrates engaged in trying Browne 
 tells a story to this effect : 
 
 F F 
 
434 SHAKSPERE'S PRED£C£SSOJiS. 
 
 A woman that had made away her husband, 
 
 And sitting to behold a tragedy, 
 
 At Lynn, a town in Norfolk, 
 
 Acted by players travelling that way — 
 
 Wherein a woman that had murdered hers 
 
 Was ever haunted with her husband's ghost, 
 
 The passion written by a feeling pen, 
 
 And acted by a gotsd tragedian — 
 
 She was so moved with the sight thereof 
 
 As she cried out, ' the play was made by her,' 
 
 And openly confessed her husband's murder. 
 
 Shakspere, in the first draught of ' Hamlet,' inserted a 
 prose tale to the same effect; and in the finished 
 tragedy immortalised the motive iu those famous lines : 
 
 I have heard 
 That guilty creatures sitting at a play. 
 Have by the very cunning of the scene 
 Been struck so to the soul, that presently 
 They have proclaimed their malefactions ; 
 For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak 
 With most miraculous organ. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ' This lurid little play ' is the phrase by which Mr. 
 Swinburne characterises ' A Yorkshire Tragedy.' No 
 better words could be chosen to convey its specific 
 quality. Like the asp, it is short, ash-coloured, poison- 
 fanged, blunt-headed, abrupt in movement, hissing and 
 wriggling through the sands of human misery. Having 
 dealt with it, we are fain to drop it, as we should a 
 venomous thing, so concentrated is the loathing and 
 repulsion it excites. 
 
 'Walter Calverley, of Calverley in Yorkshire, 
 Esquire, murdered two of his young children, stabbed 
 
'J YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY.' 435 
 
 his wife into the body with full purpose to have mur- 
 dered her, and instantly went from his house to have 
 slain his youngest child at nurse, but was prevented. 
 For which fact, at his trial at York, he stood mute, and 
 was judged to be pressed to death.' This passage 
 from Stows Chronicle fully expresses the argument. 
 All that the author did was to introduce a few sub- 
 ordinate characters, among whom we may reckon 
 Calverley's colourless and over-patient wife ; and to 
 explain the motives of the crime. The play exists in 
 and for the murderer, or rather for the devil who 
 inspires him ; for Calverley is drawn as acting under 
 diabolical possession. He has lost his fortune by 
 gambling and loose living in town. His lands are 
 mortgaged. His brother lies in prison at the Univer- 
 sity for a debt contracted at his request. He returns 
 to Yorkshire in a frenzy of despair and anger ; the 
 game of life has been played out ; his children are 
 beggars, his wife an insufferable encumbrance ; a 
 calenture of murderous delirium seizes him, and he 
 wreaks his rage in a tornado of madness. The action 
 hurls along at such furious speed, the dialogue is so 
 hurried and choked with spasms, that no notion of the 
 play can be gained except by rapid perusal at one 
 sitting. We rise with the same kind of impression as 
 that left upon our sight by a flash of lightning revealing 
 some grim object in a night of pitchy darkness. The 
 mental retina has been all but seared and blinded ; yet 
 the scene discovered in that second shall not be 
 forgotten. 
 
 Quotation is to little purpose in a case like this. 
 Yet I must support my criticism with some extracts, 
 
 F F 2 
 
436 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 selected to show in what particulars the realism of this 
 piece differs from that of the last. The husband 
 enters to the wife. It is his first appearance, and these 
 are his first words : 
 
 Pox o' the last throw ! It made five hundred angels 
 Vanish from my sight. I 'm damned, I 'm damned ; 
 The angels have forsook me. Nay, it is 
 Certainly true ; for he that has no coin 
 Is damned in this world ; he is gone, he is gone. 
 
 The wife approaches. He turns round on her : 
 
 ! most punishment of all, I have a wife ! 
 She pleads with him : 
 
 1 do entreat you, as you love your soul. 
 Tell me the cause of this your discontent. 
 
 He curses : 
 
 A vengeance strip thee naked ! thou art the cause. 
 The effect, the quality, the property ; thou, thou, thou ! 
 
 Then he flings from the room, but reappears a moment 
 after, muttering. His beggary and the beggary of his 
 unloved family have taken hold upon his mind. ' Base, 
 slavish, abject, filthy poverty!' 'Money, money, 
 money ! ' ' Bastards, bastards, bastards ! ' This re- 
 iteration of the same words, and this renewal of the 
 same exasperating thoughts, seems meant to indicate 
 the man's insanity. His whole action is a paroxysm. 
 When his wife speaks, he interrupts her : 
 
 Have done, thou harlot. 
 Whom, though for fashion-sake I married, 
 I never could abide. Think'st thou thy words 
 Shall kill my pleasures ? Fall off to thy friends ; 
 Thou and thy bastards beg ; I will not bate 
 A whit in humour. 
 
CHARACTER OF CALVERLEY. 437 
 
 Let her, if she wants to keep whole bones in her body, 
 turn her dowry into cash for him to squander : 
 
 Let it be done ; 
 I was never made to be a looker-on, 
 A bawd to dice ; I '11 shake the drabs myself. 
 And make them yield ; I say, look it be done. 
 
 She goes to do his bidding : 
 
 Speedily, speedily ! 
 I hate the very hour I chose a wife : 
 A trouble, trouble ! Three children, like three evils. 
 Hang on me. Fie, fie, fie ! Strumpet and bastards ! 
 Strumpet and bastards ! 
 
 Perhaps this is enough. This serves, at leasts to show 
 how the crude portrait of a God-abandoned ruffian 
 was dashed in. What follows is after the same 
 fashion. Stroke upon stroke, the artist stabs the 
 metal plate on which he etches, drowning it in aqua- 
 fortis till it froths. Prose takes the place of blank 
 verse in cooler moments of the victim's passion : 
 
 O thou confused man ! Thy pleasant sins have undone thee ; 
 thy damnation has beggared thee. That Heaven should say we must 
 not sin, and yet made women ! give our senses way to find pleasure, 
 which being found, confounds us ! Why should we know those 
 things so much misuse us ? O, would virtue had been forbidden ! 
 We should then have proved all virtuous ; for 't is our blood to love 
 what we are forbidden. . . . 'T is done ; I have don't i' faith : 
 terrible, horrible misery ! How well was I left ! Very well, very 
 well. My lands showed like a full moon round me ; but now the 
 moon 's in the last quarter — waning, waning ; and I am mad to think 
 that moon was mine ; mine and my father's, and my forefathers' ; 
 generations, generations ! Down goes the house of us ; down, down 
 it sinks. Now is the name a beggar ; begs in me. That name 
 which hundreds of years has made this shire famous, in me and my 
 posterity runs out. In my seed five are made miserable besides 
 
438 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 myself : my riot is now my brother's gaoler, my wife's sighing, my 
 three boys' penury, and mine own confusion. 
 
 The only redeeming point in the whole ghastly 
 picture is that, tortured still with appetites and long- 
 ings, writhing on damnation's rack, this doomed man 
 has yet a thought, if not a tear, to spare his wife's, 
 his brother's, his sons' ruin. But he is caught, like a 
 scotched asp, in the devil's fork. And when chance, at 
 this climax, offers one of his children to his sight, the 
 fury starts up, fanged to strike : 
 
 My eldest beggar ! 
 Thou shalt not live to ask an usurer's bread. 
 To cry at a great man's gate, or follow, 
 Good your honour, by a coach ; no, nor your brother ; 
 'T is charity to brain you. 
 
 And brain them both he does. First, the boy playing 
 
 with his ' top and scourge.' Next, the child in a 
 
 nurse's arms : 
 
 Whore, give me that boy ! . . . 
 Are you gossiping, you prating, sturdy quean ? 
 I '11 break your clamour with your neck ! Downstairs, 
 Tumble, tumble headlong. So : 
 The surest way to charm a woman's tongue, 
 Is — break her neck : a politician did it. 
 
 Here enters the wife, and snatches up the youngest 
 child : 
 
 Strumpet, let go the boy, let go the beggar. 
 
 To her 'sweet husband,' 'dear husband,' 'good my 
 husband,' it is only ' harlot,' 'bastard,' 'brat,' until he 
 stabs his boy, and wounds the mother in the breast. 
 A servant hastens in at the noise, ' Base slave, my 
 
MADNESS AND MURDER. 439 
 
 vassal ! ' Down goes the groom, trampled on, bruised, 
 gored with riding spurs. The devil is up in the man, 
 and off he rides upon a saddled horse to find his last 
 child, feverish for further bloodshed. On the way his 
 nag falls, over-driven, stormed into stupidity. The 
 officers are after him, and he is caught. In the clutch 
 of justice, the devil in the man is still unquelled. He 
 snorts out curses. But they bring him home, and 
 confront him with his wounded wife : 
 
 W. O my sweet husband, my dear distressed husband, 
 Now my soul bleeds. 
 
 H. How now ? kind to me ? Did I not wound thee ? 
 Left thee for dead ? 
 
 W. Tut ! far, far greater wounds did my breast feel ; 
 Unkindness strikes a deeper wound than steel. 
 You have been still unkind to me. 
 
 H. Faith, and so I think I have. 
 I did my murders roughly out of hand, 
 Desperate and sudden ; but thou hast devised 
 A fine way now to kill me ; thou hast given mine eyes 
 Seven wounds apiece. Now glides the devil from me. 
 Departs at every joint, heaves up my nails : 
 O catch him, torments that were ne'er invented; 
 Bind him one thousand more, you blessfed angels. 
 In that pit bottomless ! Let him not rise 
 To make men act unnatural tragedies ; 
 To spread into a father, and in fury 
 Make him his children's executioner. 
 
 W. O, my repentant husband ! 
 
 H. O, my dear soul, whom I too much have wronged ! 
 
 This exudation of the devil from the madman's 
 skin, departing by the passages of joints and nails, is 
 forcibly conceived. It must have appealed to an 
 audience who believed in diabolical possession, and 
 knew fiends' customary exits. Yet something is missed 
 in the expression ; something which we find, how- 
 
440 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 ever, further on, when the two dead children are 
 produced : 
 
 But you are playing in the angels' laps. 
 And will not look at me. 
 
 Then the wretch, deHvered of his demon, outcast from 
 mercy, is led forth in silence to his punishment. 
 
 V. 
 
 What shall here be written about ' Arden of 
 Feversham ' ? This play preceded the two with which 
 1 have just dealt by some years. Yet it combined 
 their characteristics in a style of far more ruthlessly 
 deliberate power, holding Calverley's passion in sub- 
 jection, preserving but transfiguring with conscious 
 art the frigid truth of villany in Captain Browne and 
 Mistress Anne. There is not one character in the 
 play which is not either, detestable or despicable. And 
 yet the total impression is by no means one of un- 
 mixed loathing. The execution is too workmanly and 
 vigorous ; the peculiar type of bourgeois tragedy has 
 been too successfully realised for us to withhold our 
 admiration. 
 
 The tale of murder and adultery on which ' Arden 
 of Feverham ' was founded, is written at considerable 
 length in Holinshed, and the play follows that narrative 
 with scrupulous fidelity. The last lines of the epilogue 
 are these : 
 
 Gentlemen, we hope you '11 pardon this naked tragedy, 
 Wherein no filfed points are foisted in 
 To make it gracious to the ear or eye ; 
 For simple truth is gracious enough, 
 And needs no other points of glozing stuff 
 
'ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM: 441 
 
 A naked tragedy it is in all truth, and faithful down 
 to the least detail suggested by the text. Yet it is not 
 naked with the anatomical bareness, as of some flayed 
 figure, which we notice in the ' Yorkshire Tragedy ; ' 
 nor does it follow the narrative with the prosaic ser- 
 vility of 'A Warning for Fair Women.' As Shakspere 
 dealt in his Roman tragedies with North's Plutarch, 
 so the author of ' Arden ' deals with Holinshed. He 
 recasts each motive, retouches each sentence, revivifies 
 each character, by exercise of the imagination which 
 penetrates below the surface, divines the inner essence, 
 and reproduces in brief space the soul's life of the 
 subject. All this is done, however, in due keeping 
 with the style peculiar to domestic tragedy. ' No filed 
 points ' of finished rhetoric, no ' points of glozing ' 
 poetry, are foisted into the bare stuff of crime and pas- 
 sion ; nor is the simple impression of the tragedy 
 marred by matter meant to please the groundlings 
 ears. Possibly the Epilogue's appeal to gentlemen may 
 signify that the play was not intended for the common 
 stage. But, so far as I am aware, we know nothing 
 about the circumstances of its production and per- 
 formance. 
 
 ' This Arden,' writes Holinshed, ' was a man of a 
 tall and comely personage, and matched in marriage 
 with a' gentlewoman, young, tall, and well-favoured of 
 shape and countenance, who chancing to fall in fami- 
 liarity with one Mosbie, a tailor by occupation, a black 
 swart man, servant to the Lord North, it happened 
 this Mosbie, upon some mistaking, to fall out with her ; 
 but she, being desirous to be in favour with him again, 
 sent him a pair of silver dice by one Adam Foule, 
 
442 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 dwelling at the Flower-de-luce in Feversham. After 
 which he resorted to her again, and oftentimes lay in 
 Arden's house ; and although (as it was said) Arden 
 perceived right well their mutual familiarity to be much 
 greater than their honesty, yet because he would not 
 offend her, and so lose the benefit he hoped to gain at 
 some of her friends' hands in bearing with her lewd- 
 ness, which he might have lost if he should have fallen 
 out with her, he was contented to wink at her filthy 
 disorder, and both permitted and also invited Mosbie 
 very often to lodge in his house. And thus it con- 
 tinued a good space before any practice was begun by 
 them against Master Arden. She at length, inflamed 
 in love with Mosbie, and loathing her husband, 
 wished, and after practised the means how to hasten 
 his end.' 
 
 Thomas Arden, or more properly Arderne, was a 
 Kentish gentleman. His wife is said to have been a 
 daughter of Sir Edward North, created Baron in 1554. 
 Her name, as is natural, does not occur in published or 
 MS. pedigrees of the Earls of Guilford ; but if she was 
 Sir Edward's daughter, she was also sister to Sir 
 Thomas North, the translator of Plutarch. Thomas 
 Mosbie, or Morsby, as the name should be written, 
 began life as a tailor, entered the service of Sir Edward 
 North, and rose to the stewardship of his household. 
 The references in the tragedy to Alice's noble birth 
 and powerful relatives, and to Mosbie's former occu- 
 pation, are frequent. Mosbie gives Arden the coup de 
 grace with a ' pressing iron of fourteen pounds' weight,' 
 which he carried at his girdle. This was an implement 
 of his trade. When Arden draws Mosbie's sword from 
 
CHARACTER OF ARDEN. 443 
 
 the scabbard and wrests it from him, he taunts the 
 tailor thus : 
 
 So, sirrah, you may not wear a sword ! 
 
 The statute makes against artificers. 
 
 I warrant that, I do ! Now use your bodkin. 
 
 Your Spanish needle, and your pressing iron ! 
 
 For this shall go with me ; and mark my words, 
 
 You goodman botcher ! 
 
 In the tragedy Arden is drawn from the first as a man 
 aware of his wife's adultery : 
 
 Love-letters passed 'twixt Mosbie and my wife, 
 And they have privy meetings in the town : 
 Nay, on his finger did I spie the ring. 
 Which at our marriage-day the priest put on. 
 
 The indignity of the situation stings him to the quick : 
 
 Ay, but to dote on such an one as he. 
 Is monstrous, Franklin, and intolerable ! 
 
 Yet he puts up with it, because he cannot do without 
 his wife : 
 
 For dear I hold her love, as dear as heaven. 
 
 He knows that the pair have resolved to murder him, 
 
 put poison in his milk, set cut-throats on him. Still he 
 
 entreats Mosbie to take up lodging in his house, and 
 
 leaves him there when he goes to London. He sees 
 
 Alice with her arms round the man's neck, and hears 
 
 them call him cuckold. Yet he makes all smooth, and 
 
 persists in pressing Mosbie, apparently against his 
 
 wife's will, to sup and play with him. The dramatist's 
 
 conception of his character is, that uxoriousness has 
 
 blinded him : 
 
 He whom the devil drives, must go perforce. 
 Poor gentlemanj how soon he is bewitched ! 
 
444 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Furthermore, following the Chronicle, he makes avarice 
 a main point of the portrait. Alice says : 
 
 My saving husband hoards up bags of gold. 
 To make my children rich. 
 
 A certain Greene, whom he has defrauded of some 
 abbey lands by. obtaining a Chancery grant of them, 
 exclaims : 
 
 Desire of wealth is endless in his mind, 
 And he is greedy, gaping still for gain ; 
 Nor cares he though young gentlemen do beg, 
 So he may scrape and hoard up in his pouch. 
 
 One Reede, deprived by him unjustly of a plot of 
 ground, meets and curses him. not long before the 
 murder : 
 
 That plot of ground which thou detain'st from me, 
 
 I speak it in an agony of spirit. 
 
 Be ruinous and fatal unto thee ! 
 
 Either there be butchered by thy dearest friends. 
 
 Or else be brought for men to wonder at, 
 
 Or thou or thine miscarry in that place. 
 
 Or there run mad and end thy cursfed days ! 
 
 This avarice, combined with the doting passion for his 
 wife, brings about his ruin. He persists in trusting 
 Mosbie and Alice. They work on Greene's resentment. 
 Greene hires the murderers. Black Will and Shagbag. 
 When Arden has been killed, his dead body is flung 
 out upon Reede's meadow. In this way the dramatist 
 has contrived to draw the fatal net around the husband 
 by the means of his two base qualities. It must, how- 
 ever, be regarded as somewhat singular that, while he 
 followed Holinshed so closely, he dropped one motive 
 
DEFECTIVE PORTRAITURE. 445 
 
 suggested in the passage I have quoted above. ' Be- 
 cause he would not offend her, and so lose the benefit he 
 hoped to gain at some of her friends hands in bearing 
 with her lewdness! This, and this alone, makes the 
 real Arderne's contemptible compliance intelligible. 
 The omission of this enfeebles the dramatic Arden, and 
 blurs the outline of his character, in which neither 
 uxorious passion nor avarice is forcibly enough accen- 
 tuated to explain his conduct. It is, of course, pos- 
 sible, the North family being at that time both powerful 
 and noble, that the playwright felt himself precluded 
 from insisting on a motive which might have been 
 construed into a scandalum magnatum, and that he 
 unwillingly abandoned what would have enabled him 
 to raise the dramatic interest and intensity of Arden's 
 character. Also he may not have chosen to paint his 
 victim-hero in colours so revolting that the most in- 
 dulgent of audiences must have regarded his murder, 
 not as a martyrdom, but as a merited punishment. 
 But, while avoiding this rock, he has drifted into 
 the most serious weakness which is discernible in the 
 character-drawing of the play. It is impossible to 
 take much interest in this clay figure. 
 
 Mosbie, the lover, is more powerfully realised. 
 We see in him one of the basest curs an artist ever 
 deigned to draw with touch on touch of deepening 
 degradation. He is a coward even in his love, dragged 
 forward less by passion than by the imperious will of 
 his paramour. When Arden wrests his sword and 
 brands him on the face with infamy, he only falters : 
 
 Ah, Master Arden, you have injured me. 
 I do appeal to God, and to the world. 
 
44^ SHAKSPERE^S predecessors. 
 
 He is a coward in the execution of his crime, seeking 
 to do the trick by poisoned pictures, poison in the cup, 
 a poisoned crucifix, rather than by sheer steel ; and 
 blaming Alice for audacity when she discovers a proper 
 instrument in Greene. He is a traitor in thought to 
 his mistress and accomplices. When they are all chin- 
 deep in stratagems and murderous plots he considers, 
 in a long soliloquy, how he shall secure himself against 
 them in the future. Greene, Michael, and the Painter 
 must be brought to 'pluck out each other's throat.' 
 The woman must be killed : 
 
 Yet Mistress Arden lives ; but she 's myself, 
 And holy Church-rites make us two not one. 
 But what for that ? I may not trust you, Alice ! 
 You have supplanted Arden for my sake, 
 And will extirpen me to plant another. 
 'T is fearful sleeping in a serpent's bed ; 
 And I will cleanly rid my hands of her. 
 
 When they quarrel, his unspeakable sordidness of soul 
 bursts out : 
 
 Go, get thee gone, a copesmate for thy hinds ! 
 I am too good to be thy favourite. 
 
 Alice's real retribution is that, passion-blinded, she 
 has to feel the fangs of such a hound. When she 
 humbles herself to beg for pardon, he returns the 
 speech of her despair with snarls of hating irony : 
 
 O no ! I am a base artificer ! 
 My wings are feathered for a lowly flight. 
 Mosbie ? Fie, no, not for a thousand pound ! 
 Make love to you ? Why, 't is unpardonable ! 
 We beggars must not breathe where gentles are. 
 
 The touch of not for a ihousaiid pound is rare. 
 
CHARACTER OF MOSBIE. 447 
 
 Alice never for a moment thought of money. It is 
 the churl, who expresses the extreme of scorn by- 
 hyperboles of cash. When they make peace, his last 
 word has a sinister double meaning. She bids him 
 come into the house. He answers : 
 
 Ay, to the gates of death, to follow thee ! 
 
 There is no redeeming touch in Mosbie. He is 
 wounded in an unsuccessful attack on Arden. Alice 
 cannot bear the sight : 
 
 Sweet Mosbie, hide thy arm, it kills my heart. 
 
 Listen to his sneering response : 
 
 Ay, Mistress Arden, this is your favour. 
 
 The murder has been accomplished. His only thought 
 is for his own safety : 
 
 Tell me, sweet Alice, how shall I escape ? 
 Until to-morrow, sweet Alice, now farewell. 
 And see you confess nothing in any case. 
 
 He is brought up together with the other criminals for 
 sentence before the Mayor. At the sight and voice 
 of Alice he bursts into foul-mouthed abuse : 
 
 How long shall I live in this hell of grief? 
 Convey me from the presence of that strumpet. 
 
 The last recorded utterance of his egotism is : 
 Fie upon women ! 
 
 By the side of Mosbie, Captain Browne and even 
 Calverley are honest fellows. 
 
 The subordinate characters are scarcely less intoler- 
 able ; but the dramatist has contrived to indicate various 
 
448 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 shades of dastardy and villany in painting this unin- 
 viting gallery of scoundrels. There is not one but is 
 an actual or potential murderer — Michael, Greene, 
 Black Will, Shagbag, and the Painter Clarke. Michael 
 
 says : 
 
 For I will rid mine elder brother away, 
 And then the farm of Bocton is mine own. 
 
 The Painter boasts of his skill in preparing poisons, 
 and unctuously approves of Alice's resolve. Her 
 love for Mosbie is enough to justify her in his mind : 
 
 Let it suffice, I know you love him well, 
 And fain would have your husband made away : 
 Wherein, trust me, you show a noble mind, 
 That rather than you '11 live with him you hate. 
 You '11 venture life, and die with hmi you love. 
 The like will I do for my Susan's sake. 
 
 Greene speaks to much the same effect, when he 
 accepts Alice's challenge to despatch her husband. 
 Black Will is the very Cambyses of cut-throats, revel- 
 ling in bloodshed for its own delicious sake : ^ 
 
 My fingers itch to be at the peasant ! Ah, that I might be set 
 a-work thus through the year, and that murder would grow to an 
 occupation, that a man might without danger of law ! 
 
 Shagbag is not so fluent of speech ; but some of his 
 condensed utterances reveal an even more dogged de- 
 light in cruelty : 
 
 I cannot paint my valour out with words : 
 But give me place and opportunity. 
 Such mercy as the starven lioness. 
 When she is dry-sucked of her eager young, 
 Shows to the prey that next encounters her, 
 On Arden so much pity would I take. 
 
 ' There is a Shaksperian touch is this quotation, that murder would 
 grow to an occupation, &c. This is humorous in the genuine vein. 
 
BLACK WILL AND SHAGBAG. 449 
 
 His form of registering a vow to be revenged on one 
 who has played false with him, is characteristic : 
 
 And let me n^ver draw a sword again, 
 Nor prosper in the twilight, cock-shut light. 
 When I would fleece the wealthy passenger, 
 But lie and languish in a loathsome den. 
 Hated, and spit at by the goers-by. 
 And in that death may die unpitied. 
 If I the next time that I meet the slave. 
 Cut not the nose from off the coward's face. 
 And trample on it for his villany. 
 
 It must not, however, be understood that the play- 
 wright has contrived to humanise either of these cut- 
 throats in the finer sense of the word. They remain 
 stage-murderers, painted from the outside, rather than 
 portrayed with personal and psychological differences. 
 One scene, in which the two ruffians bully ' murder- 
 ous Michael ' into abject subjection and submission to 
 their will — a bullying blent of English schoolboy and 
 Italian bravo — is effective : 
 
 You deal too mildly with the peasant ; 
 [Black Will says this in a loud aside to his confederate Shagbag. 
 Thus it is : \_Now speaks to Michael. 
 'T is known to us that you love Mosbie's sister ; 
 We know besides that you have ta'en your oath. 
 To further Mosbie to your mistress' bed. 
 And kill your master for his sister's sake. 
 Now, sir, a poorer coward than yourself 
 Was never fostered in the coast of Kent. 
 How comes it then that such a knave as you 
 Dare swear a matter of such consequence ? 
 
 One sees the brawny swashbuckler swaggering up with 
 moustachios brisding and fist on dagger, close to the 
 country clown. Their breaths mingle. Then he 
 comes to threats : 
 
 G G 
 
4SO SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Tush, give me leave, there is no more but this : 
 
 \_Spoken as above in a loud aside to Shagbag, after 
 which he addresses himself again to Michael. 
 Sith thou hast sworn, we dare discover all ; 
 And haddest thou, or shouldst thou utter it. 
 We have devised a complot under hand, 
 Whatever shall betide to any of us. 
 To send thee roundly to the pit of hell. 
 And therefore thus : I am the very man, 
 Marked in my birth-hour by the destinies. 
 To give an end to Arden's life on earth ; 
 Thou but a member, but to whet the knife, 
 Whose edge must search the closet of his breast 
 Thy office is but to appoint the place. 
 And train thy master to his tragedy ; 
 Mine to perform it, when occasion serves. 
 Then be not nice, but here devise with us, 
 How, and what way, we may conclude his death. 
 
 The rising of the style to rhetoric, the braggadocio 
 allusion to the destinies, the relegation of Michael to 
 a second place in the action, and the hectoring trucu- 
 lence of the bravo's self-glorification, are sufficient to 
 lay flat a meaner knave than Michael is. He goes 
 down at the bully's blow ; but being a coward to the 
 core, he is overstrung and unnerved by the attack. 
 Having promised to do Black Will's bidding and leave 
 his master's lodging unlocked at night, he gives way, 
 just at the fatal moment, to a fit of spiritual horror. 
 ' Even physical fear,' as Mr. Swinburne writes, ' be- 
 comes tragic, and cowardice itself no physical infirmity, 
 but rather a terrible passion,' in the Michael of this 
 shuddering soliloquy : 
 
 Conflicting thoughts, encamped in my breast, 
 Awake me with the echo of their strokes ; 
 And I, a judge to censure either side, 
 Can give to neither wishfed victory. 
 My master's kindness pleads to me for life, 
 
MICHAEL. 45' 
 
 With just demand, and I must grant it him. 
 My mistress she hath forced me with an oath, 
 For Susan's sake, the which I may not break, 
 For that is nearer than a master's love. 
 That grim-faced fellow, pitiless Black Will, 
 And Shakebag, stern in bloody stratagem — 
 Two rougher villains never lived in Kent — 
 Have sworn my death if I infringe my vow ; 
 A dreadful thing to be considered of 
 Methinks I see them with their bolstered hair, 
 Staring and grinning in thy gentle face. 
 And in their ruthless hands their daggers drawn. 
 Insulting o'er thee with a peck of oaths. 
 Whilst thou submissive, pleading for relief, 
 Art mangled by their ireful instruments ! 
 Methinks I hear them ask where Michael is. 
 And pitiless Black Will cries : ' Stab the slave. 
 The peasant will detect the tragedy ! ' 
 The wrinkles in his foul death-threatening face 
 Gape open wide like graves to swallow men. 
 My death to him is but a merriment. 
 And he will murder me to make him sport. 
 He comes, he comes ; ah. Master Franklin, help ! 
 Call up the neighbours, or we are but dead ! 
 
 Such, then, are the minor characters ; Lord Cheyne, 
 Bradshaw (an innocent straw, whirled'down to death on 
 fate's eddy), Richard Reede, and Arden's shadow, the 
 prologising and epilogising Franklin, are but episodical. 
 But the real strength of the play does not lie in the 
 ignoble Mosbie or the pitiful Arden, in the swaggering 
 cut-throats or their sordid accomplices. What gives 
 value to the piece is the portrait of Mistress Alice — the 
 adulterous gentlewoman, the bourgeois Clytemnestra, 
 the Lady Macbeth of county family connections. She 
 detaches herself after a far more impressive fashion 
 from the reptile swarm around her. It is not that 
 she is ethically estimable. Far from it. But she is 
 morally superior to all the men around her— pluckier, 
 
 G G 2 
 
452 shAkspere'S predecessors. 
 
 more thoroughly possessed by passion. Her fixed 
 will carries the bloody business through ; and when she 
 falls, she falls not utterly ignoble. 
 
 The author's method of unveiling, developing, and 
 variously displaying this unscrupulous and passion- 
 ridden woman's character, demands minute analysis. 
 Unlike all the playwrights of his time, with the excep- 
 tion of Shakspere and Marlowe, he plunges into the 
 action without the aid of dumb show or chorus, and 
 without an awkwardly explanatory first scene. The 
 actors themselves, in natural, self-revealing dialogue, 
 expose the strains of character and passion out of 
 which the plot is spun by their continuous movement 
 to one point — the murder on which everything con- 
 verges. Before Alice appears, Arden's opening con- 
 versation with his friend, Franklin, has informed us 
 that he considers her a faithless wife, and that his 
 heart is divided between shame, hatred, and a cling- 
 ing love. She enters in the early morning light, and 
 the first words he utters display her guilt as in a shadow- 
 picture cast by her own dreaming fancy on his con- 
 sciousness : 
 
 This night, sweet Alice, thou hast killed my heart : 
 I heard thee call on Mosbie in thy sleep. 
 
 And not only this : 
 
 Ay, but you started up, and suddenly, 
 Instead of him, caught me about the neck. 
 
 Our mind reverts for a moment to the scene in which 
 honest lago rouses Othello's suspicion of Cassio by 
 the use of precisely the same motive. The next point 
 is communicated in her own soliloquy : 
 
MISTRESS ALICE ARDEN. 453 
 
 Ere noon he means to take horse, and away : 
 Sweet news is this ! Oh, that some airy spirit 
 Would, in the shape and likeness of a horse. 
 Gallop with Arden 'cross the ocean. 
 And throw him from his back into the waves ! 
 Sweet Mosbie is the man that hath my heart ; 
 And he usurps it, having nought but this. 
 That I am tied to him by marriage. 
 Love is a god, and marriage is but words. 
 And therefore Mosbie's title is the rest. 
 
 Her passion already involves the desire for Arden's 
 death, and meddles with casuistical excuses. News 
 reaches her of Mosbie's arrival in the town. This 
 spark sets the smouldering fire in her ablaze. 
 
 As surely shall he die. 
 As I abhor him, and love only thee ! 
 
 We now know that Arden's murder is chiefly a ques- 
 tion of time ; and when the servant Michael enters, 
 we are not surprised to find her working on his appe- 
 tite, and luring him to do the deed. The scene has 
 not been interrupted, except by entrances and exits 
 of minor persons, when Mosbie in his turn appears— 
 with faint speeches and a hang-dog countenance. He 
 has the air of a man who, having had his way, would 
 fain drop a dangerous love adventure. But the woman 
 will not let him go thus : 
 
 Did we not both 
 Decree to murder Arden in the night ? 
 The heavens can witness, and the world can tell. 
 Before I saw that falsehood look of thine, 
 'Fore I was tangled with thy 'ticing speech, 
 Arden to me was dearer than my soul ! 
 And shall be still ! Base peasant, get thee gone. 
 And boast not of thy conquest over me, 
 Gotten by witchcraft and mere sorcery ! 
 
454 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 For what hast thou to countenance my love, 
 Being descended of a noble house, 
 And matched already with a gentleman. 
 Whose servant thou mayst be ? And so, farewell. 
 
 Had Mosbie found her irresolute, the tragedy would 
 here have ended. But the fire that sparkles from 
 her heats his chillier blood, and wakes what little 
 manhood lingers in him. He reiterates his former 
 vows, and enters at once into Alice's schemes for de- 
 spatching Arden by the shortest waJ^ The next scene, 
 which serves to illustrate her temper, is when Arden 
 suspects the poison in his broth, and she turns railing 
 round on him : 
 
 There 's nothing I can do, can please your taste ; 
 You were best to say I would have poisoned you. 
 
 This teaches us to know the woman well. She 
 has the courage of her criminality so fully that she 
 dares suggest it, holding in her hands the poisoned 
 bowl, and knowing that her husband has detected her. 
 When Mosbie and she are alone together, this is her 
 comment on the incident : 
 
 This powder was too gross and palpable. 
 
 Her lover's qualms have returned. Has he not sworn 
 to leave her ? Were it not better to desist ? 
 
 Tush, Mosbie, oaths are words, and words are wind, 
 And wind is mutable. 
 
 She will not let him go ; but she feels now that the 
 weight of the affair is on her hands, and that he must 
 be dragged along by her superior energy. There- 
 fore, in the next decisive scene, she works on Greene's 
 
ALICE AND MOSBIE. 45; 
 
 cupidity and thirst for vengeance, as she had previously 
 worked on Michael's and the Painter's lust. Mosbie 
 dreads her desperate audacity, as indeed he has good 
 reason to do ; for a further point in her character, its 
 recklessness, is disclosed when she makes him take up 
 his abode in her house, Arden being absent : 
 
 Mosbie, you know who 's master of my heart, 
 As well may be the master of the house. 
 
 These lities end the first act. The second act 
 brings other agents into play, but adds nothing to our 
 conception of Alice. In the third act occurs the finest 
 scene of the whole drama. Twice have the assassins 
 hired by Greene — Black Will and Shagbag — failed in 
 their attempts on Arden. The strain of expectation 
 makes Alice waver for one moment. In an interval 
 of this yielding to better impulses, she comes on 
 Mosbie. The scene is laid in a room of her own 
 house, and she holds a prayer-book in her hands : 
 
 Alice. It is not love, that loves to murder love. 
 
 Mosbie. How mean you that ? 
 
 A. Thou know'st how dearly Arden loved me. 
 
 M. And then ? 
 
 A. And then— conceal the rest, for 't is too bad, 
 Lest that my words be carried with the wind, 
 And published in the world to both our shames. 
 I pray thee, Mosbie, let our spring time wither. 
 Our harvest else will yield but loathsome weeds. 
 Forget, I pray thee, what hath passed betwixt us. 
 For now I blush, and tremble at the thoughts. 
 
 M. What, are you changed ? 
 
 A. Ay, to my former happy life again : 
 From title of an odious strumpet's name, 
 To honest Arden's wife ! not Arden's honest wife ! 
 Ha, Mosbie, 't is thou hast rifled me of that. 
 And made me slanderous to all my kin : 
 
4S6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Even in my forehead is thy name engraven — 
 A mean artificer ; — that low-born name ! 
 I was bewitched ! — Woe worth the hapless hour, 
 And all the causes that enchanted me ! 
 
 Never again, until the very last scenes of the tra- 
 gedy, shall we hear such words of angry conscience 
 and repentance fall from this woman's lips. Mosbie, 
 who just before her entrance had been planning how 
 to rid himself of her, now foams a torrent of abuses 
 
 out : 
 
 Nay, if thou ban, let me breathe curses forth ; 
 And if you stand so nicely on your fame, 
 Let me repent the credit I have lost. 
 
 And so on through twenty-three more lines, each one 
 of which falls like a lash upon her shoulders. Instead 
 of confirming her in the repentant mood, his brutality 
 drives her good angel away, and brings her back sub- 
 missive to his lure : 
 
 Nay, hear me speak, Mosbie, a word or two : 
 
 I '11 bite my tongue if it speak bitterly. 
 
 Look on me, Mosbie, or I '11 kill myself ; 
 
 Nothing shall hide me from thy stormy look. 
 
 If thou cry war, there is no peace for me ; 
 
 I will do penance for offending thee. 
 
 And burn this prayer-book, where I here use 
 
 The holy word that had converted me. 
 
 See, Mosbie, I will tear away the leaves. 
 
 And all the leaves, and in this golden cover 
 
 Shall thy sweet phrases and thy letters dwell, 
 
 And thereon will I chiefly meditate. 
 
 And hold no other sect, but such devotion. 
 
 Wilt thou not look ? Is all thy love o'erwhelmed ? 
 
 Wilt thou not hear ? What malice stops thine ears ? 
 
 Why speak'st thou not ? What silence ties thy tongue ? 
 
 Thou hast been sighted, as the eagle is. 
 
 And heard as quickly as the fearful hare, 
 
 And spoke as smoothly as an orator, 
 
VEHEMENCE OF PASSION. 457 
 
 When I have bid thee hear or see or speak : 
 And art thou sensible in none of these ? 
 Weigh all my good turns with this little fault, 
 And I deserve not Mosbie's muddy looks. 
 A fence of trouble is not thickened, still ; 
 Be clear again, I 'II no more trouble thee. 
 
 Ugly as Mrs. Arden has been painted, this terrible 
 altercation scene — more terrible even than that in 
 which Ottima and Sebald, in Browning's ' Pippa 
 Passes,' confront each other after the murder of her 
 husband — has the effect of raising her a little in our 
 estimation. The tigress-woman, spiteful in her peni- 
 tence, becomes gentle in the renewal of her love ; and 
 this love, unhallowed, bloody as it is, explains her 
 future conduct. She is in the clutch of Venus Libi- 
 Hna henceforth till the hour of her death. Rising at 
 one later moment almost into poetry, she excuses 
 Arden's murder thus : 
 
 Nay, he must leave to live, that we may love. 
 May live, may love ; for what is life but love ? 
 And love shall last as long as life remains, 
 And life shall end, before my love depart 
 
 Could the selfishness of passion, identifying itself 
 
 with existence, brushing away the life that stands 
 
 between anticipation and fruition like a fly, be more 
 
 condensed than in these monosyllables 1 But the 
 
 demon which rules her finds even readier utterance in 
 
 crudity and coarseness. Arden becomes for her ' my 
 
 husband Hornsby.' She exposes him to the disgrace 
 
 of looking at her locked in Mosbie's arms ; and hoping 
 
 him upon the point of death, flings this aside to scorn 
 
 him : 
 
 Ay, with a sugared kiss let them untwine ! 
 
4S8 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 When at the end he is caught in her last trap, 
 throttled with the towel in his own arm-chair, struck 
 down by Mosbie's pressing iron, stabbed by Shagbag's 
 knife, she snatches up the dagger : 
 
 What, groan'st thou ? Nay, then give me the weapon ! 
 Take this for hindering Mosbie's love and mine. 
 
 What did Lady Macbeth say ? ' Give me the dagger ! ' 
 
 But no sooner has he fallen on the rushes in his blood 
 
 — blood that ' cleaves to the ground, and will not out,' 
 
 blood that ' with my nails I '11 scrape away,' blood that 
 
 ' here remains ' to sicken her, what though ' I blush not 
 
 at my husband's death ' — in this horrid moment she 
 
 springs up once more in revolt, a tigress, at the throat 
 
 of Mosbie : 
 
 'T was thou that made me murder him. 
 
 Through the hurry and confusion of the closing scenes 
 her high-strung courage begins to fail. ' Here is 
 nought but fear ! ' Yet the cowardice of others brings 
 her to herself again. A servant says that while they 
 dragged the body to the field it snowed — ' our footsteps 
 will be spied.' 
 
 Peace, fool ! the snow will cover them again. 
 
 Against the neighbours who come crowding in, she 
 bears a bold front, rapping excuses out, fencing 
 desperately with their rapiers of proof Then they 
 force her to look upon Arden's corpse, and she dis- 
 solves in penitence as passionate as was her fierce 
 desire : 
 
 Arden, sweet husband ! what shall I say ? 
 
 The more I sound his name, the more it bleeds ; 
 
 This blood condemns me, and in gushing forth 
 
POWERFUL PORTRAITURE OF ALICE. 459 
 
 Speaks as it falls, and asks me, why I did it ! 
 
 Forgive me, Arden, I repent me now. 
 
 And, would my death save thine, thou shouldst not die. 
 
 Rise up, sweet Arden, and enjoy thy love. 
 
 And frown not on me, when we meet in heaven. 
 
 In heaven I '11 love thee, though on earth I did not. 
 
 From this mood she does not return. In the con- 
 demnation scene she tries to shield Bradshaw, falsely 
 implicated in the crime ; responds quietly to Mosbie's 
 insults, and disappears from sight with these words : 
 
 Let nvy death make amends for all my sin. 
 
 Those who give ' Arden of Feversham ' to Shakspere 
 — ^which I am loth in the absence of any external evi- 
 dence to do — have some warranty for their opinion in 
 this character of Alice. Speaking of 'Edward III.' 
 Mr. Ward suggests that ' Shakspere's gallery of female 
 characters . . . seems incomplete without the addition 
 of the Countess of Salisbury.' Personally, I could well 
 spare the Countess from the sisterhood of Imogen and 
 Desdemona. And though Alice is not needed in that 
 gallery, I should be more inclined to recognise in her, 
 with Mr. Swinburne, the 'eldest born of that group 
 to which Lady Macbeth and Dionyza belong by right 
 of weird sisterhood.' 
 
 ' Arden of Feversham ' is marked by something 
 terribly impressive in the slow, unerring tread of 
 assassination, baulked, but persevering, marching like 
 a fate to its accomplishment. Arden's knowledge of 
 his wife's infidelity and murderous designs, his neglect 
 of signs, words, omens, warning dreams, increases the 
 tragic effect. He is like a fascinated man, the victim 
 of Greek Ate, sliding open-eyed on the descent to hell. 
 
46o SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 If anything could be said in commendation of the bye- 
 scenes in ' A Warning for Fair Women,' mtich more 
 and much higher praise must be bestowed on the 
 successive episodes which lead up to the climax of 
 this tragedy. There are no bye-scenes — none that are 
 not really needed by the exposition. And how naturally 
 is each presented — ^the chance meeting of Greene and 
 Bradshaw with Black Will and Shagbag on the road 
 to Gravesend ; the Walk in Paul's, and the prentice 
 letting down his shutter upon Black Will's head ; the 
 night in Aldersgate, when Arden and' Franklin are 
 summoned from the house-porch to their beds by 
 Michael, and the murderers brawl outside ; the quarrel 
 and ambush on Rainham Down ; the cheery passage of 
 Lord Cheiny and his men ; the fog at the ferry ; the 
 curse delivered by Dick Reede ; Arden's dream, and 
 Franklin's interrupted story ; the skirmish on the 
 heath ; and lastly, the elaborate scene in Arden's 
 parlour (where, they say, the arms of North may still 
 be seen in painted glass upon the windows), the game 
 at backgammon, and the sudden inrush of the mur- 
 derers upon the captured man ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 In the prologue to ' A Woman Killed with Kind- 
 ness,' Heywood makes the players say : ' Our Muse 
 
 our poet's dull and earthy Muse — is bent 
 
 Upon a barren subject, a bare scene.' 
 
 These modest words strike the keynote to a tragedy, 
 which, while it is a masterpiece of realism, contrasts 
 
'A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS! 4^1 
 
 agreeably with the three preceding plays. Here, 
 instead of the police-court daylight of ' A Warning 
 for Fair Women,' instead of the lurid glare of ' A 
 Yorkshire Tragedy,' instead of the furnace flame of 
 ' Arden,' we have to light us on our way the soft 
 illumination, as of summer lightning, shed by a tender- 
 hearted Christian artist's sympathy. The play is 
 steeped in feeling, touched with gentle yieldings to 
 emotion, resolutions of cruelty into love-penitence, 
 reconciliations of the wronged and wronging, which 
 diffuse a mellow radiance over the homely subject, the 
 unadorned scene. 
 
 The story may be briefly told. Mr. Frankford, a 
 country gentleman of good birth and fortune, marries 
 the sister of Sir Francis Acton, a lady of rare ac- 
 complishments, famed throughout the county for her 
 skill in music. A day or two after the wedding he 
 receives into his household, on the footing of familiar 
 friend or housemate, a young man of broken means, 
 but of agreeable manners, called Wendoll. They live 
 together happily till Wendoll, trusted to the full by 
 Frankford, takes advantage of his absence to seduce 
 the wife. Nicholas, an old servant of the family, has 
 always disliked the interloper. With the instinct of a 
 faithful dog, he watches Wendoll closely, discovers the 
 intrigue, and informs Frankford of his dishonour. 
 Frankford obtains ocular proof of his wife's guilt, and 
 punishes her by sending her to live alone, but at ease, 
 in a manor that belongs to him. There she pines 
 away, and dies at last, after a reconciliation with her 
 husband and her relatives. There is an underplot, or 
 rather second tale, connected by slight but sufficient 
 
462 shak'spere's predecessors. 
 
 threads with the main action. I do not think it has 
 been remarked that this subordinate drama is derived 
 from IlHcini's Sienese Novella of the courteous Salim- 
 beni (see 'Renaissance in Italy,' vol. v. p. 99). Such, 
 however, is the case. But Heywood, with his rare 
 knowledge and feeling for the details of English life, 
 re-cast the Italian motive and clothed it in a garb of 
 homely realism, so that it passes now for a finished 
 picture of Elizabethan society. Whether Mrs. Frank- 
 , ford's tragedy had a basis of fact, or whether, like the 
 underplot, it was adopted — as I think most probable — 
 from romance, or invented by the poet, we do not 
 know. 
 
 The chief interest of the play centres in the pure, 
 confiding, open-hearted character of Frankford. His 
 blithe contentment during the first weeks of marriage, 
 and the generosity with which he shares his home with 
 Wendoll, form a touching prelude to the suspicions, 
 indignantly repelled at first, which grow upon him after 
 he has weighed the tale of his wife's infidelity related 
 by Nicholas : 
 
 Thou hast killed me with a weapon, whose sharp point 
 
 Hath pricked quite through and through my shivering heart : 
 
 Drops of cold sweat sit dangling on my hairs ; 
 
 And I am plunged into strange agonies ! 
 
 What didst thou say ? If any word that touched 
 
 His credit or her reputation. 
 
 It is as hard to enter my belief, 
 
 As Dives into heaven. 
 
 Nicholas only repeats that he has nothing to gain, 
 everything perhaps to lose, by the disclosure. Yet, 
 ' I saw, and I have said.' This saps the husband's 
 confidence. 
 
MR. FRANKFORD. 463 
 
 'T is probable : though blunt, yet he is honest. 
 
 Though I durst pawn my life, and on their faith 
 
 Hazard the dear salvation of my soul. 
 
 Yet in my trust I may be too secure. 
 
 May this be true ? O, may it ? Can it be ? 
 
 Is it by any wonder possible ? 
 
 Man, woman, what thing mortal can we trust, 
 
 When friends and bosom wives prove so unjust ? 
 
 Frankford, still doubtful, resolves to learn the truth, 
 if possible, by actual discovery. Here is interposed 
 an admirable, if somewhat artificial scene, in which 
 the husband and wife, with Wendoll and another gen- 
 tleman, play at cards. Their dialogue is a long double 
 entendre, skilfully revealing the tortures of a jealous 
 mind which puts misinterpretations upon every casual 
 word. When they rise from the card-table, Frankford 
 instructs his servant to prepare duplicate keys for all 
 the bedrooms. He then causes a message to be de- 
 livered, calling him from home on a dark and stormy 
 evening, and sets out with Nicholas, intending to 
 return at midnight, unnoticed and unexpected. His 
 hesitation on the threshold of his wife's chamber is 
 one of the finest turning points in the dramatic pre- 
 sentation : 
 
 A general silence hath surprised the house ; 
 And this is the last door. Astonishment, 
 Fear, and amazement beat upon my heart. 
 Even as a madman beats upon a drum. 
 O keep my eyes, you heavens, before I enter. 
 From any sight that may transfix my soul : 
 Or, if there be so black a spectacle, 
 O strike mine eyes stark blind ; or if not so. 
 Lend me such patience to digest my grief, 
 That I may keep this white and virgin hand 
 From any violent outrage or red murder ! 
 
4^4 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 At last he summons up courage to enter, but draws 
 back immediately : 
 
 Oh me unhappy ! I have found them lying 
 
 Close in each other's arms, and fast asleep. 
 
 But that I would not damn two precious souls, 
 
 Bought with my Saviour's blood, and send them, laden 
 
 With all their scarlet sins upon their backs, 
 
 Unto a fearful judgment, their two lives 
 
 Had met upon iny rapier ! 
 
 Then, with a passionate stretching forth of his desire 
 toward the impossible, which reveals the whole depth 
 of his tenderness, he cries : 
 
 God ! O God ! that it were possible 
 
 To undo things done ; to call back yesterday ! 
 
 That Time could turn up his swift sandy glass, 
 
 To untell the days, and to redeem these hours ! 
 
 Or that the sun 
 
 Could, rising from the West, draw his coach backward ; 
 
 Take from the account of time so many minutes. 
 
 Till he had all these seasons called again, 
 
 These minutes, and these actions done in them. 
 
 Even from her first offence ; that I might take her 
 
 As spotless as an angel in my arms ! 
 
 But oh ! I talk of things impossible, 
 
 And cast beyond the moon. God give me patience, 
 
 For I will in and wake them. 
 
 WendoU rushes from the room in his night-dress ; 
 and Frankford, pursuing him with drawn sword, is 
 stopped by a woman servant : 
 
 1 thank thee, maid ; thou, like an angel's hand, 
 Hast stayed me from a bloody sacrifice. 
 
 It is quite consistent with Frankford's character, 
 with his Christianity, with the prayer he uttered before 
 entering the bedroom, and with his subsequent action, 
 that he should spare the adulterer. Hey wood has, 
 
SCENE IN THE BEDCHAMBER. 465 
 
 however, saved this mercifulness from contemptibility 
 by showing him for one moment in the act to strike. 
 The immediately ensuing scene between Frankford 
 and his conscience-stricken wife, is deeply touching. 
 She grovels on the ground, crying, swooning. He 
 seems to stand looking down on her : 
 
 Spare thou thy tears, for I will weep for thee : 
 And keep thy countenance, for I '11 blush for thee. 
 Now, I protest, I think, 'tis I am tainted; 
 For I am most ashamed ; and 't is more hard 
 For me to look upon thy guilty face, 
 Than on the sun's clear brow. 
 
 Then he asks, what can she urge in her defence. 
 Nothing, she replies ; and she expects, as she deserves, 
 nothing but instant death ; only let him kill her without 
 mutilation. Then he bids her rise : 
 
 Fr. My God, with patience arm me ! Rise, nay rise ; 
 And I '11 debate with thee. Was it for want 
 Thou play'dst the strumpet ? Wast thou not supplied 
 With every pleasure, fashion, and new toy. 
 Nay even beyond my calling ? 
 
 Mrs. F. I was. 
 
 Fr. Was it then disability in me ? 
 Or in thine eye seemed he a properer man ? 
 
 Mrs. F O, no. 
 
 Fr. Did not I lodge thee in my bosom ? 
 Wear thee in my heart ? 
 
 Mrs. F. You did. 
 
 Fr. I did indeed ; witness my tears, I did. 
 Go, bring my infants hither. O Nan, O Nan ; 
 If neither fear of shame, regard of honour. 
 The blemish of my house, nor my dear love 
 Could have withheld thee from so lewd a fact. 
 Yet for these infants, these young harmless souls, 
 On whose white brows thy shame is charactered, 
 And grows in greatness as they wax in years ; — 
 Look but on them, and melt away in tears. 
 
 H H 
 
466 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSOJiS. 
 
 This scene exactly suits the genius of Hey wood. 
 Its passion is simple and homefelt. Its tenderness is 
 human and manly. Each question asked by Frank- 
 ford is such as a wronged husband has the right to 
 ask. Each answer given by the wife is broken in 
 mere monosyllables, more eloquent than protestation. 
 We feel the truth of the whole situation poignantly, 
 because no word is strained or far-fetched, because 
 Frankford in his justice avoids rhetoric, and in his 
 mercy shows no sentimental weakness ; finally because, 
 in the very depth of his grief, he still can call his wife 
 by her pet name. He then leaves the room : 
 
 Stand up, stand up, I will do nothing rashly : 
 
 I will retire a while into my study. 
 
 And thou shalt hear thy sentence presently. 
 
 When he returns, it is to pronounce the verdict of 
 exile from her home, himself, her children : 
 
 So, farewell. Nan ; for we will henceforth be 
 As we had never seen, ne'er more shall see. 
 
 One of the most delicate touches which round off 
 the character of Frankford, is his anxiety to clear the 
 house of everything that may remind him of his wife, 
 when she is gone. He searches it : 
 
 O, sir, to see that nothing may be left 
 
 That ever was my wife's : I loved her dearly, 
 
 And when I do but think of her unkindness. 
 
 My thoughts are all in hell ; to avoid which torment, 
 
 I would not have a bodkin or a cuff, 
 
 A bracelet, necklace, or rebato-wire. 
 
 Nor anything that ever was called hers 
 
 Left me, by which I might remember her. 
 
MRS. FRANKFORD. 467 
 
 His servant spies her lute, flung in a corner : 
 
 Her lute ? O God ! upon this instrument 
 
 Her fingers have ran quick division, 
 
 Sweeter than that which now divides our hearts. 
 
 These frets have made me pleasant, that have now 
 
 Frets of my heart-strings made. O Master Cranwell, 
 
 Oft hath she made this melancholy wood, 
 
 Now mute and dumb for her disastrous chance. 
 
 Speak sweetly many a note, sound many a strain 
 
 To her own ravishing voice ! — 
 
 Post with it after her. Now nothing 's left. 
 
 Even the conceits and play on words in this pas- 
 sage are not frigid ; so natural and so intense is the 
 emotion which penetrates the speaker's mood. Nicholas 
 is sent with the lute after Mrs. Frankford, who is now 
 on her way to the manor house appointed for her exile. 
 When she looks on it, she says : 
 
 I know the lute ; oft have I sung to thee ; 
 We both are out of tune, both out of time. 
 
 Then she bids it be dashed to pieces against the 
 carriage wheels : 
 
 Go, break this lute upon my coach's wheel. 
 As the last music that I e'er shall make ; 
 Not as my husband's gift, but my farewell 
 To all earth's joys. 
 
 Music, it will be remembered, was one of the poor 
 lady's chief accomplishments. During the gaiety of 
 her marriage morning, a light-hearted guest had said : 
 
 Her own hand 
 Can teach all strings to speak in their best grace. 
 From the shrill'st treble to the hoarsest bass. 
 
 Mrs. Frankford is no Guinevere ; nor, again, like 
 Alice in ' Arden of Feversham,' is she steeled and 
 
 H H 3 
 
468 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 blinded by an overwhelming passion. Hey wood fails 
 to realise her character completely, drawing, as else- 
 where in his portraits of women, a dim and vacillating 
 picture. She changes too suddenly from love for her 
 newly wedded husband to a weak compliance with 
 Wendoll ; she falls rather through helplessness than 
 any explicable emotion : 
 
 What shall I say ? 
 My soul is wandering, and hath lost her way. 
 Oh, Master Wendoll, oh ! 
 
 This is how she meets and yields to his solicitations. 
 It is only after the intrigue has been carried on for 
 some while, and when P'rankford has discovered her 
 in the act, that she shows signs of a deeply troubled 
 conscience. Then, with no less suddenness, she 
 changes round to the remorse which preys upon her 
 life. In order to preserve the respect and sympathy 
 which he claims for her at last. Hey wood ought to 
 have better motivirt her fault. 
 
 Wendoll is drawn more powerfully, yet not with 
 wholly satisfactory firmness. It is as though, in both 
 these guilty characters, Heywood had wished to prove 
 how much of misery and crime may spring from weak- 
 ness and inconsequence. Viewed in this light, his art, 
 though it lacks something of dramatic impressiveness, 
 is realistic in a subtler sense than many harder and 
 more brilliant studies. Some of the finest poetry in 
 the play is put into WendoU's mouth ; both when he 
 wavers between the sense of duty to his benefactor and 
 the love which invades him like a rising tide, swallow- 
 ing the landmarks set to warn him off" that perilous 
 
WENDOLL. 469 
 
 ground ; and also when he urges his suit at last on 
 Mrs. Frankford. The following soliloquy paints the 
 combat of his passion and his conscience : 
 
 I am a villain if I apprehend 
 
 But such a thought ; then to attempt the deed — • 
 
 Slave, thou art damned without redemption ! 
 
 I '11 drive away this passion with a song— 
 
 A song ! Ha, ha ! a song ! as if, fond man. 
 
 Thy eyes could swim in laughter, when thy soul 
 
 Lies drenched and drownfed in red tears of blood ! 
 
 I '11 pray, and see if God within my heart 
 
 Plant better thoughts. Why, prayers are meditations : 
 
 And when I meditate (O God, forgive me !) 
 
 It is on her divine perfections ! 
 
 I will forget her : I will arm myself 
 
 Not to entertain a thought of love to her : 
 
 And when I come by chance into her presence, 
 
 I '11 hale these balls until my eye-strings crack 
 
 From being pulled and drawn to look that way ! 
 
 In the seduction scene, after Mrs. Frankford has 
 enumerated all the reasons which make his suit pecu- 
 liarly odious, he answers : 
 
 O speak no more ! 
 For more than this I know, and have recorded 
 Within the red-leaved table of my heart. 
 Fair, and of all beloved, I was not fearful 
 Bluntly to give my life into your hand ; 
 And one hazard all my earthly means. 
 Go, tell your husband : he will turn me off. 
 And then I am undone. I care not, I ; 
 'T was for your sake. Perchance in rage he '11 kill me : 
 I care not, 't was for you. Say I incur 
 The general name of villain through the world. 
 Of traitor to my friend — I care not, I. 
 Beggary, shame, death, scandal, and reproach. 
 For you I hazard all : why, what care I ? 
 For you I '11 love, and in your love I '11 die. 
 
470 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Then, playing the seducer's last card : 
 
 I will be secret, lady, close as night; 
 And not the light of one small glorious star 
 Shall shine here in my forehead, to bewray 
 That act of night. 
 
 This brings her to his wishes. After she has fallen, 
 Hey wood makes her say that she yielded first ' for 
 want of wit ; ' and we have to construct her charac- 
 ter upon this basis. Wendoll, when the conflict with 
 his better impulse is once over, sinks into the mere 
 dead sea of adultery, and flies, a conscience-burdened 
 but not desperate man, to seek new fortunes in distant 
 lands. He disappears, in fact, from sight, as the 
 mischief-maker in such cases is wont to do. 
 
 Tastes may differ as to the moral wholesomeness 
 of the sentiment evolved in the last act. Some per- 
 haps will feel in it a touch too much of ' Frou Frou ' 
 for their hearty liking. None, however, can deny its 
 dramatic beauty, or resist its artless claim upon our 
 sympathy. Mrs. Frankford is dying. Her brother 
 and his friends are round her. Her husband, yielding 
 to her death-bed prayer, has broken his resolve, and 
 enters her chamber with this salutation : ' How do 
 you, woman ? ' The reserve, indicated in these cold 
 words, has to be broken by her supplication : 
 
 Oh, good man, 
 And father to my children, pardon me ! 
 Pardon, oh pardon me ! My fault so heinous is 
 That if you in this world forgive it not, 
 Heaven will not clear it in the world to come. 
 Faintness hath so usurped upon my knees, 
 That kneel I cannot, but on my heart's knees 
 ■« My prostrate soul lies thrown down at your feet. 
 
 To beg your gracious pardon. Pardon, O pardon me ! 
 
' THE WITCH OF EDMONTON! 47 i 
 
 Then Frankford's heart melts : 
 
 As freely from the low depth of my soul 
 
 As my Redeemer hath forgiven His death, 
 
 I pardon thee. I will shed tears for thee ; 
 
 Pray with thee ; and, in mere pity of thy weak estate, 
 
 I '11 wish to die with thee. 
 
 Even as I hope for pardon at that day, 
 
 When the great Judge of heaven in scarlet sits. 
 
 So be thou pardoned. 
 
 My wife, the mother to my pretty babes ! 
 
 Both those lost names I do restore thee back. 
 
 And with this kiss I wed thee once again : 
 
 Though thou art wounded in thy honoured name, 
 
 And with that grief upon thy death-bed liest. 
 
 Honest in heart, upon my soul, thou diest. 
 
 It is difficult to say anything about such words as 
 these, except that they are true, true to good human 
 nature, true to the Christianity which all profess and 
 few exhibit. Hey wood's realistic method deserves to 
 be well studied by those who believe that realism is of 
 necessity hard, ugly, and vicious. 
 
 VII. 
 
 I have said that ' The Witch of Edmonton ' breaks 
 up into two stories, united by a thread so slender as 
 to be hardly perceptible. With the tale of country 
 life which engages our interest in this intricate old 
 play, the witch, though she gives her name to the 
 whole work, has nothing to do. Sir Arthur Clarington 
 is a wealthy knight, living on his estate near Edmon- 
 ton. In his household are Winnifrede, a maid, and 
 Frank Thorney, the son of a poor gentleman. Before 
 the opening of the first act, Winnifrede has been 
 
472 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 seduced by her master, and afterwards by her fellow- 
 servant. She conceals from Frank her former con- 
 nection with Sir Arthur, and induces him to marry 
 her. Clarington. who sees his own advantage in this 
 match, promises to supply the young couple with 
 money. They are married ; and Winnifrede begins at 
 once to retrieve the errors of her past by honest con- 
 duct. Her subsequent action engages the sympathy 
 which at the first we are unwilling to accord her. 
 Levity and deceit have placed her in a false position ; 
 but she gradually wins her way by simple faithfulness 
 and suffering into respect. It is necessary that the 
 marriage should be concealed; for old Thorney is of 
 gentle birth, and would ill brook his son's unthrifty act 
 of justice to a girl of doubtful character. Indeed, he 
 is already in treaty with a wealthy yeoman, Carter, for 
 the union of his son to the farmer's well-dowered 
 daughter, Susan. Accordingly Frank places his wife 
 with her uncle, near Waltham Abbey, and returning to 
 his father's home, finds himself involved in a tangle of 
 falsehood and prevarication. He denies his marriage 
 with Winnifrede, of which a rumour has reached old 
 Thorney's ears, and produces a letter from his evil 
 genius Sir Arthur Clarington, attesting that he is still 
 a bachelor. Then the Squire unfolds his plan for 
 freeing the estate from debt by means of Susan's 
 dowry, and offers to resettle it upon his son. Frank 
 has not force of character to resist the pressure of cir- 
 cumstance. To give himself the lie and make a clean 
 breast to his father is now the only way of extricating 
 himself. But he chooses what seems, at the moment, 
 the easier course of drifting down the current : 
 
FRANK THORNS Y. 473 
 
 On every side I am distracted ; 
 Am waded deeper into mischief 
 Than virtue can avoid ; but on I must : 
 Fate leads me ; I will follow. 
 
 Susan takes kindly to the young man as her lover ; 
 Carter presses on the match with rustic joviality ; the 
 dowry is paid down ; and Frank sees himself engaged 
 beyond recovery : 
 
 In vain he flees whom destiny pursues. 
 
 Ford, to whom we certainly owe the draught of 
 this character, has made young Thorney one of those 
 weak men who lay their crimes to the account of fate, 
 forgetting that ' Man is his own star ; ' nos te, nos faci- 
 mus, Fortuna, deam. 
 
 Married to Susan, who is a loving loyal wife, one 
 of the purest women in the long gallery of female 
 characters painted by our dramatists, Frank finds his 
 life intolerable. He really loves Winnifrede, whom he 
 knows to be waiting for him at her uncle's home. She 
 has to learn the truth of his disloyal conduct from his 
 lips ; a disclosure which she accepts with humility, 
 remembering her own fault. Frank's ' second adul- 
 terous marriage ' is in truth only a little more criminal 
 in the sight of Heaven than that lie with which 
 Winnifrede first wedded him : 
 
 You had 
 The conquest of my maiden-love. 
 
 Only she is now reluctant to accept Frank's proposal 
 that they should escape together ' with the dowry of his 
 sin,' and live their lives out in a foreign country. 
 
 Winnifrede assumes the habit of a page, in order 
 
474 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 to attend her husband on a journey. Whither he is 
 bound, we are not told ; and, indeed, the whole of this 
 part of the drama is so ill-explained as to raise a sus- 
 picion whether two plays have not been curtailed and 
 fused into one piece. Susan walks with them, meaning 
 to bid Frank farewell a little further on his way ; and 
 now follows a very touching scene between the two 
 women, the real wife disguised in man's dress, and the 
 deceived Susan, who loves with all her heart and 
 strives to engage the interest of the supposed lad : 
 
 I know you were commended to my husband 
 By a noble knight. 
 
 This simple opening has such a painful irony, con- 
 sidering how Clarington had actually commended 
 Winnifrede to Frank, that it stings her like a snake's 
 fang: 
 
 I Susan. How now ? What ail'st thou, lad ? 
 
 Win. Something hit mine eye (it makes it water still), 
 Even as you said ' commended to my husband.' 
 Some dor I think it was. I was, forsooth, 
 Commended to him by Sir Arthur Clarington. 
 
 While they thus converse together, Susan in every 
 artless word revealing more and more of her sweet 
 woman's nature, Thorney joins them. The scene is 
 continued in a dialogue between him and Susan. She 
 is loth to part, and makes excuses always for following 
 a little further. He grows ever more and more im- 
 patient, feeling the situation intolerable. At last she 
 points to a certain clump of trees upon the hill's brow, 
 where she will say farewell : 
 
 That I may bring you through one pasture more 
 Up to yon knot of trees ; amongst whose shadows 
 I '11 vanish from you, they shall teach me how. 
 
SUSAN AND WINNIFREDE. 475 
 
 Winnifrede has passed ahead with the horses ; and 
 having reached that knot of trees, Frank's rising irri- 
 tation suddenly turns to a murderous impulse. He 
 will cut the bond which unites him to Susan ; she is 
 too clinging, too loving ; her kindness cloys and mad- 
 dens him. So he draws his knife ; but before he 
 plunges it into her breast, he tells her the whole story 
 of his former marriage, brutally. Then he stabs her 
 the first time. What follows is far from simple. I 
 will transcribe the dialogue, since it raises the question 
 so often forced upon us by the later work of the 
 dramatists, whether such rhetorical embroidery of a 
 poignant situation is pathetic or involves a bathos : 
 
 Frank. I was before wedded to another ; have her still. 
 I do not lay the sin unto your charge ; 
 'T is all my own : your marriage was my theft ; 
 For I espoused your dowry, and I have it : 
 I did not purpose to have added murder. 
 The devil did not prompt me — till this minute ' — 
 You might have safe returned ; now you cannot. . 
 You have dogged your own death. \Stabs her. 
 
 Sus. And I deserve it ; 
 I am glad my fate was so intelligent : 
 'T was some good spirit's motion. Die ? Oh, 't was time ! 
 How many years might I have slept in sin, 
 The sin of my most hatred, too, adultery ! 
 
 Fr. Nay, sure 't was likely that the most was past ; 
 For I meant never to return to you 
 After this parting. 
 
 ' The old copy, says Gifford, punctuates this line thus : 
 
 The devil did not prompt me : till this minute 
 You might have safe returned. 
 
 In fact, the devil, in the shape of Mother Sawyer's black dog, had just 
 rubbed up against him, enticing him by contagion to the crime. I see 
 here a point of doubt in the construction of the drama, which confirms 
 the view I have already expressed that The Witch of Edmonton is really 
 two separate plays, pieced together by an afterthought. 
 
476 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Sus. Why, then I thank you more : 
 You have done lovingly, leaving yourself. 
 That you would thus bestow me on another. 
 Thou art my husband, Death, and I embrace thee 
 With all the love I have. Forget the stain 
 Of my unwitting sin ; and then I come 
 A crystal virgin to thee : my soul's purity 
 Shall, with bold wings, ascend the doors of Mercy ; 
 For innocence is ever her companion. 
 
 Fr. Not yet mortal ? I would not linger you, 
 Or leave you a tongue to blab. [Stabs her again. 
 
 Sus. Now, Heaven reward you ne'er the worse for me ! 
 I did not think that Death had been so sweet, 
 Nor I so apt to love him. I could ne'er die better, 
 Had I stayed forty years for preparation ; 
 For I 'm in charity with all the world. 
 Let me for once be thine example. Heaven ; 
 Do to this man, as I him free forgive ; 
 And may he better die, and better live ! \Dies. 
 
 Having completed this dastardly murder, Frank 
 wounds his own body and contrives to tie himself to 
 a tree, where he calls aloud for help. His father and 
 old Carter enter to his cry ; he charges the crime on 
 two former suitors of Carter's daughter, Somerton 
 and Warbeck, and is taken back to Carter's house to 
 have his wounds cured. Winnifrede, who knows 
 nothing of his guilt in this last fact, follows him still 
 dressed like a page, and in his sick-bed he is waited 
 on by her and Susan's sister, Katharine, another fair 
 type of womanhood. The prolonged dialogue, which 
 constitutes the beauty of this play, rises nowhere to a 
 higher point of Euripidean realism than in a scene 
 where Frank is discovered conscience-smitten, feverish, 
 and haunted by -delirious fancies, between Katharine 
 and Winnifrede. The ghost of Susan stands at his 
 bedside. He cannot distinguish phantoms from reali- 
 
THE END OF FRANK. 477 
 
 ties. For a while he strives to maintain the fiction of 
 Susan's murder by Somerton and Warbeck. At the 
 last he breaks down, and reveals the truth to Winni- 
 frede. Meantime, the two women surround him with 
 gentle ministrations and consolatory words, going 
 about their work with heavy hearts indeed, but bent 
 on helpful service, until the point when Katharine 
 discovers a bloody knife in Frank's coat pocket, jumps 
 at once to the conclusion of his guilt, and hurries out 
 to warn her father. The play runs fast to its con- 
 clusion now. Frank is, of course, executed, and, of 
 course, goes manfully, repentant, to his death. Very 
 touching scenes are written in this part for old Thorney 
 and for Winnifrede, who grows continually upon our 
 sympathy : 
 
 Thor. Daughter, be comforted. 
 
 Win. Comfort and I 
 Are too far separated to be joined 
 But in eternity ; I share too much 
 Of him that 's going thither. 
 
 War. Poor woman, 't was not thy fault. 
 
 Win. My fault was lust, my punishment was shame. 
 
 Frank is led by : 
 
 Thou much-wronged woman, I must sigh for thee. 
 As he that 's only loath to leave the world 
 For that he leaves thee in it unprovided. 
 Unfriended. 
 
 Winnifrede responds : 
 
 Might our souls together 
 Climb to the height of their eternity, 
 And there enjoy what earth denied us, happiness ! 
 
 Students of the text will judge how far such pas- 
 
47^ shaksperE'S predecessors. 
 
 sages as these are marred by elaborate expansion in 
 Ford's frigidly rhetorical manner. For my own part, 
 I can bear the exhibition of the playwright's conscious 
 art, because I recognise its dramatic effectiveness. 
 
 I said that Frank Thorney's romance is joined to 
 the second story of this drama by a slender thread. 
 That thread I have omitted in my exposition. His 
 sudden impulse to murder Susan is supposed to pro- 
 ceed from a spell cast on him by Mother Sawyer, the 
 Witch of Edmonton, whose familiar spirit, in the shape 
 of a black dog, appears upon the stage at the moment 
 of his crime, and again reappears before the discovery 
 of the bloody knife. But the playwrights bungled 
 their work sadly in the opening of the third act, where 
 the witch's malice might have been motived and 
 brought into play. They took no pains to connect 
 her with Frank Thorney, and suffered her to wreak 
 her spite upon a crowd of minor personages. I cannot, 
 indeed, avoid the suspicion that we either possess ' The 
 Witch of Edmonton ' in a mutilated form, or that its 
 authors hastily patched two separate compositions 
 together with slight attention to unity. 
 
 This want of cohesion is no drawback to the force 
 and pathos of Mother Sawyer's portrait ; perhaps the 
 best picture of a witch transmitted to us from an age 
 which believed firmly in witchcraft, but drawn by men 
 whose humanity was livelier than their superstition. 
 From the works of our Elizabethan Dramatists we 
 might select studies of witch life more imaginative, 
 more ghastly, more grotesque : Middleton's Hecate 
 and Stadlin, Marston's Erichtho, Jonson's Maudlin, 
 Shakspere's weird sisters and Sycorax. None of 
 
MOTHER SAWYER. 479 
 
 these, however, are so true to common life ; touched 
 with so fine a sense of natural justice. The outcast 
 wretchedness which drove old crones to be what their 
 cursed neighbours fancied them, is painted here with 
 truly dreadful realism. We see the witch in making, 
 watch the persecutions which convert her from a village 
 pariah to a potent servant of the devil, peruse her 
 arguments in self-defence, and follow her amid the 
 jeers and hootings of the rabble to her faggot-grave. 
 Mother Sawyer first appears upon the stage gathering 
 sticks : 
 
 And why on me ? Why should the envious world 
 
 Throw all their scandalous malice upon me ? 
 
 Cause I am poor, deformed, and ignorant. 
 
 And like a bow buckled and bent together 
 
 By some more strong in mischief than myself. 
 
 Must I for that be made a common sink 
 
 For all the filth and rubbish of men's tongues 
 
 To fall and run into ? Some call me witch ; 
 
 And being ignorant of myself, they go 
 
 About to teach me how to be one ; urging 
 
 That my bad tongue, by their bad usage made so, 
 
 Forspeaks their cattle, doth bewitch their corn, 
 
 Themselves, their servants, and their babes at nurse. 
 
 This they enforce upon me ; and in part 
 
 Make me to credit it. 
 
 Beaten before our eyes by a brutal peasant, she falls 
 to cursing, and stretches out her heart's desire toward 
 the unknown power ' more strong in mischiefs than 
 herself : ' 
 
 What is the name ? Where, and by what art learned. 
 What spells, what charms or invocations. 
 May the thing called Familiar be purchased ? 
 
 The village rabble fall upon her, lash her with their 
 
48o SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 leathern belts, and din the name of witch into her 
 ears, until the name becomes a part of her : 
 
 I have heard old beldams 
 Talk of familiars in the shape of mice, 
 Rats, ferrets, weasels, and I wot not what. 
 That have appeared, and sucked, some say, their blood ; 
 But by what means they came acquainted with them, 
 I now am ignorant. AVould some power, good or bad, 
 Instruct me which way I might be revenged 
 Upon this churl, I 'd go out of myself. 
 And give this fury leave to dwell within 
 This ruined cottage, ready to fall with age ! 
 Abjure all goodness, be at hate with prayer. 
 And study curses, imprecations. 
 Blasphemous speeches, oaths, detested oaths, 
 Or anything that 's ill : so I might work 
 Revenge upon this miser, this black cur. 
 That barks and bites, and sucks the very blood 
 Of me, and of my credit. 'T is all one 
 To be a witch, as to be counted one. 
 Vengeance, shame, ruin light upon that canker ! 
 
 As the devil himself, later on in the play, observes : 
 
 Thou never art so distant 
 From an evil spirit, but that thy oaths. 
 Curses and blasphemies pull him to thine elbow. 
 
 This Mother Sawyer now experiences ; for the familiar 
 she has been invoking, starts up beside her in the form 
 of a black dog : 
 
 Ho ! have I found thee cursing ? Now thou art 
 Mine own. 
 
 From him she learns the formula by which he may 
 be summoned, seals their compact by letting him suck 
 blood from her veins, and proceeds to use him against 
 her enemies. 
 
THE WITCH. 481 
 
 Whoever wrote the part of Mother Sawyer — Dek- 
 ker or Rowley ; for we cannot attribute it to Ford — 
 took care to exhibit her from several points of view. 
 Interrogated by two magistrates, she stands for her 
 defence upon the blunt democracy of evil : 
 
 I am none — no witch. 
 None but base curs so bark at me ; I am none. 
 Or would I were ! if every poor woman 
 Be trod on thus by slaves, reviled, kicked, beaten. 
 As I am daily, she to be revenged 
 Had need turn witch. 
 
 Men in gay clothes, 
 Whose backs are laden with titles and honours, 
 Are within far more crookfed than I am, 
 And if I be a witch, more witch-like. 
 A witch ! who is not ? 
 
 What are your painted things in princes' courts. 
 Upon whose eyelids lust sits, blowing fires 
 To burn men's souls in sensual hot desires ? 
 Have you not city-witches, who can turn 
 Their husbands' wares, whole standing shops of wares. 
 To sumptuous tables, gardens of stolen sin ? 
 Reverence once 
 
 Had wont to wait on age ; now an old woman. 
 Ill-favoured grown with years, if she be poor. 
 Must be called bawd or witch. Such, so abused. 
 Are the coarse witches ; t' other are the fine. 
 Spun for the devil's own wearing. 
 
 So she rages on. Termagant wives, covetous attorneys, 
 usurers, seducers, these are the true witches ; not hate- 
 hardened, miserable beldams.^ Folengo and Michelet 
 have not laid bare with satire or philosophy more 
 
 ■ This fierce apology of Mother Sawyer might be paralleled from that 
 grim satire with which Folengo in his Maccaronic epic of Baldus 
 draws the Court of the Sorceress Smirna Gulfora from all classes of 
 society. See Renaissance in Italy, vol. v. pp. 348-'^ W- 
 
 I I 
 
482 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 searching the common elements of human evil, out of 
 which witchcraft sprang like a venomous and obscene 
 toadstool. 
 
 After this outburst against the hypocrisies of a 
 society with which she is at open war, the wretched 
 creature takes solace with her familiar in a scene 
 grotesquely ghastly : 
 
 I am dried up 
 
 With cursing and with madness ; and have yet 
 
 No blood to moisten these sweet hps of thine. 
 
 Stand on thy hind legs up — kiss me, my Tommy, 
 
 And rub away some wrinkles on my brow. 
 
 By making my old ribs to shrug for joy 
 
 Of thy fine tricks. 
 
 The effects of her damned traffic with the fiend are 
 obvious in murder, suicide, domestic ruin. But as time 
 goes on, her power wanes, and the familiar deserts her. 
 She calls upon him, famished, in her isolation : 
 
 Still wronged by every slave ? and not a dog 
 
 Barks in his dame's defence ? I am called witch. 
 
 Yet am myself bewitched from doing harm. 
 
 Have I given up myself to thy black lust 
 
 Thus to be scorned ? Not see me in three days ! 
 
 I 'm lost without my Tomalin ; prithee come ; 
 
 Revenge to me is sweeter far than life : 
 
 Thou art my raven, on whose coal-black wings 
 
 Revenge comes flying to me. O my best love ! 
 
 I am on fire, even in the midst of ice, 
 
 Raking my blood up, till my shrunk knees feel 
 
 Thy curled head leaning on them ! Come, then, my darling ; 
 
 If in the air thou hoverest, fall upon me 
 
 In some dark cloud ; and as I oft have seen 
 
 Dragons and serpents in the elements. 
 
 Appear thou now so to me. Art thou i' the sea ? 
 
 Muster up all the monsters from the deep, 
 
 And be the ugliest of them; so that my bulch 
 
ROWLEY'S CONCEPTION OF WITCHCRAFT. 483 
 
 Show but his swarth cheek to me, let earth cleave, 
 And break from hell, I care not ! could I run 
 Like a swift powder-mine beneath the world, 
 Up would I blow it all, to find thee out, 
 Though I lay ruined in it. Not yet come! 
 I must then fall to my old prayer. 
 
 The dog appears at last, but changed in hue from black 
 to white — the sign, he mockingly assures her, of her 
 coming trial and death. We do not see her again till 
 she is brought out for execution, with the rabble raging 
 round her : 
 
 Cannot a poor old woman have your leave 
 To die without vexation ? 
 
 Is every devil mine ? 
 Would I had one now whom I might command 
 To tear you all to pieces ! 
 Have I scarce breath enough to say my prayers, 
 And would you force me to spend that in bawling ? 
 
 The part, from beginning to ending, is terribly sus- 
 tained. Not one single ray of human sympathy or kind- 
 ness falls upon the abject creature. She is alone in her 
 misery and sin, abandoned to the black delirium of God- 
 forsaken anguish. To paint a witch as she is here 
 painted — midway between an oppressed old woman 
 and a redoubtable agent of hell — and to incorporate 
 this double personality in the character of a common 
 village harridan, required firm belief in sorcery, that 
 curse-begotten curse of social life, which flung back on 
 human nature its own malice in the form of diabolical 
 malignity. 
 
 The attention I have paid to these five domestic 
 tragedies may seem to be out of due proportion to the 
 
 1 1 2 
 
484 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 scheme of my work. I think, however, that I am 
 justified by their exceptional importance. Works of 
 finer fibre and more imaginative quality illustrate in a 
 less striking degree the command of dramatic effect 
 which marked our theatre in its earliest as in its latest 
 development. 
 
48s 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 TRAGEDY OF BLOOD. 
 
 I, The Tough Fibres of a London Audience — Craving for Strong Sensa- 
 tion — Specific Note of English Melodrama — Its Lyrical and Pathetic 
 Relief. — 1 1. Thomas Kyd — ' Hieronymo ' and ' The Spanish Tragedy'— 
 Analysis of the Story — Stock-Ingredients of a Tragedy of Blood— 
 The Ghost — The Villain — The Romantic Lovers — Suicide, Murder, 
 Insanity. — III. 'Soliman and Perseda,' — The Induction to this Play — 
 ' The Tragedy of Hoffmann.' — IV. Marlowe's use of this Form — ' The 
 Jew of Malta ' — ' Titus Andronicus '■ — ' Lust's Dominion ' — Points ol 
 Resemblance between ' Hamlet ' and ' The Spanish Tragedy ' — Use 
 made by Marston, Webster, and Tourneur of the Species. — V. The 
 Additions to ' The Spanish Tragedy ' — Did Jonson make them ? — 
 Quotation from the Scene of Hieronymo in the Garden. 
 
 N.B. All the Tragedies discussed in this chapter will be found in 
 Hazlitt's Dodsley. 
 
 I. 
 
 The sympathies of the London audience on which our 
 playwrights worked might be compared to the chords 
 of a warrior's harp, strung with twisted iron and bulls' 
 sinews, vibrating mightily, but needing a stout stroke 
 to make them thrill. This serves to explain that con- 
 ception of Tragedy which no poet of the epoch 
 expressed more passionately than Marston in his pro- 
 logue to ' Antonio's Revenge,' and which early took 
 possession of the stage. The reserve of the Greek 
 Drama, the postponement of physical to spiritual 
 anguish, the tuning of moral discord to dignified 
 
486 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 and solemn moods of sustained suffering, was un- 
 known in England. Playwrights used every con- 
 ceivable means to stir the passion and excite the 
 feeling of their audience. They glutted them with 
 horrors ; cudgelled their horny fibres into sensitiveness. 
 Hence arose a special kind of play, which may be 
 styled the Tragedy of Blood, existing, as it seems to 
 do, solely in and for bloodshed. The action of these 
 tragedies was a prolonged tempest. Blows fell like hail- 
 stones ; swords flashed like lightning ; threats roared 
 like thunder; poison was poured out like rain. As a re- 
 lief to such crude elements of terror, the poet strove to 
 play on finer sympathies by means of pathetic interludes 
 and ' lyrical interbreathings ' — by the exhibition of a 
 mother's agony or a child's trust in his murderer, by 
 dialogues in which friend pleads with friend for priority 
 in death or danger, by images leading the mind away 
 from actual horrors to ideal sources of despair, by the 
 soliloquies of a crazed spirit, by dirges and songs of 
 'old, unhappy, far-off things,' by crescendos of accu- 
 mulated passion, by the solemn beauty of religious 
 resignation. This variety of effect characterises the 
 Tragedies of Blood. These lyrical and imaginative 
 elements idealise their sanguinary melodrama. 
 
 II. 
 
 Thomas Kyd — if ' Hieronymo ' and ' The Spanish 
 Tragedy ' are correctly ascribed to him— may be called 
 the founder of this species.^ About his life we know 
 absolutely nothing, although it may be plausibly con- 
 
 1 I have adhered throughout to the spelUng Hieronymo, though the 
 first part of the play in the 4to of 1605 is called leronimo. 
 
'THE SPANISH TRAGEDY: 487 
 
 jectured that he received a fair academical education. 
 He makes free use of classical mythology in the style 
 of Greene, and interrupts his English declamation with 
 Latin verses. For many years Kyd occupied a pro- 
 minent place among the London dramatists. His two 
 epoch-making plays were ridiculed by Shakspere and 
 Jonson, proving their popularity with the coinmon 
 folk long after the date (earlier than 1588) of their 
 original production. Jonson in his lines on Shakspere 
 gave to Kyd the epithet of ' sporting,' apparently with 
 the view of scoring a bad pun, rather than with any 
 reference to the playwright's specific style. 
 
 ' Hieronymo ' and ' The Spanish Tragedy ' are 
 practically speaking one play in two parts. Andrea, a 
 nobleman of Spain, is sent to claim tribute from the 
 King of Portugal. During this embassy a Portuguese, 
 Balthazar, defies him to single combat. When the 
 duel takes place, Andrea falls ; but he is avenged by 
 his friend Horatio, son of Jeronymo, Marshal of Spain. 
 During life Andrea had enjoyed the love of a lady, 
 Bellimperia, whose brother, Lorenzo, is a Court villain 
 of the darkest dye. After Andrea's death, Horatio 
 makes Balthazar his captive, and brings him back to 
 Spain, where he, Horatio, pledges his troth to Bellim- 
 peria, and is beloved by her instead of the slain Andrea. 
 Lorenzo, however, chooses that she shall be married to 
 Balthazar, He therefore murders Horatio, and hangs 
 him to a tree in his father's garden. Old Hieronymo 
 discovers the corpse, is half crazed by grief, and de- 
 votes the rest of his life to vengeance on the assassins. 
 With this object in view, he presents a play at Court, 
 in which he and Bellimperia, Lorenzo and Balthazar, 
 act several parts. The kings of Spain and Portugal 
 
SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 assist at the performance. At the close of the tragic 
 piece, Hieronymo and Bellimperia stab the two traitors 
 in good earnest, and afterwards put an end to their 
 own lives upon the stage. 
 
 This outline of ' The Spanish Tragedy ' will give a 
 fair notion of the stock ingredients of a Tragedy of 
 Blood. There is a ghost in it — the ghost of Andreel — 
 crying out, ' Revenge ! Vindicta ! ' as it stalks about 
 the stage. There is a noble and courageous lover, 
 young Horatio, traitorously murdered. There is a 
 generous open-hearted gentleman, old Hieronymo, 
 forced to work out his plot of vengeance by craft, and 
 crazy with intolerable wrongs. There is a consum- 
 mate villain, Lorenzo, who uses paid assassins, broken 
 courtiers, needy men-at-arms, as instruments in schemes 
 of secret malice. There is a beautiful and injured 
 lady, Bellimperia, whose part is one romantic tissue of 
 love, passion, pathos, and unmerited suffering. There 
 is a play within the play, used to facilitate the bloody 
 climax. There are scenes of extravagant insanity, 
 relieved by scenes of euphuistic love-making in 
 sequestered gardens ; scenes of martial conflict, fol- 
 lowed by pompous shows at Court ; kings, generals, 
 clowns, cutthroats, chamberlains, jostling together in a 
 masquerade medley, a carnival of swiftly moving 
 puppets. There are, at least, five murders, two 
 suicides, two judicial executions, and one death in 
 duel. The principal personage, Hieronymo, bites out 
 his tongue and flings it on the stage ; stabs his enemy 
 with a stiletto, and pierces his own heart. Few of the 
 characters survive to bury the dead, and these few are 
 of secondary importance in the action. 
 
'TRAGEDY OF HOFFMANN.' 489 
 
 III. 
 
 A contemporary and anonymous tragedy, ' Soliman 
 and Perseda,' illustrates the same melodramatic quali- 
 ties of unfortunate love and wholesale bloodshed. It 
 hardly deserves notice, except as showing how the 
 Tragedy of Blood took form. I may also mention 
 that it was selected by Kyd for the play within the 
 play presented by his hero Hieronymo. The Induc- 
 tion to this piece is curious. Love, Death, and For- 
 tune dispute among themselves which takes the leading 
 part in tragedies of human life. They agree to watch 
 the action of the drama ; and at the end, Death sums his 
 triumphs up, proving himself indisputably victor : 
 
 Alack ! Love and Fortune play in Comedies ! 
 For powerful Death best fitteth Tragedies. 
 
 Love retires, beaten, but unsubdued : 
 
 I go, yet Love shall never yield to Death ! 
 
 One more of the earlier melodramas, written to 
 glut the audience with bloodshed, deserves mention. 
 This was the work of Henry Chettle, produced before 
 the year 1598, and styled ' The Tragedy of Hoffmann ; 
 or, a Revenge for a Father.' The scene is laid on the 
 shores of the Baltic. The hero is son to Admiral 
 Hoffmann, who had been executed unjustly for piracy, 
 by having a crown of red-hot iron forced upon his 
 head. The son hangs up his father's corpse as a 
 memento of revenge, and by various devices murders 
 
490 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 in succession six or seven of the enemies who were 
 instrumental in his death. At the end he, too, dies 
 by imposition of the fiery crown. This grisly drama 
 of retributive cruelty, enacted in a remote region of 
 the Northern seas, combining the most violent in- 
 cidents of torture and assassination, has no beauty of 
 language, no force of character, no ingenuity of plot, 
 to excuse its violation of artistic decencies. It relies 
 upon fantastic horror for effect. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Enough has been said to indicate a species which 
 took firm possession of the stage. Marlowe, finding 
 it already popular, raised it to higher rank by the 
 transfiguring magic of his genius. ' The Jew of Malta ' 
 marks a decided step in advance upon the plays which 
 I have noticed. Two dramas of superior merit, clearly 
 emanating from the school of Marlowe, may also 
 be reckoned among the Tragedies of Blood in this 
 second period of elaboration. These are ' Titus An- 
 dronicus,' which, on the faith of an old anecdote, we 
 may perhaps infer to have been the work of an amateur, 
 dressed for the theatre by Shakspere ; and ' Lust's 
 Dominion ; or. The Lascivious Queen,' a play ascribed 
 to Marlowe, but now believed to have been written by 
 Dekker, Haughton, and Day. Both in ' Titus An- 
 dronicus ' and in ' Lust's Dominion,' Marlowe's san- 
 guinary Jew is imitated. Barabas, Aaron, and Eleazar 
 are of the same kindred. I shall have occasion to 
 study Barabas closely in another chapter of this book. 
 Aaron, since he rests beneath the aegis of Shakspere's 
 
'LUST'S DOMINION} 491 
 
 name, may here be left untouched.^ But Eleazar, 
 and the play of 'Lust's Dominion,' in which he takes 
 the leading part, demand some words of passing 
 comment. This is strictly a Tragedy of Blood ; yet 
 the motive, as its title implies, is lawless appe- 
 tite leading to death in various forms. The Queen 
 Mother of Spain loves Eleazar, the Moor, with 
 savage passion. King Fernando loves Maria, the 
 Moor's wife. Cardinal Mendoza loves the Queen. 
 Each of these personages sacrifices duty, natural affec- 
 tion, humanity itself, to ungovernable desire. Eleazar 
 alone remains cold and calculating, using their weak- 
 ness to attain his own ambitious ends. Pretending 
 love to the Queen, he forces her to kill her son Philip, 
 and then schemes her murder. In order to check- 
 mate the Cardinal, he betrays his young wife to Fer- 
 nando, albeit she is 'chaste as the white moon.' His 
 designs, at the last, prove unavailing, and he dies in 
 stubborn contumacy. Ambition was his devil ; the 
 strength of intellect, the physical courage, possessed by 
 him in no common measure, he concentrated on the 
 end of climbing to a throne through blood. The 
 
 ' Aaron seems to me as inferior to Barabas in poetic and dramatic 
 pith, as he exceeds him in brutality. But the play of Tiius Andronicus 
 is interesting, independently of this villain's character, for its systematic 
 blending, and in some sense heightening, of all the elements which 
 constitute a Tragedy of Blood. We have a human sacrifice and the 
 murder of a son by his father in the first act ; in the second, a murder 
 and the rape and mutilation of a woman ; in the third, two executions 
 and the mutilation of the hero ; in the fourth, a murder ; in the fifth, six 
 murders, a judicial death by torture, and a banquet set before a queen of 
 her two dead sons' flesh. The hyperbolical pathos of Lavinia's part, the 
 magnificent lunacy of Titus (so like to that of Hieronymo in quality), and 
 the romantic lyrism which relieves and stimulates imagination, belong to 
 the very essence of the species. So also does the lust of Tamora and the 
 frantic devilishness of her paramour. 
 
492 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 direct imitation of Marlowe is obvious in the large 
 conception, broad handling, and exaggerated execution 
 of this character, no less than in the florid imagery and 
 sounding versification which distinguish the style 
 adopted by the authors of the play. It is, in fact, a 
 creditable, though extremely disagreeable, piece of 
 imitative craftsmanship. 
 
 The Tragedy of Blood, passing successively 
 through the stages marked by Kyd and Marlowe, be- 
 came a stock species. It would not be correct to 
 assign any of Shakspere's undoubted dramas to this 
 class. Yet Shakspere did not disdain to spiritualise 
 what his predecessors had so grossly and materialisti- 
 cally rough-hewn. ' Hamlet/ as it has been often pointed 
 out, is built upon the lines suggested by ' The Spanish 
 Tragedy,' and uses for its poetry, philosophy, and 
 passion, motives pre-existing in the English melo- 
 drama. 
 
 Three considerable playwrights of the later age 
 devoted their talents to the Tragedy of Blood. 
 These were Marston, Webster, and Tourneur. Ghosts, 
 Court villains, paid assassins, lustful princes, romantic 
 lovers, injured and revengeful victims, make up the 
 personages of their drama ; and the stage is drenched 
 with blood. There is one standing personage in these 
 later melodramas, which had from the earliest been 
 sketched firmly enough by Kyd in ' Hieronymo.' 
 That is the desperate instrument of perfidy and mur- 
 der. When Lorenzo, the arch-villain of ' The Spanish 
 Tragedy,' needs an agent, he bethinks him of a certain 
 Lazarotto : 
 
 I have a lad in pickle of this stamp, 
 A melancholy discontented courtier, 
 
COURT VILLAINS. 493 
 
 Whose famished jaws look Hke the chap of death ; 
 
 Upon whose eyebrow hangs damnation ; 
 
 Whose hands are washed in rape and murders bold ; 
 
 Him with a golden bait will I allure, 
 
 For courtiers will do anything for gold. 
 
 In the hands of Webster the rough sketch of Lazarotto 
 became the finished pictures of Flamineo and Bosola. 
 Tourneur transformed the ' melancholy discontented 
 courtier' into Vendice. "Marston played various tunes 
 on the same jangled lute. All three of them had 
 recourse to Kyd's fantastic incident of Masques, dis- 
 guising murder. But it was reserved alone for Webster 
 to stamp the Tragedy of Blood with a high spiritual 
 and artistic genius. The thing, when he touched it, 
 unlocked springs of sombre dramatic terror and way- 
 ward picturesque effect beyond the reach of vulgar 
 workmen. 
 
 V. 
 
 I shall close this brief study with a return to 
 ' The Spanish Tragedy.' From Henslowe's Diary we 
 learn that Ben Jonson received divers sums in 1601 
 and 1602 for additions to this play. These additions, 
 ' the very salt of the old play,' in Lamb's often quoted 
 words, are so unlike Jonson's style that few students 
 of our Drama would disagree with Lamb in wishing he 
 could ascribe them to ' some more potent spirit,' per- 
 haps to Webster. Still there is no external reason for 
 assigning them to any known writer of the time, or for 
 rejecting the plain evidence of Henslowe's Diary.^ 
 
 ' Henslowe, under the dates Sept. 35, 1601, and June 24, 1602, lent 
 Jonson sums of money for additions and new additions to Hieronymo. 
 
494 SHAKSPERE'S PkEDECESSORS. 
 
 Jonson certainly produced nothing so poignant and 
 far-searching in his acknowledged tragedies. Yet we 
 may perhaps refer this circumstance to self-restraint 
 and resolute adherence to dramatic theory. Jonson was 
 a doctrinaire, we know, and his mature canons of art 
 were opposed to .the Romantic method. But we need 
 not, therefore, determine that so powerful a writer could 
 not have worked upon occasion in a style which he 
 deliberately afterwards rejected in obedience to formed 
 opinions. 
 
 One dialogue between Hieronymo, crazed by find- 
 ing the dead body of his son suspended to the tree in 
 his own garden, and a painter introduced for the sole 
 purpose of discoursing with him, might be selected 
 to illustrate the mingled extravagance and truth to 
 nature which is characteristic of English melodrama. 
 There is here a leonine hunger, blent with pathetic 
 tenderheartedness, a brooding upon ' things done long 
 ago and ill done,' an alternation between lunacy and the 
 dull moodiness of reasonable woe, which brings the 
 maddened old man vividly before us. The picture is 
 only less terrible than that of Lear — less terrible be- 
 cause more artificially fantastic. The doubt regarding 
 its composition renders it furthermore so curious that 
 I do not hesitate to quote the passage at full length. 
 
 Hieronymo is discovered in his garden. First enters to him his wife 
 Isabella. Then a servant, Pedro, who introduces the Painter. 
 
 Isa. Dear Hieronymo, come in a doors, 
 O seek not means so to increase thy sorrow. 
 
 In the year 1602 the play was printed in 4to as being ' enlarged with new 
 additions of the Painter's part and others.' The agreement of dates 
 between Henslowe's memoranda and the publication of the enlarged 
 play is too important to escape notice. 
 
AJbDiTlONS To HIERONYMO. 49^ 
 
 Hier. Indeed, Isabella, we do nothing here ; 
 I do not cry, ask Pedro and Jaques : 
 Not I, indeed ; we are very merry, very merry. 
 
 Isa. How ? Be merry here, be merry here ? 
 Is not this the place, and this the very tree. 
 Where my Horatio died, where he was murdered ? 
 
 Hier. Was — do not say what : let her weep it out. 
 This was the tree, I set it of a kernel ; 
 And when our hot Spain could not let it grow. 
 But that the infant and the human sap 
 Began to wither, duly twice a morning 
 Would I be sprinkling it with fountain water : 
 At last it grew and grew, and bore and bore : 
 Till at length it grew a gallows, and did bear our son. 
 It bore thy fruit and mine. O wicked, wicked plant. 
 See who knocks there. \One knocks within at the door. 
 
 Fed. It is a painter, sir. 
 
 Hier. Bid him come in, and paint some comfort. 
 For surely there 's none lives but painted comfort. 
 Let him come in, one knows not what may chance. 
 God's will [it was] that I should set this tree ! but even so 
 Masters ungrateful servants rear from nought. 
 And then they hate them that did bring them up. 
 
 The Painter enters. 
 
 Fain. God bless you, sir. 
 
 Hier. Wherefore, why, thou scornful villain ? 
 How, where, or by what means should I be blessed ? 
 
 Jsa. What wouldst thou have, good fellow ? 
 
 Fain. Justice, madam. 
 
 Hier. O ambitious beggar, wouldst thou have that 
 That lives not in the world ? 
 Why, all the undelved mines cannot buy 
 An ounce of justice, 't is a jewel so inestimable. 
 I tell thee, God hath engrossed all justice in His hands, 
 And there is none but what comes from Him. 
 
 Fain. O, then I see that God must right me for my murdered son ! 
 
 Hier. How ? Was thy son murdered ? 
 
 Fain. Ay, sir, no man did hold a son so dear. 
 
 Hier. What ! not as thine ? That 's a lie 
 As massy as the earth : I had a son. 
 Whose least unvalued hair did weigh 
 A thousand of thy sons; and he was murdered. 
 
496 SBAl^SPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Pain. Alas ! sir, I had no more but he. 
 Hier. Nor I, nor I ; but this same one of mine 
 Was worth a legion. But all is one. 
 Pedro, Jaques, go in a doors. Isabella, go ; 
 And this good fellow here and I 
 Will range this hideous orchard up and down. 
 Like two she lions, 'reaved of their young. 
 
 Go in a doors, I say. [Exeunt. TheYfasi'E&and hesit down. 
 
 Come, let 's talk wisely now. 
 Was thy son murdered ? 
 Pain. Ay, sir. 
 Hier. So was mine. 
 How dost thou take it ? Art thou not sometime mad ? 
 Is there no tricks that come before thine eyes ? 
 Pain. O Lord ! yes, sir. 
 
 Hier. Art a painter ? Canst paint me a tear, a wound ? 
 A groan or a sigh ? Canst paint me such a tree as this ? 
 Pain. Sir, I am sure you have heard of my painting ; 
 My name 's Bazardo. 
 
 Hier. Bazardo ! 'fore God, an excellent fellow ! Look you, sir. 
 Do you see ? I 'd have you paint me in my gallery, in your oil- 
 colours matted, and draw me five years younger than I am : do 
 you see, sir? Let five years go, let them go— my wife Isabella 
 standing by me, with a speaking look to my son Horatio, which 
 should intend to this, or some such like purpose : ' God bless thee ! 
 my sweet son ; ' and my hand leaning upon his head thus, sir ; do 
 you see ? May it be done ? 
 Pain. Very well, sir. 
 Hier. Nay, I pray, mark me, sir. 
 Then, sir, would I have you paint me this tree, this very tree : 
 Canst paint a doleful cry ? 
 Pain. Seemingly, sir. 
 Hier. Nay, it should cry ; but all is one. 
 Well, sir, paint me a youth run through and through ; 
 With villains' swords hanging upon this tree. 
 Canst thou draw a murderer ? 
 
 Pain. I'll warrant you, sir; I have the pattern of the most 
 notorious villains that ever lived in all Spain. 
 
 Hier. O let them be worse, worse ; stretch thine art 
 And let their beards be of Judas's own colour. 
 And let their eyebrows jut over : in any case observe that. 
 
 Then, sir, after some violent noise, bring me forth in my shirt, 
 and my gown under my arm, with my torch in my hand, and my 
 
MYSTERY OF AUTHORSHIP. 497 
 
 sword reared up thus, and with these words, ' What noise is this ? 
 Who calls Hieronymo ? ' May it be done ? 
 
 Pain. Yea, sir. 
 
 Hier. Well, sir, then bring me forth — bring me through alley 
 and alley, still with a distracted countenance going along, and let my 
 hair heave up my night cap. Let the clouds scowl ; make the 
 moon dark, the stars extinct, the winds blowing, the bells toUing, 
 the owls shrieking, the toads croaking, the minutes jarring, and the 
 clock striking twelve. And then at last, sir, starting, behold a man 
 hanging, and tottering, and tottering, as you know the wind will 
 wave a man, and with a trice to cut him down. And looking upon 
 him by advantage of my torch, find it to be my son Horatio. There 
 you may show a passion ; there you may show a passion. Draw 
 me like old Priam of Troy, crying, ' The house is a-fire, the house 
 is a-iire,' and the torch over my head ; make me curse, make me 
 rave, make me cry, make me mad, make me well again ; make me 
 curse hell, invocate, and in the end leave me in a trance, and so 
 forth. 
 
 Pain. And is this the end ? 
 
 Hier. O no, there is no end ; the end is death and madness. 
 And I am never better than when I am mad. 
 Then methinks, I am a brave fellow ; 
 Then I do wonders ; but reason abuseth me ; 
 And there 's the torment, there 's the hell. 
 At last, sir, bring to me one of the murderers ; 
 Were he as strong as Hector, 
 Thus would I tear and drag him up and down. 
 
 \^Hc beats the Painter in. 
 
 After all has been said and suggested, impenetrable 
 mystery hangs over the authorship of this scene. 
 Henslowe's Diary and certain allusions to ' The 
 Spanish Tragedy ' in Jonson's comedies, point to Ben 
 Jonson as the writer. But it is almost impossible to 
 conceive that Ben Jonson, if he had composed this 
 scene to order while yet a prentice in the playwright's 
 craft, should have afterwards abandoned a style which 
 he commanded with such gust and passion. How 
 came he to exchange it for that scholastic mannerism 
 
 K K 
 
498 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 which, except for the romantic passages of ' The Case 
 is Altered,' we discern as second nature in his genius ? 
 Had Shakspere a hand in these additions ? Or was he, 
 perhaps, thinking of Hieronymo's hyperbolical retort 
 upon the Painter, when he penned for ' Hamlet ' : 
 
 I loved Ophelia ; forty thousand brothers 
 Could not with all their quantity of love 
 Make up my sum ? 
 
 Had the author of ' Titus Andronicus' anything to do 
 with them ? Or, in the lunacies of Titus, did he 
 simply imitate and dilute the concentrated frenzy of 
 Hieronymo ? Such queries and surmises are idle. 
 But they have at least the effect of keeping vividly 
 before our minds the extraordinary potency of scenes 
 which tempt us to ever new unprofitable guess-work. 
 
499 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 JOHN LYLY. 
 
 I. The Publication of Euphues '—Its Two Parts— Outline of the Story.— 
 II. It forms a Series of Short Treatises — Love — Conduct — Education 
 — A Book for Women. III. Its Popularity — The Spread of Euphu- 
 ism — What we Mean by that Word. — IV. Qualities of Medieval 
 Taste — Allegory — Symbolism — The Bestiaries — Qualities of Early 
 Humanism — Scholastic Subtleties — Petrarchistic Diction — Bad Taste 
 in Italy — Influence of Italian Literature — The Affectation of the 
 Sixteenth Century — Definition of Euphuism — Illustrations. — V. Lyly 
 becomes a Courtier — His Want of Success — The Simplicity of his 
 Dramatic Prose — The Beauty of the Lyrics — The Novelty of his 
 Court-Comedies. — VI. Eight Pieces ascribed to Lyly — Six Played 
 before Elizabeth — The Allegories of their Classic Fables — ' Endimion ' 
 — Its Critique. — VII. 'Midas' — Political Allusions — ' Sapho and 
 Phao' — 'Elizabeth and Leicester' — Details of this Comedy. — VIII. 
 ' Ale.xander and Campaspe ' — Touch upon Greek Story — Diogenes — 
 A Dialogue on Love — The Lyrics. — IX. 'Gallathea' — Its Relation to 
 ' As You Like It ' — ' Love's Metamorphosis ' — Its Relation to Jonson 
 — 'Mother Bombie' — 'The Woman in the Moon.' — X. Lyly as a 
 Master of his Age — Influence on Shakspere — His Inventions. 
 
 I. 
 
 In the year 1579 a book appeared in London which 
 was destined to make an epoch in English Hterary 
 history, and to win for its author fame and fashion 
 almost unparalleled among his contemporaries. This 
 book bore the title of ' Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit' 
 It was written by John Lyly, a member of Magdalen 
 College, Oxford, Master of Arts, then in his twenty- 
 seventh year. In the spring following, a sequel, called 
 ' Euphues, his England,' issued from the press. The 
 
 K K 2 
 
50O SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 two parts formed one work, conceived and executed 
 after the Italian style of moral dissertation and romantic 
 story. ' Euphues ' is, in fact, a collection of essays, tales, 
 letters, and meditative disquisitions, ' sowed,' to use the 
 author's own words, ' here and there like strawberries, 
 not in heaps like hops.' In planning this book Lyly 
 had a clearly didactic intention. It was his purpose to 
 set forth opinions regarding the formation of character 
 by training and experience ; to criticise social conduct ; 
 to express his views upon love and friendship, religion 
 and philosophy ; to discuss the then so favourite topic 
 of foreign travel ; and to convey this miscellaneous 
 instruction in a form agreeable to his readers. 
 
 The story, with which Lyly interwove his weightier 
 discourses, may be briefly told. The book opens with 
 a minute description of the hero's character and person. 
 Euphues, who is meant to embody the qualities denoted 
 by his Greek name, is an Athenian youth of good 
 fortune, comely presence, and quick parts, somewhat 
 too much given to pleasure. He comes to Naples, 
 where he makes acquaintance with an old man named 
 Eubulus, and a young man called Philautus. Eubulus 
 gives him abundance of good counsel, both as regards 
 the conduct of his life in general and the special dangers 
 he will have to meet in Naples. Euphues receives it 
 kindly, but prefers to buy wisdom by experience, 
 arguing that it ill beseems a young man to rule himself 
 by the precepts of the aged, before he has tasted of life 
 for himself With Philautus he strikes up a romantic 
 friendship. This new comrade brings him into the 
 society of Lucilla, a Neapolitan lady, to whom Philautus 
 is already paying his addresses with her father's sane- 
 
STORY OF 'E UP hues: 501 
 
 tion. In their first interview, Lucilla and Euphues fall 
 in love, each with the other. Euphues tries to conceal 
 his passion from his friend by pretending to admire 
 another woman, Livia ; but, in the absence of Philau- 
 tus, he declares his love to Lucilla, and receives the con- 
 fession of hers in return. Lucilla, when urged by her 
 father to accept her former suitor, openly avows her new 
 fancy for Euphues. This leads to a rupture between 
 the two friends. But it soon appears that the fickle 
 fair has thrown over Euphues for a fresh adorer, named 
 Curio. Euphues falls into a fever of fury, shame, and 
 disappointed passion. He and Philautus shake hands 
 again, consoling themselves with the reflection that 
 friendship is more stable and more durable than love. 
 Then they separate — Euphues returns to study moral 
 and physical philosophy at Athens ; Philautus remains 
 to cure himself, as best he can, at Naples. Euphues, 
 in his own university, applies himself with zeal to 
 serious learning, and is soon so strengthened against 
 passion that he writes ' a cooling card for Philautus and 
 all fond lovers.' This he sends his friend, together 
 with a discourse upon the education of young men, a 
 refutation of atheism, and other products of his fruitful 
 brain — in short, epistolary essays. These terminate 
 the first part of the book. In the second, Lyiy brings 
 Euphues and Philautus to England. He describes the 
 discourse they held on shipboard, to keep off sea- 
 sickness anti ennui ; their landing, and their visit to 
 Fidus, an old bee-master of Kent. Fidus has a long- 
 winded love story, tale within tale, of his own to tell. 
 After, hearing this the friends reach London, where 
 Philautus falls in and out of love two or three times, 
 
502 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 and at last is married to a lady whom he calls his 
 Violet. Euphues leaves him happily settled in Eng- 
 land, and concludes with a neatly worded panegyric of 
 Elizabeth and her Court, entitled ' Euphues' Glass for 
 Europe.' 
 
 II. 
 
 Such is the slender thread of narrative on which 
 Lyly strung his multitudinous reflections — some com- 
 monplace, some wise, some whimsical, some quaint, 
 but all relating to the inexhaustibly attractive themes 
 of love and conduct. The story lacks definite outline 
 and strong colouring, but it was of a kind which won 
 acceptance in that age. The popularity of Greene's 
 novels and Sidney's ' Arcadia ' is not less inexplicable 
 to a modern reader than the fascination exercised by 
 ' Euphues.' The thought — except, perhaps, in one 
 tractate upon education, entitled ' Euphues and his 
 Ephoebus ' — is rarely pregnant or profound. Yet Lyly's 
 facile handling of grave topics, his casuistry of motives 
 and criticism of life, exactly suited the audience he had 
 in view. He tells us that he meant his ' Euphues ' for 
 gentlewomen in their hours of recreation. ' I am con- 
 tent that your dogs lie in your laps, so " Euphues " 
 may be in your hands ; that when you shall be weary 
 in reading of the one, you may be ready to sport with 
 the other.' And again : ' " Euphues " had rather lie 
 shut in a lady's casket than open in a scholar's study.' 
 In days when there were no circulating libraries and 
 magazines, ' Euphues ' passed for pleasant and instruc- 
 tive reading. The ladies, for whom it was written, had 
 
LITERARY AIM OF ' E UP HUES.' 503 
 
 few books except romances of the Round Table and 
 the Twelve Peers ; and these, though stimulating to 
 the imagination, failed to exercise the wit and under- 
 standing. The loves of Lancelot and Tristram were 
 antiquated and immoral. The doughty deeds of Pala- 
 dins suited a soldier's rather than a damsel's fancy. 
 Lyly supplied matter light enough to entertain an idle 
 moment, yet sensible and wholesome. He presented 
 in an English dress the miscellaneous literature of 
 the Italians, combining Alberti's ethical disquisitions 
 with Sannazzaro's narratives, but avoiding the licen- 
 tiousness which made Painter's translations from the 
 Novellieri an object of just suspicion. Furthermore, 
 he popularised some already celebrated writings of a 
 meritorious but affected Spanish author, and succeeded 
 in presenting all this miscellaneous matter in a piquant 
 form, which passed for originality of style. The love 
 tales of Euphues, Philautus, and Fidus, served for polite 
 fiction. The discourses on marriage, education, politics, 
 and manners, conveyed some such diluted philosophy 
 as ladies of the present day imbibe from magazines and 
 newspapers. The inartistic blending of these divers 
 elements in a prolix, languidly conducted romance, did 
 not offend against the taste of Lyly's age. 
 
 III. 
 
 The success of this book was sudden and astounding. 
 Two editions of the first part were exhausted in 1579, 
 a third in 1580, a fourth in 1581. Between that date 
 and 1636 it was nine times reprinted. The second 
 part enjoyed a similar run of luck. How greedily its 
 
;o4 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 pages were devoured, is proved by the extreme rarity 
 of the earliest editions. After 1636 this gale of popu- 
 larity suddenly dropped. The ' Euphues ' of ' eloquent 
 and witty John Lyly,' as Meres styled its author ; the 
 ' Euphues,' which Webbe had praised for ' singular 
 eloquence and brave composition of apt words and 
 sentences,' for ' fit phrases, pithy sentences, gallant 
 tropes, flowing speech, plain sense ; ' the ' Euphues,' 
 which won for Lyly from John Eliot the epithet of 
 ' raffineur de I'Anglais ; ' the ' Euphues,' which, in the 
 words of Edward Blount, had taught our nation a new 
 English, and so enthralled society that ' that Beauty in 
 Court which could not parley Euphuism, was as little 
 regarded as she which now there speaks not French ; ' 
 this ' Euphues,' the delight of ladies and the school of 
 poets, passed suddenly out of fashion, and became a 
 byword for false taste and obsolete absurdity. Histo- 
 rians of literature joined in condemning without reading 
 it Sir Walter Scott essayed a parody, which proved 
 his ignorance of the original. At length in 1868, 
 nearly three centuries after its first appearance and 
 sudden triumph, nearly two centuries and a half after 
 its last issue and no less sudden loss of popularity, 
 English students received a scholarly reprint from the 
 hands of Professor Arber. 
 
 Those who peruse this volume will be inclined to 
 moralise on fashion ; to wonder how a work so sig- 
 nally devoid of vivid interest excited such enthusiasm, 
 or became the object of such vehement abuse. The 
 truth is that, besides the novelty of his performance, 
 on which I have already dwelt, Lyly owed his great 
 success to what we recognise as the defects of his 
 
EUPHUISM. 505 
 
 Style. When literary popularity is based on faults 
 accepted by the bad taste of an epoch for transcendent 
 merits, it is foredoomed to a decline as rapid as its up- 
 rise, and to reaction as powerful as the forces which 
 promoted it. Euphues entranced society in the six- 
 teenth century, because our literature, in common with 
 that of Italy and Spain and France, was passing 
 through a phase of affectation, for which Euphuism 
 was the national expression. It corresponded to some- 
 thing in the manners and the modes of thinking 
 which prevailed in Europe at that period. It was the 
 English type of an all but universal disease. There 
 would have been Euphuism, in some form or other, 
 without Euphues ; just as the so-called aesthetic move- 
 ment of to-day might have dispensed with its Bun- 
 thorne, and yet have flourished. Lyly had the 
 fortune to become the hero of his epoch's follies, 
 to fix the form of fashionable affectation, and to find 
 the phrases he had coined in his study, current on the 
 lips of gentlemen and ladies. 
 
 Euphuism not only coloured the manners of polite 
 society, but it also penetrated literature. We trace 
 it, or something very like it, in the serious work of 
 Sidney and of Shakspere ; in the satires of Nash and 
 the conceits of Donne ; in the theological lucubrations 
 of Puritan divines and the philosophical rhapsodies of 
 Sir Thomas Browne. The specific affectations of 
 the Court might be satirised by Shakspere or by 
 Jonson ; yet neither Jonson nor Shakspere was free 
 from mannerisms, of which Lyly's style was only sym- 
 ptomatic. Sidney is praised for avoiding its salient 
 blemishes ; but Sidney revelled in conceits and disser- 
 
5o6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 tations on romantic topics, which a modern student 
 scarcely thinks it worth his while to separate from 
 Euphuism. Perched on the pinnacle of history and 
 criticism, at the distance of three centuries, we are 
 able to confound Lyly with his censors, and to perceive 
 clearly that the purest among his contemporaries were 
 tarred with the same pitch. It is only the mediocrity 
 of his genius, combined with his good or evil luck in 
 producing an eponymous work of fiction, which renders 
 him conspicuous. He helped to ' fish the murex up,' 
 and dyed the courtly wardrobe with its purple. This 
 gives Euphuism real importance, and forces us to ask 
 ourselves exactly what it was. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The medieval mind delighted in allegories, sym- 
 bolism, scholastic distinctions. Science was unknown. 
 Men ascribed strange potencies to plants and minerals 
 and living creatures. The Bestiaries of the convents 
 set forth a system of zoology, invented for edification. 
 No one cared to ascertain what a thing really was. 
 It sufficed to discover some supposed virtue in the 
 thing, or to extract from it some spiritual lesson. 
 When the Revival of Learning began in Italy, 
 students transferred their attention from theology 
 and scholastic logic to classical literature ; but they 
 could not shake off the medieval modes of think- 
 ing. The critical faculty was still dormant. Every 
 ancient author had equal value in their eyes. A 
 habit was formed of citing the Greeks and Romans 
 upon all occasions, parading a facile knowledge of 
 
PETRARCHISTIC MANNERISM. 507 
 
 their books, and quoting anecdotes from antique his- 
 tory without regard for aptness of application. The 
 quibbling of the schoolmen was transferred to scholar- 
 ship and literature. To idle exercise in logic suc- 
 ceeded empty exercise in rhetoric. At the same time, 
 a few great writers founded modern literature. Petrarch 
 and Boccaccio were by no means free from medieval 
 mannerisms. But each, in his own line, stood in a 
 direct relation to real life, and formed a style of dignity 
 and grace. The imitation of the ancients became 
 gradually more intelligent ; and at the opening of 
 the sixteenth century Italy could boast a literature 
 in Latin and the vulgar tongue, eminent for variety, 
 admirable for artistic purity and beauty. At this point 
 a retrograde impulse made itself felt. The Academies 
 began to imitate the faults without the saving graces 
 of their predecessors. Petrarch had shunned common- 
 place by periphrasis and metaphor. The Petrarchisti 
 prided themselves on that ' wonderful art which adorns 
 each thing by words appropriate to others.' When 
 they praised a woman, they called ' her head fine gold 
 or roof of gold ; her eyes, suns, stars, sapphires, nest 
 and home of love ; her cheeks, now snow and roses, 
 now milk and fire ; rubies, her lips ; pearls, her teeth ; 
 her throat and breast, now ivory, now alabaster.'^ 
 Purity of form, propriety of diction, truth to nature, 
 sincerity of presentation, were sacrificed to the manu- 
 facture of conceits. The poet who produced the 
 quaintest verbal conundrums passed for the best wit. 
 Prose style was infected with antithesis. To be sen- 
 tentious about nothing, copious in mythological allu- 
 
 1 S'peron Sperone. See my Renaissance in Italy, vol. v. p. 255. 
 
5o8 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 sion, curious in learning, covered poverty of thought 
 and excused vulgarity of feeling. Writers, who 
 scorned the pedantry of academicians, and sought to 
 take the world by storm — men of Aretino's stamp, 
 Doni, Albicante, Franco, Vergerio — played upon these 
 literary vices. No book, says Doni in his ' Marmi,' 
 has a chance of success, if it appears in modest style 
 with a plain indication of its subject. You must coin 
 attractive titles, ' The Pumpkin,' or ' The Cobbler's 
 Caprices,' or ' The Hospital of Fools,' or ' The Syn- 
 agogue of Ignoramuses,' to carry off your ethical dis- 
 courses. If you want to sell an invective, you must 
 invent for it some bizarre superscription, as, for in- 
 stance : ' The Earthquake of Doni, the Florentine, 
 with the Ruin of a Great Bestial Colossus, the Anti- 
 christ of our Age.' -^ Then folk will read you. Aretino, 
 who thoroughly understood the public, proved his 
 originality by creating a new manner, brassy and 
 meretricious. Antithesis followed antithesis ; forced 
 metaphors, outrageous similes, hyperbolical periphrases, 
 monstrous images, made up a style of clap-trap only 
 to be pardoned by the author's ruffianly power. The 
 manner spread like wild-fire. Campanella in his prison 
 punned upon his surname and peculiarly shaped skull, 
 rejoicing in the sobriquet of ' Settimontano Squilla,' 
 or the 'Seven-hilled Bell,' Bruno uttered his philo- 
 sophy in a jargon of conceits, strained allegories, and 
 allusive metaphors, which is all but incomprehensible. 
 One of his metaphysical works, dedicated to Sir Philip 
 Sidney, bears this title ; ' Lo Spaccio della Bestia 
 Trionfante.' Another is styled : ' Gli Eroici Furori.' 
 
 ' See Renaissance in Italy, vol. v. pp. 95, 96, 
 
VARIED AFFECTATION. 509 
 
 It had become impossible for sage or theologian, 
 satirist or pedant, essayist or versifier, to express him- 
 self with classical propriety or natural directness. 
 Marini, an indubitable poet, consecrated this aberra- 
 tion of taste in his ' Adone,' the marvel of the age, the 
 despair of less authentic bards. 
 
 It was precisely at this point of its development 
 that Italian literature exercised the widest and deepest 
 influence in Europe. The French, the Spaniards, and 
 the English rushed with the enthusiasm of beginners 
 into imitation of Italian vices. An affectation, drawn 
 from many diverse sources, from medieval puerility 
 and humanistic pedantry, from the sentimentalism of 
 the Petrarchisti and the cynical audacities of Aretino, 
 from the languors of Marini and Doni's impudent bids 
 for popularity — an affectation bred in the premature 
 decay of the renascence, invaded every country where 
 Italian culture penetrated. The masterpieces of pure 
 literature, the antique classics, the poems of Petrarch 
 and Ariosto, the histories of Guicciardini and Machia- 
 velli, received due studious attention. But while these 
 .were studied, the mannerisms of feebler men, the faults 
 of contemporaries, were copied. It was easier to catch 
 the trick of an Aretino or a Marini than to emulate 
 the style of a Tasso or a Castiglione. Still, what in Italy 
 had been to some extent a sign of decadence and 
 exhaustion, became, when it was carried to barbarian 
 shores, a petulant parade of youthful vigour. The 
 effete literature of Florence and Venice generated 
 this curious hybrid, which was enthusiastically cul- 
 tivated on the virgin soils of France and Spain and 
 England. It there produced new rarities and deli- 
 
Sio SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 cacies of divinest flavour ; monstrosities also, out- 
 doing in extravagance the strangest of Italian species. 
 Where the national genius displayed a robust natural 
 growth, as in England for example, literature was only 
 superficially affected — in the prose of Lyly, the elegies 
 of Donne, the slender Euphuistic thread that runs 
 in iron through Marlowe, in silver through Shakspere, 
 in bronze through Bacon, in more or less inferior 
 metal through every writer of that age. Teutonic and 
 Celtic qualities absorbed while they assimilated, domi- 
 nated while they suffered, that intrusive Southern 
 element of style. Yet the emphasis added to spon- 
 taneous expression by its foreign accent was so marked 
 that no historian can venture to neglect it. The 
 romantic art of the modern world did not spring, like 
 that of Greece, from an ungarnered field of flowers. 
 Troubled by reminiscences of the past and by re- 
 ciprocal influences from one another, the literatures of 
 modern Europe came into existence with composite 
 dialects, obeyed confused canons of taste, exhibited 
 their adolescent vigour with affected graces, showed 
 themselves senile in their cradles. 
 
 In France the post-Italian affectation ran its course 
 through two marked phases, from Du Bellay and Du 
 Bartas to the Precieuses of the H6tel Rambouillet. 
 In Spain it engendered the poetic diction of Calderon, 
 who called the birds in heaven ' winged harps of gold ; ' 
 and it expired in that esHlo culto of Gongora, which 
 required a new system of punctuation to render its 
 constructions intelligible, and a glossary to explain its 
 metaphors and mythological allusions. Of all parts of 
 Europe, Spain perhaps produced the most extravagant 
 
A 'LUES LITERARIA.' 51 1 
 
 specimens of this preposterous mannerism. In'^England 
 it first appeared as Euphuism, passing on" into the me- 
 taphysical conceits of Cowley and the splendid pedan- 
 tries of Sir Thomas Browne.^ 
 
 This affectation, which I have attempted to trace to 
 its source in Italy, took somewhat different form in each 
 country and in every writer. But its elementary con- 
 ditions were the same. From the Middle Ages sur- 
 vived a love of allegory and symbolism, the habit 
 of scholastic hair-splitting, and the romantic senti- 
 ment which we associate with chivalry. Humanism 
 introduced the uncritical partiality for classical ex- 
 amples and citations, the abuse of mythology, and 
 the sententious prolixity which characterise this literary 
 phase in all its manifestations. The Petrarchisti gave 
 currency to a peculiar conceited style, definable as the 
 persistent effort to express one thing in terms of 
 another, combined with a patient seeking after finished 
 form. The Venetian school of Aretino and his fol- 
 lowers set the fashion of bizarrerie in titles, effect by 
 antithesis, verbal glare and glitter. Marini, preceded 
 
 ' It has been my object in the foregoing paragraphs to describe in 
 general the origins of that Uterary affectation, which appears under many 
 forms and species in Italy, Spain, France, and England, upon the close of 
 the Renaissance — species known to us apart, and designated by the 
 names of eminent or fashionable writers ; of Petrarch and Marini, 
 Montemayor and Gongora, Ronsard and Du Bartas, Lyly and Cowley. 
 I have dwelt upon the generic rather than the specific characteristics of 
 this lues literaria, because I think Euphuism may fairly claim to be a 
 separate type. But I must also here profess my belief in the very close 
 dependence of Lyly's style and matter upon the work of the Spanish 
 author Guevara, without whom, as Dr. Landmann has abundantly proved, 
 Euphuism would certainly not have crystallised into its well-known and 
 characteristic form. In some important respects the species Euphuism, 
 strictly so called, is immediately derived from Guevara's purer and 
 weightier mannerism. See Dr. Landmann's Eupkuismus, Giessen, 1881, 
 and his article in the New Shakspere Society's Transactions, 1880-2. 
 
512 SHAKSPERK'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 by the author of the ' Pastor Fido,' brought the specific 
 note of the new Hterary style — its effort to be rich and 
 rare, at the expense of taste, by far-fetched imagery, 
 surprises, striking metaphors, and unexpected in- 
 genuity in language — into the domain of poetry. In 
 his work it dropped much of its medieval and pedantic 
 apparatus. It shone before the entranced eyes of 
 Europe as an iridescent marvel, on which the intellect 
 and fancy fed with inexhaustible delight. The un- 
 explored riches of modern literatures, exulting in their 
 luxuriance, and envying the fame of Greece and Rome, 
 tempted writers to extravagant experiments in lan- 
 guage. Imagination itself was young, and ran riot in 
 the prodigality of unexhausted forces. 
 
 Euphuism, after this preamble, may be defined as 
 a literary style used by Lyly in his prose works, and 
 adopted into the language of polite society. It is 
 characterised by a superficial tendency to allegory ; by 
 the abuse of easy classical erudition ; by a striving 
 after effect in puns, conceits, and plays on words ; by 
 antithesis of thought and diction, carried to a weari- 
 some extent, and enforced by alliterative and parisonic 
 use of language ; and, finally, by sententious prolixity 
 in the display of commonplace reflections. Lyly's 
 euphuism is further and emphatically distinguished by 
 the reckless employment of an unreal natural history for 
 purposes of illustration. This constitutes what may 
 be termed the keynote of his affectation. He seems 
 to have derived it in the first place from Pliny; but 
 also from the Bestiaries and Lapidaries of the Middle 
 Ages, with indiscriminate reference to Herodotus and 
 Mandeville, and an idle exercise of his inventive 
 
LVLV'S NATURAL HISTORY. 513 
 
 fancy. To animals, plants, stones, &c. he attributes 
 the most absurd properties and far-fetched virtues, 
 applying these to point his morals and adorn his tales. 
 ' Let the falling out of friends,' he writes, ' be the 
 renewing of affection, that in this we may resemble 
 the bones of the lion, which lying still and not moved 
 begin to rot, but being stricken one against another, 
 break out like fire and wax green.' Page after page 
 of his prose runs on after this fashion ; empty, vague, 
 prolix, decorated with preposterous examples. It 
 would be a nice task for idle antiquarian research to 
 discover whether there are or are not sources in 
 medieval erudition for such statements as the follow- 
 ing : 
 
 ' As the fire-stone in Liguria, though it be quenched 
 with milk, yet again it is kindled with water, or as the 
 roots of Anchusa, though it be hardened with water, 
 yet it is made soft with oil.' 
 
 ' As the precious stone Sandrasta hath nothing in 
 outward appearance but that which seemeth black, 
 but being broken poureth forth beams like the sun.' 
 
 ' As by basil the scorpion is engendered, and by 
 the means of the same herb destroyed ... or as the 
 salamander which being a long space nourished in the 
 fire, at the last quencheth it.' 
 
 ' I lived, as the elephant doth by air, with the sight 
 of my lady.' 
 
 ' Like the river in Arabia, which turneth gold to 
 dross, and dirt to silver.' 
 
 ' As the dogs of Egypt drink water by snatches, 
 and so quench their thirst, and not hinder their 
 running.' 
 
 L L 
 
514 SHAICSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 The more sensible readers of Lyly's works seem to 
 have feh the tediousness of this fabulous natural history 
 no less than we do, though certainly the list of Vulgar 
 Errors concerning the fauna and flora of distant lands 
 was then a larger one than it is now. Drayton, pub- 
 lishing his poems in 1627, upon the eve of ' Euphues' ' 
 extinction, says of Sir Philip Sidney that he 
 
 Did first reduce 
 Our tongue fi-om Lyly's writing then in use ; 
 Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies, 
 Playing with words and idle similes ; 
 As the English apes and very zanies be 
 Of everything which they do hear and see, 
 So imitating his ridiculous tricks. 
 They spake and writ, all like mere lunatics. 
 
 V. 
 
 Soon after the publication of ' Euphues,' Lyly 
 attached himself to the Court. In 1582 he was in the 
 service of Lord Burleigh, as appears from a letter of 
 apology written in the summer of that year. In 1590 
 he addressed a petition to the Queen, setting forth his 
 claims to notice, and adding, that ten years had elapsed 
 since ' I was entertained, your Majestj^'s servant, by 
 your own gracious favour.' Lyly's avowed object in 
 following the Court was to gain the place of Master of 
 the Revels. He states in his petition that the rever- 
 sion of that office had been almost promised him. 
 With this aim in view he began to compose comedies, 
 methodically and elaborately flattering the Queen with 
 studied compliment and allegory. But notwithstanding 
 his efforts to please Elizabeth, in spite of lamentable 
 
LIFE AT COURT. 515 
 
 appeals for recognition, he never succeeded in obtaining 
 the coveted post of honour and emolument. It was 
 his doom : 
 
 To lose good nights that might be better spent, 
 To waste long days in pensive discontent, 
 To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow. 
 To feed on hope, and pine with fear and sorrow. 
 
 That his plays were admired, that he was ' graced and 
 rewarded ' with fair speeches, was the utmost he could 
 compass. His last petition, dated 1593, gives forth a 
 wailing note of hope deferred and disappointment. 
 ' Thirteen years your Highness' servant ; but yet 
 nothing ! Twenty friends, that though they say they 
 will be sure, I find them sure to be slow ! A thousand 
 hopes ; but all nothing ! A hundred promises ; but 
 yet nothing ! Thus casting up the inventory of my 
 friends, hopes, promises, and times, the summa totalis 
 amounteth to just nothing. . . . The last and the 
 least, that if I be born to have nothing, I may have a 
 protection to pay nothing ; which suit is like his that 
 having followed the Court ten years, for recompense of 
 his service committed a robbery, and took it out in a 
 pardon.' Lyly survived this petition some years, and 
 died in the first decade of the seventeenth century. 
 
 The inventor of Euphuism spoke from the heart 
 and plainly on his own affairs. His dramatic work 
 is also comparatively free from euphuistic affectation. 
 The soliloquies and monologues, indeed, are often 
 tainted with the author's mannerism. Antitheses and 
 classical allusions abound. All the characters, from 
 the highest to the lowest, use the same refined lan- 
 guage, and seem to have enjoyed a polite education. 
 
 L L 2 
 
Si6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 But the dialogue is for the most part free in style, and 
 terse even to bareness. The lyrics are as neat and 
 delicate as French songs. Some of the scenes suggest 
 antique sculpture, or the subjects of engraved gems. 
 After making due allowance for the alloy of conceits, 
 which mingles with the finer ore of his production, 
 Lyly's style deserves to be called Attic. 
 
 In ' Euphues ' he had given signal proof of his origin- 
 ality. His Comedies were no less new creations. No- 
 thing of the same sort had previously been known in 
 England. They combined the qualities of the Masque 
 and the Drama, interwove classical fable with allegory, 
 and made the whole work of art subservient to compli- 
 ment. We cannot call them Comedies of character, of 
 intrigue, or of manners. They are devoid of plot, and 
 deficient in dramatic movement. But the succession of 
 their scenes is brilliant, their dialogue sparkling, their 
 allegory interesting. The title under which they were 
 published in Blount's edition of 1632 sufficiently de- 
 scribes them. There they are termed Court Come- 
 dies. The curious rarity of their invention is well, 
 though euphuistically, characterised in the same editor's 
 panegyric on the author : ' The spring is at hand, and 
 therefore I present you a Lily growing in a Grove of 
 Laurels. For this poet sat at the sun's table. Apollo 
 gave him a wreath of his own bays, without snatching. 
 The lyre he played on had no borrowed strings.' 
 
'ENDIMION.' 517 
 
 VI. 
 
 Of the eight comedies ascribed to Lyly, ^ six were 
 first exhibited before the Queen's Majesty by the 
 children of her choir and the children of Paul's. Of 
 these six, four were founded upon classical fables ; but 
 the fables only served to veil allusions to the Queen. 
 Each piece forms a studied panegyric of her virtue, 
 beauty, chastity, and wisdom. In ' Endimion ' her 
 loftiness and unapproachable virginity are celebrated. 
 Spenser had already styled her Cynthia. So Lyly's 
 allegory was transparent, and Leicester was easily 
 identified with Endimion. ' What thing,' cries Endi- 
 mion to his friend Eumenides, ' what thing, my 
 mistress excepted, being in the pride of her beauty and 
 latter minute of her age, then waxeth young again ? 
 Tell me, Eumenides, what is he that having a mistress 
 of ripe years and infinite virtues, great honours and 
 unspeakable beauty, but would wish that she might 
 grow tender again ? getting youth by years and never- 
 decaying beauty by time ; whose fair face neither the 
 summer's blaze can scorch, nor the winter's blast chap, 
 nor the numbering of years breed altering of colours. 
 Such is my sweet Cynthia — whom time cannot touch, 
 because she is divine ; nor will offend, because she is 
 
 ' It is certain, I think, that the Maid's Metamorphosis was not Lyly's 
 work. It bears marks of imitation of his style. But the lyrics are not in 
 his manner ; and the subject is handled with far greater dramatic freedom 
 than is usual with Lyly. The rhymed couplets in which a large portion 
 is composed, show the craftsmanship of a different school. We must 
 assign it to a younger playwright, working upon Lyly's lines for the boy- 
 actors of S. Paul's. This comedy was printed anonymously in 1600, the 
 year of Lyly's death, and has been reprinted by Mr. A. H. Sullen. 
 
5i8 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 delicate.' Tellus, who loves Endimion, and to whom 
 he has been privately contracted — the earthly mistress, 
 abandoned for his celestial lady — persuades a witch to 
 charm him into a deep sleep upon a bank of lunary. 
 There he slumbers forty years, till his friend Eumenides 
 discovers from an oracle in Thessaly that Cynthia's kiss 
 will bring him back to life. The great queen of the 
 night, hearing this among her ladies, deigns to visit 
 Endimion, and finds him grown in his long sleep from 
 comely youth to grizzled age. Cynthia stoops above 
 the bed of lunary, and speaks : 
 
 Cynthia. Although my mouth hath been heretofore as untouched 
 as my thoughts, yet now to recover thy Hfe, though to restore thy 
 youth it be impossible, I will do that to Endimion which yet never 
 mortal man could boast of heretofore, nor shall ever hope for here- 
 after. (She kisseth htm.) 
 
 Eumenides. Madam, he beginneth to stir. 
 
 Cynth. Soft, Eumenides ; stand still. 
 
 Eum. Ah, I see his eyes almost open. 
 
 Cynth. I command thee once again, stir not : 
 I will stand behind him. 
 
 Eum. Endimion, Endimion ! art thou deaf or dumb ? Or hath 
 this long sleep taken away thy memory ? Ah ! my sweet Endimion, 
 seest thou not Eumenides, who for thy safety hath been careless 
 of his own content ? Speak, Endimion, Endimion, Endimion ! 
 
 Endimion. Endimion ? I call to mind such a name. 
 
 Eum. Hast thou forgotten thyself, Endimion ? Then do I not 
 marvel thou rememberest not thy friend ! 
 
 Still Endimion will not be stirred from his dead 
 lethargy. Eumenides then points to Cynthia, and the 
 queen speaks : 
 
 Cynth. Endimion, speak, sweet Endimion, knowest thou not 
 Cynthia ? 
 
 End. O heavens, whom do I behold, fair Cynthia, divine 
 Cynthia? 
 
 Cynth. I am Cynthia, and thou Endimion. 
 
ALLEGORY OF ^ENDIMION.' 519 
 
 End. Endimion ? What do I here ? What, a grey beard ? 
 Withered body ? Decayed limbs ? And all in one night ? 
 
 Eum. One night? Thou hast slept here forty years, by what 
 enchantress as yet it is not known ; and behold, the twig to which 
 thou layedst thy head, is now become a tree ! Callest thou not 
 Eumenides to remembrance ? 
 
 End. Thy name I do remember by the sound ; but thy favour 
 I do not yet call to mind. Only divine Cynthia, to whom time, 
 fortune, death, and destiny are subject, I see and remember ; and 
 in all humility I regard and reverence. 
 
 Thus Endimion returns to consciousness ; and when 
 the charm has been removed, and his youth has been 
 miraculously restored, the handsome shepherd concludes 
 the play with this courtly speech : ' The time was, 
 madam, and is, and ever shall be, that I honoured your 
 highness above all the world ; but to stretch it so far 
 as to call it love, I never durst.' He therefore resolves 
 to consecrate the whole of his life to the contemplation 
 of Cynthia's perfections. 
 
 Lyly warns his audience in the prologue that this 
 play is but 'a tale of the Man in the Moon,' and 
 specially requests them not ' apply pastimes,' or, in 
 other words, to affix real names to his fancied characters.^ 
 Yet this has since been done for him ; and it is highly 
 probable that Tellus was meant for Leicester's wife 
 Lady Sheffield, and Dipsas the witch for the Countess 
 of Shrewsbury.^ It is not impossible that the poet's 
 career at Court was injured by the application of his 
 somewhat too transparent allegory. 
 
 ' This use of the verb ' to apply ' and of the noun ' application ' is 
 common enough in our dramatic authors. Numerous examples might 
 be adduced from Ben Jonson. 
 
 " See Mr. Halpin's essay in the Old Shakespeare Society's publi- 
 cations, 
 
520 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 ' Endimion ' has no dramatic interest ; it is nothing . 
 but a censer of exquisitely chased silver, full of incense, 
 to be tossed before Elizabeth upon her throne, with 
 Leicester and her ladies at her side. Yet the compli- 
 ment is never gross. The theme of purity in a divine 
 or royal maiden is one of the most delicate that art 
 can touch. Lyly has treated it with quaint and courtly 
 grace. The placidity of the piece seems well suited to 
 those childish actors, whose tender years and boyish 
 voices were more in harmony with Lyly's studied 
 diction and tranquil fancy than with the terrible 
 passion and heroic utterance of a Marlowe or a Shak- 
 spere. Hazlitt has praised the comedy with uncritical 
 extravagance ; he seems to have read it with the eyes 
 of Keats, exclaiming : ' Happy Endimion ! faithful 
 Eumenides ! divine Cynthia ! Who would not wish 
 to pass his life in such a sleep — a long, long sleep, 
 dreaming of some fair heavenly goddess, with the moon 
 shining over his face and the trees growing silently 
 over his head ? ' This rapture is appropriate enough 
 to the myth of Endymion upon Mount Latmos, as we 
 see it sculptured on the bas-reliefs of old sarcophagi, 
 where the shepherd is a youth for ever sleeping and 
 for ever young, and the moon steps nightly from her 
 dragon-car to kiss her dearest. But it does not better 
 Lyly's comedy to pretend that he dreamed of Endymion 
 as Keats dreamed, or to fancy that these scenes were 
 presented with classical accuracy. In reading it, we 
 must picture to our mind a large low room in the 
 palace of Greenwich. The time is 'New Year's Day at 
 night.' The actors are the ' children of Paul's.' Candles 
 
'MID as: 521 
 
 light the stage, in front of which are drawn silk curtains. 
 Elizabeth, in all her bravery of ruffs and farthingales, 
 with chains and orders round her neck, and the sharp 
 smile on her mouth, is seated beneath a canopy of 
 state. Lords, ladies, and ambassadors watch her face, 
 as courtiers watch a queen. On the stage lies no 
 Hellenic shepherd in the bloom of youth, but a boy 
 attired in sylvan style to represent an aged man with 
 flowing beard. Cynthia — not the solitary maiden 
 goddess, led by Cupid, wafting her long raiment to the 
 breeze of night ; but a queen among her ladies, a boy 
 disguised to personate Elizabeth herself — bends over 
 him. And Endymion's dream, when he awakes, has 
 been no fair romance of love revealed in slumber, but 
 a vision of treason, envy, ingratitude, assassination, 
 threatening his sovereign. 
 
 VII. 
 
 ' Midas ' is another Court Comedy on a classical 
 story, treated with even more obvious reference to 
 public events. Hazlitt, who often praises the right 
 things for wrong reasons, talks of being transported to 
 ' the scene of action, to ancient Greece and Asia Minor.' 
 Lyly, according to this critic, succeeded in preserving 
 ' the manners, the images, the traditions ' — as though 
 anybody knew what the traditions and manners of 
 prehistoric Phrygia may have been ! Local colour is 
 just what Lyly has not got, or sought to get, in ' Midas.' 
 His shepherds, who fancy that ' the very reeds bow 
 down as though they listened to their talk,' are shep- 
 
522 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 herds of the poet's fancy, gazing at reeds that might 
 grow and rustle on an English just as well as on a 
 Mysian common. The courtiers, kings, and clowns, 
 nay, the very gods, talk like English people ; and this 
 is their chief merit, for the English of their speech is 
 pure and undefiled. Lyly, in truth, is never classical 
 by imitation of the classics, but by a certain simplicity 
 of conception and purity of outline, which remind us 
 of antique workmanship. In this comedy Midas is an 
 unmistakable Philip II. The Lesbos upon which he 
 tries to lay his hand is England. The gift, which 
 brings a curse, conferred on him by Bacchus, is the 
 wealth of the West Indies, flowing into Spain and 
 paralysing her activity. The touch that turns all things 
 to gold, 'the gold that thou dost think a god,' is Philip's 
 vain and ruinous reliance on his riches. The ass's 
 ears, which Midas cannot lose till he leaves Lesbos, 
 are his arrogance and folly. Whenever Midas speaks, 
 we read allusions to cruelties in the Low Countries, to 
 the Armada, to Spanish plots in England, to Philip's 
 aggressive policy in Europe. — ' I have written my laws 
 in blood, and made my gods of gold. Have I not made 
 the sea to groan under the number of my ships ; and 
 have they not perished, that there was not two left to 
 make a number ? Have I not enticed the subjects of 
 my neighbour princes to destroy their natural kings ? 
 To what kingdom have I not pretended claim ? A 
 bridge of gold did I mean to make in that island where 
 all my navy could not make a breach. Have not all 
 treasons been discovered by miracle, not counsel ? Is 
 not the country walled with huge waves ? ' 
 
 For the sake of proving Lyly's political allusions, I 
 
'SAP HO AND PHAO: 523 
 
 have singled out, perhaps, the prosiest passage in this 
 comedy. But the malice of making Philip utter a short 
 summary of his own crimes before the throne of his 
 triumphant sister-in-law is so crudely and effectively 
 direct, that the quotation yields a savour above the 
 choicest flowers of Euphuism. 
 
 In 'Sapho and Phao' the poet shows a queen 
 enthralled by love for a poor ferryman. Venus made 
 Phao so fair that all who saw him doted on his beauty. 
 Sapho, the virgin queen of Sicily, gazed and sighed. 
 Venus herself, by Cupid's spite, was entangled in the 
 snare which she had spread for Sapho. Here, again, 
 the allegory is not hard to read ; and the end of 
 the comedy must have been flatteringly grateful to 
 Elizabeth. Sapho is released by Cupid from the pangs 
 in which she had a goddess for companion. Phao is 
 left to languish for her in hopeless and respectful 
 longing. His last words to his royal mistress — ' O 
 Sapho, thou hast Cupid in thine arms, I in my heart ; 
 thou kissest him for sport, I must curse him for spite : 
 yet will I not curse him, Sapho, whom thou kissest. 
 This shall be my resolution : wherever I wander, to be 
 as I were ever kneeling before Sapho ; my loyalty 
 unspotted, though unrewarded ' — this declaration of 
 everlasting service embodied the essence of that pas- 
 sionate homage and romantic adoration, that chival- 
 rous self-devotion and Platonic constancy, that blind 
 enchantment and enthusiastic worship, with which, as 
 with a phantom and vain show of happiness, the Queen 
 consoled her solitude. Some of the pictures in this 
 play are daintily conceited. Nothing in the Dresden 
 china style of antiquated compliment is prettier than 
 
524 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 the first meeting of Sapho with Phao on the ferry-boat, 
 unless it is their conversation when he brings narcotic 
 herbs to soothe her into sleep : 
 
 Sapho. What herbs have you brought, Phao ? 
 
 Phao. Such as will make you sleep, madam, though they cannot 
 make me slumber. 
 
 S. Why, how can you cure me when you cannot remedy yourself? 
 
 P. Yes, madam ; the causes are contrary. For it is only a dry- 
 ness in your brains that keepeth you from rest. But 
 
 S. But what ? 
 
 P. Nothing — but mine is not so. 
 
 S. Nay, then I despair of help, if our disease be not all one. 
 
 P. I would our diseases were all one. 
 
 S. It goes hard with the patient, when the physician is desperate. 
 
 P. Yet Medea made the ever-waking dragon to snort, when she, 
 poor soul, could not wink. 
 
 ^. Medea was in love, and nothing could cause her rest but 
 Jason. 
 
 P. Indeed I know no herb to make lovers sleep, but hearts- 
 ease ; which because it groweth so high, I cannot reach for. 
 
 S. For whom ? 
 
 P. For such as love. 
 
 S. It stoopeth very low, and I can never stoop to it, that 
 
 P. That what? 
 
 S. That I may gather it : but why do you sigh so, Phao ? 
 
 P. It is mine use, madam. 
 
 S. It will do you harm, and me too : for I never hear one sigh, 
 but I must sigh also. 
 
 P. It were best then that your ladyship give me leave to be gone: 
 for I can but sigh. 
 
 S. Nay, stay, for now I begin to sigh, I shall not leave though 
 you begone. But what do you think best for your sighing, to take it 
 away? 
 
 P. Yew, madam. 
 
 S. Me? 
 
 P. No, madam ; yew of the tree. 
 
 S. Then will I love yew the better. And indeed it would make 
 me sleep too ; therefore all other simples set aside, I will simply use 
 only yew. 
 
 P. Do, madam ; for I think nothing in the world so good as yew. 
 
 S. Farewell for this time. 
 
USE OF CLASSICAL MOTIVES. 525 
 
 The outrageous plays on words and stiff mannerism — 
 as of box hedges in an antiquated pleasance cut into 
 quaint shapes — which characterise the dialogue, do not, 
 to my sense at least, deprive it of a very piquant 
 charm. 
 
 The song of the love-sick queen is a fair, though 
 not a perfect, specimen of Lyly's lyric. Sapho, finding 
 herself alone, exclaims : 
 
 Ah, impatient disease of love, and goddess of love thrice unpitiful ! 
 The eagle is never stricken with thunder, nor the olive with lightning; 
 and may great ladies be plagued with love ? O Venus, have I not 
 strawed thine altars with sweet roses ? kept thy swans in clear 
 rivers ? fed thy sparrows with ripe corn, and harboured thy doves 
 in fair house ? 
 
 Sleep will not visit her, and she lays her curse on Cupid 
 in these rhymes : 
 
 O cruel Love ! on thee I lay 
 My curse, which shall strike blind the day ; 
 Never may sleep with velvet hand 
 Charm thine eyes with sacred wand ; 
 Thy jailors shall be hopes and fears ; 
 Thy prison-mates, groans, sighs, and tears ; 
 Thy play to wear out weary times. 
 Fantastic passions, vows and rhymes. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Lyly takes the same liberties with the story of 
 Sappho that he took with the legend of Endymion. 
 He chose to see in her a love-sick sovereign, whose 
 history might be pointed so as to flatter the Queen of 
 England. Beyond her name she has nothing in common 
 with the Lesbian poetess. In ' Alexander and Cam- 
 paspe ' he again touches on Greek history — showing 
 
526 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 how noble a thing it was for the conqueror of the world 
 to prefer the toils of sovereignty to the delights of love. 
 Alexander, after taking Thebes, becomes enamoured 
 of his captive, the beautiful Campaspe. He makes 
 Apelles paint her portrait ; and Apelles loves her with 
 a warmth that conquers in her soul the love of 
 Alexander. The king, discovering their mutual passion, 
 generously betroths the lady to the painter, consoles 
 himself with Hephsestion's friendship, and marches 
 off with drum and fife to subdue Asia. The moral 
 must have been consoling to Elizabeth, who always 
 faltered between passion and her crown. This comedy, 
 though it is nothing but a dramatised anecdote, is, I 
 think, the best of Lyly's. He has caught something 
 of Plutarch's spirit, sympathising, as the English of 
 that age could do, with the martial greatness of 
 Alexander, the audacity of Alcibiades, the strong 
 resolves of Epameinondas or Timoleon. In the dia- 
 logues between Alexander and Diogenes, Lyly was 
 able to bring his own fencing style into appropriate 
 play. Careless, as usual, of Greek local colouring, 
 these combats of wit express the well-known episode 
 with terse and vivid fancy. There is something akin 
 to Shakspere's ' Timon ' in the following : 
 
 Diog. Who calleth ? 
 
 Alex. Alexander ; how happened it that you would not come out 
 of your tub to my palace ? 
 
 D. Because it was as far from my tub to your palace, as from 
 your palace to my tub. 
 
 A. Why then, dost thou owe no reverence to kings ? 
 
 D. No. 
 
 A. Why so ? 
 
 D. Because they be no gods. 
 
 A. They be gods of the earth. 
 
'ALEXANDER AND CAMPASPE.' 527 
 
 D. Yea, gods of earth. 
 
 A. Plato is not of thy mind. 
 
 D. I am glad of it. 
 
 A. Why? 
 
 D. Because I would have none of Diogenes' mind but Diogenes. 
 
 A. If Alexander have anything that may pleasure Diogenes, let 
 me know, and take it. 
 
 D. Then take not from me that you cannot give me, the light of 
 the world. 
 
 A. What dost thou want ? 
 
 D. Nothing that you have. 
 
 A. I have the world at command. 
 
 Z>. And I in contempt. 
 
 A. Thou shalt live no longer than I will. 
 
 Z>. But I shall die whether you will or not. 
 
 A. How should one learn to be content ? 
 
 Z>. Unlearn to covet. 
 
 A. Hephsestion ! Were I not Alexander, I would wish to be 
 Diogenes. 
 
 Between Apelles and Campaspe there is a pretty 
 conceited dialogue on love. Apelles is showing the 
 pictures in his studio : 
 
 Camp. What counterfeit is this, Apelles ? 
 Apelles. This is Venus, the goddess of love. 
 C. What, be there also loving goddesses ? 
 
 A. This is she that hath power to command the very affections 
 of the heart. 
 
 C. How is she hired— by prayer, by sacrifice, or bribes ? 
 
 A. By prayer, sacrifice, and bribes. 
 
 C. What prayer ? 
 
 A. Vows irrevocable. 
 
 C. What sacrifice ? 
 
 A. Hearts ever sighing, never dissembling. 
 
 C. What bribes ? 
 
 A. Roses and kisses ; but were you never in love ? 
 
 C. No, nor love in me. 
 
 A. Then have yoU injured many. 
 
 C. How so ? 
 
 A. Because you have been loved of many. 
 
 C. Flattered perchance of some. 
 
528 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 A. It is not possible that a face so fair and a wit so sharp, both 
 without comparison, should not be apt to love. 
 
 C. If you begin to tip your tongue with cunning, I pray you 
 dip your pencil in colours ; and fall to that you must do, not to that 
 you would do. 
 
 The lyrics in the play are also among Lyly's best. 
 
 Apelles' song, 'Cupid and my Campaspe played,' is 
 
 too well known to need a word of commendation. But 
 
 this upon the notes of birds deserves to be recovered 
 
 from the somewhat tedious scene in which it lies 
 
 embedded : 
 
 What bird so sings, yet so does wail ? 
 Oh, 't is the ravished nightingale ! 
 Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu, she cries ; 
 And still her woes at midnight rise. 
 Brave prick-song ! Who is 't now we hear ? 
 None but the lark, so shrill and clear ; 
 How at heaven's gates she claps her wings. 
 The morn not waking till she sings ! 
 Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat 
 Poor Robin red-breast tunes his note ! 
 Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing 
 Cuckoo, to welcome in the spring — 
 Cuckoo, to welcome in the spring ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 ' Gallathea ' deserves to be classed with its author's 
 complimentary Court Comedies. The scene is laid in 
 Lincolnshire. The plot turns upon the yearly sacri- 
 fice of a virgin to the sea-monster Agar, in whom we 
 may discern the yEgir, or great wave of the river^ 
 H umber. Diana and her nymphs, Neptune and 
 Venus, Tityrus and Melibceus, with augurs, alchemists, 
 and English clowns, make up the motley list of per- 
 sonages. To discuss this play in detail would be 
 
'gallathea; ' love's metamorphosis.' 529 
 
 superfluous. But I cannot refrain from calling atten- 
 tion to the pretty underplot of Phyllida and Gallathea, 
 two girls disguised in male attire. Each thinks the 
 other is what she pretends to be, and falls in love with 
 her companion as a boy. The double confusion is 
 sustained with art and delicacy, considering the diffi- 
 culty of the motive ; and occasion is given for a suc- 
 cession of dialogues in Lyly's quaintest style.-' His 
 peculiar charm of treatment might also be illustrated 
 by the scene in which Diana catches Cupid, cuts his 
 wings, burns his arrows, and exposes him bound 
 to the resentment of her nymphs.^ In clear sim- 
 plicity and perfect outline, this picture resembles an 
 intaglio cut to illustrate some passage of Anacreon: 
 The proclamation to the nymphs, who have been hurt 
 by Cupid, is written in three graceful lyric stanzas, 
 sung by solo voices and chorus : ' 
 
 O yes ! O yes ! has any lost 
 
 A heart which many a sigh hath cost ? 
 
 Is any cozened of a tear, 
 
 Which, as a pearl, disdain doth wear ? 
 
 Here stands the thief ! let her but come 
 
 Hither, and lay on him her doom. 
 
 The sentiment of virginity, which forms the moral 
 element in ' Gallathea,' refers to Elizabeth ; and the 
 same motive is worked up in ' Love's Metamorphosis.' 
 Cupid again runs wild, and makes mischief among the 
 nymphs of Ceres. Ceres in this play assumes the 
 same attitude as Diana in the former. The pastoral 
 subject once more furnishes the author with subjects 
 for idyllically classical episodes. Among these, the 
 
 ' Act ii. so. I, iii. 2, iv. 4, v. 3. '^ Act iii. sc. 4. 
 
 ' Act iv. sc. 2. 
 
 M M 
 
530 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 scene of the nymphs adorning a rustic altar on their 
 harvest holyday might be chosen for quotation.^ Ben 
 Jonson deigned to imitate it in ' Pan's Anniversary,' 
 as in his ' Hue and Cry after Cupid ' he borrowed the 
 motive of Diana's proclamation from ' Gallathea.' 
 
 Two Comedies by Lyly remain to be briefly men- 
 tioned. One, called ' Mother Bombie,' is a tedious 
 love- farce representing English manners. It scarcely 
 deserves to be remembered, but for a pretty song 
 introduced by way of a duet : 
 
 O Cupid ! Monarch over kings ! 
 
 Wherefore hast thou feet and wings ? 
 
 Is it to show how swift thou art, 
 
 When thou wouldst wound a tender heart ? 
 
 Thy wings bfeing dipped, and feet held still, 
 
 Thy bow so many could not kill. 
 
 It is all one in Venus' wanton school 
 Who highest sits, the wise man or the fool ! 
 
 Fools in love's college 
 
 Have far more knowledge 
 
 To read a woman over. 
 
 Than a neat prating lover. 
 
 Nay, 't is confessed 
 
 That fools please women best ! 
 
 ' The Woman in the Moon ' was Lyly's first dra- 
 matic essay, as we read in the Prologue : 
 
 Remember all is but a poet's dream, 
 The first he had in Phoebus' holy bower, 
 But not the last, unless the first displease. 
 
 Unlike his other Comedies, it is written throughout in 
 blank verse, and is free from euphuistic mannerism. 
 These "peculiarities induce a doubt as to whether it 
 was really Lyly's composition. But since the play 
 
 ' Act i. sc. 2. 
 
' THE WOMAN IN THE MOON! 531 
 
 was printed with his name in 1597, three years before 
 his death, there is no sufficient reason to reject it from 
 the list of his works. We must rather suppose that 
 he had not formed his style when he made this earliest 
 attempt at writing for the stage. The allegory, if it 
 was meant to have any reference to the Queen, is 
 rather satirical than complimentary. Nature forms a 
 woman at the entreaty of the shepherds of Utopia. 
 She calls her Pandora, and dowers her with exceeding 
 beauty. The stars in jealousy shower vices on her 
 head. Saturn gives her churlishness ; Jupiter adds 
 pride ; Mars turns her to a vixen. Under the rule of 
 Sol, she marries Stesias, a shepherd of that land. In 
 the ascendency of Venus, she turns wanton. Mercury 
 fills her with cunning and falsehood. Cynthia makes 
 her, like herself, ' new-fangled, fickle, slothful, foolish, 
 mad.' Stesias watches all these phases of her nature 
 with horror, and prays to be delivered from the tor- 
 ment of such a wife. Pandora at length is relegated 
 to the moon, and ordered to rule that inconstant lu- 
 minary, while Cynthia haunts the woods or dwells 
 with Pluto on the throne of Hecate. It seems singular 
 that Lyly should have made his d^but at Court with 
 this satire upon women and on Cynthia herself.^ 
 
 ' Were it not for the reason given above, I should be inclined to 
 reject The Woman in the Moon. If it was Lyly's first work, it must have 
 been written before 1 584 (the date of Canipasp^s publication). This was 
 very early in the development of dramatic blank verse. The title, again, 
 might pass for a parody of his Endimion or The Man in the Moon ; 
 while the satire of the piece parodies his style of compliment to Elizabeth. 
 The title-page of 1597 adds, 'as it was presented before her Highness.' 
 Yet Edward Blount, in his edition of Lyly's Six Court Comedies (1632), 
 neither included nor mentioned it. Love's Metamorphosis he also 
 excluded ; but in the first edition of this play (1601) it is not mentioned 
 as having been performed before the Queen. 
 
 M M 2 
 
532 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 X. 
 
 As the first considerable poet who composed the 
 imaginative pieces which we call Court Comedies, Lyly 
 holds an important place in our dramatic history. He 
 invented a species. Both Shakspere and Fletcher knew 
 well how to profit by his discovery. Shakspere was just 
 twenty when ' Alexander and Campaspe ' appeared. 
 He arrived in London, and began to work for the 
 stage soon after this date. Lyly exercised considerable 
 influence over his imagination and his method of pro- 
 duction. The earlier Shaksperian Comedies abound in 
 eughuistic dialogues, and display minute evidences of 
 euphuistic studies. Beatrice and Benedick, Timon 
 and Apemantus, can be traced by no uncertain method 
 to the poet's early admiration for John Lyly. Dog- 
 berry owes something to the Watch in 'Endimion;' 
 the fairies of ' The Merry Wives of Windsor ' owe 
 even more to a catch-song in that comedy. The 
 confused sexes and complicated loves of Phyllida and 
 Gallathea reappear in ' As You Like It.' Lyly's lark- 
 note from ' Campaspe ' sounds again in ' Cymbeline.' 
 The elder playwright had styled two of his Comedies 
 ('Sapho' and 'The Woman in the Moon') dreams. 
 The younger gave the world a masterpiece in the 
 romantic style of Comedy, when he produced his 
 ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' 
 
 Lyly was emphatically a discoverer. He dis- 
 covered euphuism, and created a fashionable afifecta- 
 tion, which ran its course of more than twenty years. 
 He discovered the dialogue of repartee in witty prose. 
 
LYLV'S ORIGINALITY. 533 
 
 He discovered the ambiguity of the sexes, as a motive 
 of dramatic curiosity. He discovered what effective 
 use might be made of the occasional lyric, as an ad- 
 junct to dramatic action. He discovered the sug- 
 gestion of dramatic dreaming. He discovered the 
 combination of Masque and Drama, which gave rise 
 to the Courtly or Romantic Comedy. 
 
 Shakspere bettered Lyly's best, and used his dis- 
 coveries with such artistic freedom, such poetic su- 
 premacy, that we are tempted to forget the quaint 
 petitioner at Court who ' fished the murex up.' It is 
 the duty, however, of historic criticism to indicate 
 origins. And in the study of Shakspere we are bound 
 to remember that Lyly preceded him ; just as when we 
 estimate the greatness of Michel Angelo in Rome, we 
 have to turn our eyes back upon Ghirlandajo and 
 Signorelli. 
 
534 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GREENE, PEELE, NASH, AND LODGE. 
 
 I. Playwrights in Possession of the Stage before Shakspere — The Scholar- 
 Poets — Jonson's Comparison of Shakspere with his Peers — The 
 Meaning of those Lines — Analysis of the Six Scholar-Poets. — IL 
 Men of Fair Birth and Good Education — The Four Subjects of this 
 Study. — III. The Romance of Robert Greene's Life — His Autobio- 
 graphical Novels — His Miserable Death — The Criticism of his 
 Character — His Associates. — IV. Greene's Quarrel with Shakspere and 
 the Playing Companies — His Vicissitudes as a Playwright — His 
 Jealousy. — V. Greene's transient Popularity — Euphuistic Novels — 
 Specimens of his Lyrics — Facility of Lyric Verse in England.— VI. 
 Greene's Plays betray the Novelist — None survive from the Period 
 before Marlowe — ' James IV. of Scotland ' — Its Induction — The Cha- 
 racter of Ida — 'Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay' — Florid Pedantry a 
 Mark of Greene's Style. — VII. Peele — Campbell's Criticism — His 
 Place among Contemporaries — 'Edward I.' — 'Battle of Alcazar' — 
 'Old Wives' Tale' — Mihon's ' Comus' — 'The Arraignment of Paris' 
 — 'David and Bethsabe' — Non-Dramatic Pieces by Peele. — VIII. 
 Thomas Nash — The Satirist — His Quarrel with Harvey — His 
 Description of a Bohemian Poet's Difficulties — The Isle of Dogs — 
 His Part in ' Dido, Queen of Carthage ' — ' Will Summer's Testament' 
 — Nash's Songs. — IX. Thomas Lodge — His Life — His Miscellaneous 
 Writings — ' Wounds of Civil War.' — X. The Relative Value of these 
 Four Authors. 
 
 I. 
 
 When Shakspere left Stratford-upon-Avon for London, 
 and began his career as actor and arranger of old 
 plays for the Lord Chamberlain's Servants, a group of 
 distinguished scholar-poets held possession of the 
 stage. The date of this event, so memorable in 
 modern literary history, cannot be fixed with certainty. 
 But we may refer it with probability to the year 1585. 
 
THE SCHOLAR-PLAYWRIGHTS. 535 
 
 Before 1600 Shakspere had already shown himself the 
 greatest dramatist of the romantic school, not only by 
 the production but also by the publication of his earlier 
 comedies and tragedies. In that period of fifteen 
 years, between 1585 and 1600, the men of whom I 
 speak either died or left off writing for the theatre. 
 They were Robert Greene, George Peele, Christopher 
 Marlowe, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Nash, and Thomas 
 Kyd. Greene died in 1592, Marlowe in 1593, Peele 
 in 1597, Kyd not later than 1594. Nash produced his 
 only extant play in 1592, and died soon after 1600. 
 The tragedy by which Lodge is best known as a play- 
 wright, was printed in 1594. He exchanged literature 
 for medicine, and practised as a physician until his 
 death in 1625. Lyly, it will be remembered, died soon 
 after 1600. 
 
 These are the playwrights with whom Ben Jonson, 
 in his famous elegy, thought fit to compare Shakspere 
 — not, as it seems to me, in spite, but because they 
 were contemporaries. William Basse, writing on the 
 same occasion, bade Spenser, Chaucer, and Beaumont 
 lie somewhat closer, each to each, in order to make 
 room for Shakspere in their ' threefold, fourfold tomb.' 
 Jonson says he will not use a similar rhetorical con- 
 trivance ; for Shakspere is ' a monument without a 
 tomb,' living as long as his book lives, as long as there 
 are men to read and praise him. Then he proceeds : 
 
 That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses, 
 I mean with great, but disproportioned Muses ; 
 For if I thought my judgment were of years, 
 I should commit thee surely with thy peers, 
 And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine. 
 Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line. 
 
536 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 That he meant no disparagement to Shakspere is 
 manifest from his immediately calling upon ^schylus, 
 Sophocles, and Euripides, on Aristophanes, and on the 
 tragic and comic poets of Rome, to rise and admire 
 Shakspere's masterpieces in both kinds. To time 
 Shakspere is no tributary, nor are his works subject 
 to comparisons based on considerations of chronology 
 or nationality : 
 
 Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show, 
 To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. 
 He was not of an age, but for all time ! 
 And all the Muses still were in their prime, 
 When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm 
 Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm ! 
 
 I have dwelt upon this elegy, not merely to disprove 
 the false inference which some have drawn from it to 
 Jonson's disadvantage, but also to show how a great 
 contemporary poet regarded Shakspere's relation to 
 his comrades in the dramatic art. If Shakspere is to 
 be judged by ' years,' by chronological parallelism, 
 says Jonson, he must be compared with that group of 
 playwrights of whom Lyly, Marlowe, and Kyd are 
 representatives. But Shakspere is amenable to no 
 such jurisdiction. He belongs to the world and to all 
 ages. The incarnation of his spirit at that precise 
 moment is a matter of indifference. 
 
 The group of six dramatists enumerated above 
 must further be distinguished. Marlowe stands apart, 
 as a vastly superior genius, the true founder of Shak- 
 sperian drama, a pioneer and creator in the highest 
 sense. Kyd is separated from the rest by the com- 
 parative insignificance of what remains to us of his 
 
GREENE'S COTERIE. 537 
 
 work. Greene heads a little coterie of writers bound 
 together by ties of personal comradeship, and animated 
 by a common spirit. Greene, Peele, Nash, and Lodge 
 attach themselves to the past rather than the future. 
 They submit to Marlowe's unavoidable dictatorship, 
 and receive him into their society. But they belong 
 to a school which became doubly antiquated in their 
 lifetime. Marlowe outshone them ; and Shakspere, as 
 they were uneasily conscious, was destined to eclipse 
 them altogether. I propose, therefore, to treat now of 
 these four friends, having already given a word to Kyd 
 in isolation, while I reserve a separate study for the 
 greatest poet of the group. This method conforms to 
 the evolution of the Drama. But it has the dis- 
 advantage of anticipating what properly belongs to 
 the criticism of Marlowe. He revolutionised the 
 English stage during Greene's ascendency, and forced 
 his predecessors to adapt their style to his inventions. 
 
 II. 
 
 The men of letters who form the subject of this 
 study were respectably born and highly educated. 
 They prided themselves on being gentlemen and 
 scholars. Masters of Arts in both Universities. Robert 
 Greene was the son of well-to-do citizens of Norwich, 
 where he was born perhaps about the year 1550.^ He 
 took his Bachelor's degree at Cambridge in 1578, and 
 passed Master in 1583. George Peele was a gentle- 
 man of Devonshire, born about 1558, instructed in 
 the rudiments at Christ's Hospital, elected Student 
 
 • This date is quite uncertain. 
 
538 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 of Christ Church in 1573, and admitted Bachelor of 
 Arts in 1577. While still at Oxford, he acquired con- 
 siderable literary reputation, and was praised by Dr. 
 Gager — no mean judge — for his English version of an 
 ' Iphigeneia.' Thomas Lodge was the second son of 
 Sir Thomas Lodge, Lord Mayor of London, by his 
 wife Anne, a daughter of Sir William Laxton. Born 
 in 1557, he took his degree at Oxford in 1577, and 
 entered the Society of Lincoln's Inn next year. Being 
 of a roving nature. Lodge never settled down to litera- 
 ture. After wasting the time which ought to have 
 been given to law studies, he joined the expeditions of 
 Captain Clarke and Cavendish, visited the Canary 
 Islands, and penned a fashionable romance in the 
 Straits of Magellan. On his return to England he 
 adopted medicine as a profession, studied at Avignon, 
 and established himself as a practitioner in London. 
 Upon his title-pages he was always careful to describe 
 himself ' Thomas Lodge of Lincoln's Inn Gentleman.' 
 Greene assumed the style of ' Magister utriusque 
 Academiae,' and Peele insisted on his Master of Arts 
 degree. Thomas Nash, descended from an honour- 
 able family in Herefordshire, was born at Lowestoft in 
 1567. He took his degree at Cambridge in 1585, and 
 after travelling in Italy, came up to London, where we 
 find him engaged in literary work with Greene about 
 the year 1587. 
 
 Unlike Lyly, these four friends did not attach 
 themselves to the Court. They worked for book- 
 sellers and public theatres, selling their compositions, 
 and living on the produce of their pen. They seem 
 to have been diverted from more serious studies and a 
 settled career by the attractions of Bohemian life in 
 
BOHEMIAN LIFE. 539 
 
 London. What we know of their biography, proves 
 how fully some of them deserved the stigma for 
 vagrancy, loose living, and profanity, which then at- 
 tached to players and playwrights. Excluded from 
 respectable society, depending on the liberality of 
 booksellers and managers, with no definite profession, 
 enrolled in no acknowledged guild or corporation, they 
 passed their time at taverns, frequented low houses of 
 debauchery, and spent their earnings in the company 
 of thieves and ruffians. In this general description it 
 would not be quite safe to insert the name of Thomas 
 Lodge, though we may presume that he shared in the 
 amusements, and possibly also, if we ascribe biographical 
 value to his ' Alarum against Usurers,' in the pecuniary 
 troubles of his literary friends. But Lodge was almost 
 too scrupulous to keep aloof from the set before the 
 public, describing himself as ' Gentleman ' and ' of 
 Lincoln's Inn.' From the degradation which then 
 attached to professional literature no one did so much to 
 elevate the playwright's calling as Shakspere. He found 
 it sunk below contempt, not only in the estimation of 
 Puritans, but also in fact, patent to every observer of 
 the lives of men like Marlowe, Greene, and Peele. 
 Styling themselves scholars, and boasting their acade- 
 mical degrees, they chose a theatrical career because 
 of its lawlessness and jollity. Shakspere came from 
 Stratford with no such pretensions, adopted the stage 
 as a profession, and dignified it by his honest labour.^ 
 
 ' Notice the curious praise bestowed upon Shakspere for respect- 
 ability by Chettle in h.\s Kind-Harts Dreame. He apologises for having 
 printed some offensive passages in Greene's posthumous Groatsworth 
 of Wit, and distinctly asserts Shakspere's superiority to the Bohemian 
 playwrights. Quoted by Dyce in his edition of Marlowe (1858), p. xxix. 
 
54° SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 III. 
 
 The romance of Greene's life has been often told ; 
 but it so exactly illustrates the conditions under which 
 our playwrights at this epoch laboured, that I cannot 
 omit to pass it in review. The details are gathered 
 not only from uncontradicted statements of his literary 
 enemies, but also from his own autobiographical writ- 
 ings, ' Never too Late,' ' A Groatsworth of Wit,' and 
 ' The Repentance of Robert Greene.' Laboriously 
 pieced together from the extracts furnished by Alex- 
 ander Dyce, and illustrated by gleanings from con- 
 temporary tracts, the record of Greene's brief career 
 and miserable end may be presented with some com- 
 pleteness. 
 
 After taking his degree as Bachelor of Arts in 
 1578, Greene left England, persuaded by some college 
 associates, to wander over Spain and Italy. ' For being 
 at the University of Cambridge, I light amongst wags as 
 lewd as myself, with whom I consumed the flower of 
 my youth ; who drew me to travel into Italy and Spain, 
 in which places I saw and practised such villany as is 
 abominable to declare.' His early friends and comrades 
 are described in the following sentence : ' Being then 
 conversant with notable braggarts, boon companions, 
 and ordinary spendthrifts, that practised sundry super- 
 ficial studies, I became as a scion grafted into the 
 same stock, whereby I did absolutely participate of 
 their nature and qualities.' When he returned to 
 England he took up his residence again at Cambridge, 
 ' ruffling out in silks, in the habit of malcontent, and 
 
GREENE'S ADVENTURES. 54 » 
 
 seeming so discontent that no place would please me 
 to abide in, nor no vocation cause me to stay myself 
 in.' What he had learned upon his journeys, he now 
 applied in his own country. ' Being new-come from 
 Italy (where I learned all the villanies under the 
 heavens) I was drowned in pride, whoredom was my 
 daily exercise, and gluttony with drunkenness was my 
 only delight' He extracted money from his father's 
 purse 'by cunning sleights,' and worked upon his 
 mother's fondness, ' who secretly helped me to the oil 
 of angels.' Having taken his Master's degree, he 
 made his way to London. At first he was received by 
 friends as a young man of promise ; but he soon 
 abandoned these for evil company. ' Where, after I 
 had continued some short time and driven myself out 
 of credit with sundry of my friends, I became an author 
 of plays, and a penner of love pamphlets, so that I soon 
 grew famous in that quality, that who for that trade 
 grown so ordinary about London as Robin Greene ? 
 Young yet in years, though old in wickedness, I began 
 to resolve that there was nothing bad that was profit- 
 able : whereupon I grew so rooted in all mischief that 
 I had as great delight in wickedness as sundry hath in 
 godliness, and as much felicity I took in villany as 
 others had in honesty.' The vilest fellows were his 
 companions ; the alehouse and the brothel were his 
 haunts. ' After I had wholly betaken me to the penning 
 of plays (which was my continual exercise), I was so 
 far from calling upon God that I seldom thought on 
 God, but took such delight in swearing and blasphem- 
 ing the name of God that none could think otherwise 
 of me than that I was the child of perdition.' He 
 
542 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 lived upon his pen, and entertained a tribe of parasites 
 with the fruits of his Hterary labours, ' Now famoused 
 for an arch-play-making poet, his purse, like the sea, 
 sometimes swelled, anon like the same sea fell to a low 
 ebb ; yet seldom he wanted, his labours were so well 
 esteemed. He had shift of lodgings, where in every 
 place his hostess writ up the wofuU remembrance of him, 
 his laundress and his boy ; for they were ever his in 
 household, besides retainers in sundry other places. 
 His company were lightly the lewdest persons in the 
 land, apt for pilfery, perjury, forgery, or any villany. 
 Of these he knew the cast to cog at cards, cosen at 
 dice ; by these he learned the legerdemain of nips, 
 foists, conycatchers, crosbiters, lifts, high-lawyers, and 
 all the rabble of that unclean generation of vipers.' 
 These companions, as he says in another place, 'came 
 still to my lodging, and there would continue quaffing, 
 carousing, and surfeiting with me all day long.' 
 
 Hitherto I have made Greene tell his own tale, 
 breathlessly and disjointedly, but with palpable sin- 
 cerity, in his own words. Though it is very probable 
 that, with a novel-writer's tendency to the sensational 
 in literature, he somewhat overdrew the picture of his 
 vices, yet this picture is too vivid to be mistaken for 
 fiction. What Ascham and Howell wrote about the 
 injury to English youth from foreign travel, finds 
 a striking illustration in Greene's confessions. De- 
 moralised by bad associates at college, trained to 
 infamy in the slums of Florence and the base quarters 
 of Venice, he returned to England, the diavolo in- 
 carnato of the famous proverb. It was impossible 
 with such antecedents to follow a sober student's 
 
HIS PERSONAL CHARACTER. 543 
 
 career at Cambridge. Therefore he came to London, 
 engaged his talents in the service of the stage and 
 press, and plunged into Bohemian dissipations. No- 
 thing paints London at that period in more curious 
 colours than the description which Greene has given 
 us of his associates. Between respectable society and 
 the company of the most abandoned ruffians, this man 
 of letters found no middle term of intercourse. That 
 intermediate region, frequented by artists, playwrights, 
 pamphleteers, law-students, and men about town, which 
 we call Bohemia in modern capitals, did not then 
 apparently exist. To speak more strictly, it came into 
 existence a short while afterwards, when Shakspere 
 and Jonson, Beaumont and Chapman, gave tone to 
 literary clubs and taverns. Greene, through his own 
 fault, but also through the fault of a society which had 
 not yet developed its Bohemia, was thrown upon the 
 basest comradeship of knaves and sharpers, pimps and 
 strumpets. Ill adapted to respectable society, he found 
 his only refuge and abiding-place in Alsatia. 
 
 In spite of the infamous life with which Greene 
 charges himself, he does not seem to have been a 
 thorough-going and contented scoundrel, but rather a 
 weak, vain, vicious man, who abandoned himself to 
 evil courses. He suffered occasional pangs of remorse, 
 and made one or two feeble efforts to amend his ways. 
 Once it was a sermon which stung his conscience to 
 the quick. At another time he married a respectable 
 woman, who bore him a child in wedlock. But his old 
 associates got hold of him. He deserted his wife, 
 squandered her money, and answered her unavailing 
 efforts to reclaim him with brutal insults. By the sister 
 
544 shakspere'S predecessors. 
 
 of one of his friends — a thief, called Cutting Ball, who 
 was afterwards hanged at Tyburn — he had a son, whom 
 he christened Fortunatus. His enemies in their satires 
 turned this name into Infortunatus, which was cer- 
 tainly more appropriate to the child of such parents. 
 Notwithstanding the intimate connections he thus 
 formed with the rogues of London, Greene exposed 
 the tricks of their trade in a series of pamphlets with 
 startling titles, as : ' A Notable Discovery of Cozenage,' 
 ' A Disputation between a He-Coneycatcher and a She- 
 Coneycatcher,' &c. ; proving himself vile enough to 
 turn informer for the sake of a profitable literat)/ ven- 
 ture. We must, however, bear in mind that to coin 
 money by his pen was an absolute necessity. After 
 working out his vein in love pamphlets and Euphuistic 
 novels, he turned his experience in crime to account, 
 and lastly betook himself to autobiography. The 
 shamelessness of the man is a sufficient guarantee for 
 the truth of his personal revelations. Vain, and de- 
 sirous of keeping his name before the public, but 
 without a character to lose, he made a cynical exposure 
 of his vices. These confessions, moreover, are stamped 
 with indubitable signs of earnestness. The accent of 
 remorse is too sincere and strongly marked in them to 
 justify a suspicion of deliberate fiction. 
 
 The last scene of Greene's miserable existence has 
 been often described. He lay, penniless, deserted by 
 his friends, consumed with the diseases of a libertine 
 and drunkard, on a bed for which he owed his landlord 
 money, without even the clothes which might have 
 enabled him to leave it. A surfeit of pickled herrings 
 and Rhenish wine is said to have been the final cause 
 
GREENE'S DEATH. 545 
 
 of his death. As he lay there, alone and dying, the 
 thought of his injured wife and of his friends oppressed 
 his conscience. In the agony of repentance he addressed 
 a solemn warning to Peele, Nash, and Marlowe, calling 
 upon them with all the eloquence of death to repent of 
 their debaucheries and profanities, He prayed his 
 wife for forgiveness, and begged her to discharge his 
 debts : ' Doll, I charge thee, by the love of our youth 
 and by my soul's rest, that thou wilt see this man paid ; 
 for if he and his wife had not succoured me, I had died 
 in the streets.' Two women visited the dying poet in 
 this extremity. One of them was the mother of his 
 illegitimate son, the sister of the felon Cutting Ball. 
 The other was his landlady. She cherished affection 
 and respect for the distinguished man of letters, and 
 tended him during a month's sickness. When he was 
 dead, she placed a wreath of bays upon his forehead, 
 and buried him at her own cost. 
 
 Greene deserves almost unmitigated reprobation. 
 He was not only profligate, but bad-hearted, and, as we 
 shall see, he indulged a rancorous animosity upon his 
 death-bed. Yet we may believe that had his youth es- 
 caped the contamination of Italian vices, had his abilities 
 been recognised by society, or had a place among men 
 of education and good manners been open to his 
 choice, he might perhaps have prospered. There are 
 points in his dramatic and lyric work which show that 
 circumstance, at least as much as natural frailty, made 
 Greene what he came to be ; and that, with a fair 
 share of the world's sunshine to bask in, he might have 
 passed for a jovial and irritable man of letters and of 
 pleasure. But at that epoch the trade of literature, 
 
 N N 
 
546 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 especially in connection with the stage, was regarded 
 with contempt. Gabriel Harvey flung it in his face 
 that he made a living by his pen. He was almost 
 compelled to consort with the lowest populace. 
 
 Greene's career is typical. His friend Peele fared 
 hardly better, sinking into deep pecuniary distress, as 
 appears from a lamentable appeal to Lord Burleigh, 
 and dying of a dishonourable disease. Nash lived in 
 extreme poverty, repented publicly of his thriftless 
 and wretched existence, and died before his time. 
 Marlowe became a byword for profanity and atheism, 
 and was murdered in a tavern-brawl at Deptford 
 before reaching the age of thirty. Lodge alone, 
 after spending a troubled youth in many scenes of 
 varied action, retrieved his fortunes, joined the re- 
 spectable classes, and died decently of the plague at 
 the ripe age of sixty-seven. The four less fortunate 
 members of the group barely reckoned forty years 
 apiece when they passed out of life, exhausted by 
 what Anthony Wood contemptuously styles ' that high 
 and loose course of living which poets generally 
 follow.' The pleasantest glimpse we get of them is 
 in a pamphlet by that genial friend of authors, Thomas 
 Dekker. In his ' Knight's Conjuring' he feigns to find 
 the friends together in a Grove of Bay-trees in Elysium. 
 ' To this consort-room resort none but the children of 
 Phoebus, poets and musicians. When these happy 
 spirits sit asunder, their bodies are like to many stars ; 
 and when they join together in several troops, they 
 show like so many heavenly constellations.' Here, he 
 says, ' Marlowe, Greene, and Peele, had got under the 
 shades of a large vine, laughing to see Nash, that was ■ 
 
GREENE'S WARNING TO PLAYWRIGHTS. 547 
 
 but newly come to their college, still haunted with the 
 sharp and satirical spirit that followed him here upon 
 earth.' 
 
 IV. 
 
 Greene's dying exhortation to his brother-play- 
 wrights is not only impressive by reason of its moral 
 earnestness, but also interesting for the light it casts 
 upon the theatre in that year, 1592. It opens thus: 
 ' To those gentlemen his quondam acquaintance, that 
 spend their wits in making plays, R. G. wisheth a 
 better exercise, and wisdom to prevent his extremities.' 
 After calling upon Marlowe, 'famous gracer of tra- 
 gedians,' to abandon his blasphemies and atheistical 
 opinions, and upon Nash, ' young Juvenal, that biting 
 satirist,' to abate the virulence and personality of his 
 attacks,^ he specially addresses Peele, ' no less deserv- 
 ing than the other two, in some things rarer, in 
 nothing inferior.' Peele, he says, is unworthy better 
 hap, ' sith thou dependest on so mean a stay.' That 
 stay was the theatre. Greene thus expounds his mean- 
 ing : ' Base-minded men all three of you, if by my 
 misery ye be not warned ; for unto none of you, like 
 me, sought those burrs to cleave — those puppets, I 
 mean, that speak from our mouths, those antics 
 garnished in our colours.' These puppets are the 
 players, to whose neglect, rather than to his own vices, 
 he attributes his present destitution. Not long ago 
 
 ' It has been doubted whether Greene meant Nash or Lodge by 
 ' young Juvenal.' On the whole I feel sure that Nash is intended. 
 But it signifies comparatively little. 
 
 N N'2 
 
548 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 they throve upon the bounty of Greene's pen," but 
 now they have deserted him, ' for there is an upstart 
 crow beautified with our feathers, that, with his " Tiger's 
 Heart wrapt in a Player's Hide," supposes he is as well 
 able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you ; 
 and being an absolute Johannes-fac-totum, is in his 
 own conceit the only Shake-scene in the country.' In 
 other words, the playing companies can afford to do 
 without Greene because one of their own craft, Shak- 
 spere the actor, has begun to write .dramas. Having 
 him at home and in their partnership, the actors leave 
 the scholar-poets to starve. Up to this point Greene 
 has not actually accused Shakspere of plagiarism, since 
 it appears from parallel passages in his works that the 
 ' crow beautified with our feathers ' is only another 
 ^ metaphor for a stage-player.^ This, however, he pro- 
 ceeds to do when he entreats his friends to ' employ 
 your rare wits in more profitable courses, and let these 
 apes imitate your past excellence, and never more 
 acquaint them with your admired inventions.' The 
 drift of the argument is this : ' We, gentlemen and 
 scholars, have founded the Drama in England, and 
 have hitherto held a monopoly of the theatres. Those 
 puppets, antics, base grooms, buckram gentlemen, 
 peasants, painted monsters ' — for he calls the players by 
 all these names in succession — ' have now learned not 
 only how to act our scenes, but how to imitate them ; 
 and there is one among them, Shakspere, who will drive 
 us all to penury.' Nothing can justify the violence of 
 this abuse or defend the assumption that the field of 
 dramatic composition was only open to graduates in 
 
 ^ See Simpson's School of Shakspere, vol. ii. pp. 359^ ^gg ,go^ 
 
SPITE AGAINST SHAKSPERE. 549 
 
 arts. Nothing can excuse the spite of flinging Shak- 
 spere's country birth and lack of culture in his face 
 because his overwhelming greatness had become 
 apparent to his rivals. The contempt poured on the 
 actor's calling is also inexcusable ; for we have good 
 reason to believe that Greene himself, Marlowe, Peele, 
 Nash, and possibly Lodge also, had played their parts 
 upon the public stage. But the peculiar circumstances 
 of Greene's life as a playwright may be pleaded in some 
 extenuation of his virulence. He, first of all the group 
 of scholar-poets, quitted his university for London and 
 engaged in the Drama. Rhymed plays were then in 
 fashion, and these he produced with so much facility 
 and so excellent that he soon became the ' arch-play- 
 making poet.' At this point of his career Marlowe 
 revolutionised the stage with ' Tamburlaine.' Greene 
 violently opposed the introduction of blank verse, 
 comparing its stately music to the ' fa-burden of Bow 
 bell,' and sneering at poets ' who set the end of 
 scholarism in an English blank verse.' He engaged 
 Nash in the same quarrel. In a preface to Greene's 
 ' Menaphon ' the young satirist inveighed against 
 ' idiot art-masters, that intrude themselves as the 
 alchemists of eloquence, and think to outbrave better 
 pens with the swelling bombast of bragging blank 
 verse . . . the spacious volubility of a drumming deca- 
 syllabon.' This was in 1589. Greene was defeated ; 
 and in order to maintain his position as a playwright, 
 he found himself compelled to adopt Marlowe's inno- 
 vations, and to imitate, so far as in him lay, the 
 mightier poet's style. Marlowe, we have every reason 
 to believe, was a man of kindly temperament, on whom 
 
55° SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 it was not easy to fix a literary quarrel.^ Therefore he 
 soon joined the society of scholar-playwrights, and was 
 accepted by Greene into his friendship. But no sooner 
 had the confraternity of ' arch-play making poets,' 
 ' scholar-like shepherds,' been established upon this 
 new basis, than the star of Shakspere rose above the 
 horizon. It was obvious to the meanest capacity, in- 
 disputable by the grossest vanity, that Shakspere was 
 entering like a young prince into the dominions con- 
 quered by his predecessors, and that his reign would 
 be extended far beyond the limits of their empire. 
 Greene was an egotistical, irascible man, proud of his 
 academical honours and jealous of his literary fame in 
 London. Having bowed to Marlowe's superior genius, 
 he had now the mortification of beholding a greater 
 than Marlowe ; one, too, who was not even a scholar, 
 who had not travelled in Italy, who studied the subjects 
 of his plays in English versions, ' feeding on nought 
 but the crumbs that fall from the translator's trencher.' ^ 
 Not only his fame but his daily bread was imperilled by 
 this intrusion into his territories. And what probably 
 made the matter worse, was that while Greene deplored 
 a misspent life in the service of the playgoing public, 
 he saw Shakspere winning golden opinions by the so- 
 briety of his conduct and amassing wealth by thrift and 
 business-like habits. No one could have written about 
 Greene what Chettle wrote in 1592 of Shakspere:^ 
 
 • Soon after his tragic death, when everybody was abusing him Nash 
 called him ' poor deceased Kit Marlowe,' and Dyce quotes the epithet 
 ' kind Kit Marlowe ' from a MS. poem published in 1600. 
 
 ^ See Nash's introduction to Greene's Menaphon for this phrase and 
 many others directed against the actor-playwright. 
 
 * See Dyce's Greene, p. 61. 
 
GREENE'S FAME. 551 
 
 'Myself have seen his demeanour no less civil 
 than he excellent in the quality he professes ; besides, 
 divers of worship have reported his uprightness of 
 dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious 
 grace in writing that approves his art.' To the Bohe- 
 mian scholar-poet, the professional dramatist, who 
 dignified his calling and pursued his trade with profit, 
 became an object of aversion. Greene's dying address 
 to his friends is thus a groan of disappointment and 
 despair ; a lamentation over wasted opportunities, 
 envenomed by envious hatred of a rival, wiser in his 
 deportment, more fortunate in his ascendant star. 
 Despicable as were the passions which inspired it, we 
 cannot withhold a degree of pity from the dying Titan, 
 discomfited, undone, and superseded, who beheld the 
 young Apollo issue in splendour and awake the world 
 to a new day. 
 
 V. 
 
 The fame of Robert Greene during his lifetime 
 eclipsed that of his contemporaries. So greatly was 
 he esteemed that Gabriel Harvey, the remorseless 
 enemy who attacked him in the grave, exclaims in 
 anger : ' Even Guiccardine's silver History and Ariosto's 
 golden Cantos grow out of request ; and the Countess 
 of Pembroke's Arcadia is not green enough for queasy 
 stomachs ; but they must have Greene's " Arcadia," and, 
 I believe, most eagerly long for Greene's " Faery 
 Queen." ' He was, in fact, the popular author of the day, 
 perused by gallants and Court ladies, and by waiting- 
 women who aped the manners of their mistresses. His 
 friends applauded the facility with which he turned his 
 
552 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 taknts to account. ' In a night and a day,' says Nash, 
 ' would he have yarked up a pamphlet as well as in 
 seven years ; and glad was that printer that might be 
 so blest to pay him dear for the very dregs of his wit.' 
 This popularity was deservedly short-lived. Greene 
 did not write for immortality. His ephemeral pro- 
 ductions caught the taste of the moment, arid brought 
 him quick returns of money and reputation. But the 
 fashion changed ; and ere long the very bulk of his 
 works in prose and verse, when compared with their 
 quality, became a reason for consigning them to 
 oblivion. As Anthony Wood remarks : 'He was 
 author of several things which were pleasing to men 
 and women of his time. They made much sport, and 
 were valued among scholars, but since they have 
 been mostly sold on ballad-mongers' stalls.' 
 
 Of all his miscellaneous productions, Greene's novels 
 had the greatest vogue. He was an avowed imitator 
 of Lyly, whom he followed in his choice of subjects, 
 treatment, and stylistic mannerism. When Harvey 
 called Greene ' the ape of Euphues,' and Nash ' the 
 ape of Greene,' Nash indignantly retorted : ' Did I 
 ever write of coney-catching, stuff my style with herbs 
 and stones, or apprentice myself to the running of the 
 letter?' He thus indirectly admits that his friend 
 abused alliteration, and adopted Lyly's absurd system 
 of metaphor. Yet Greene was by no means a mere 
 Euphuist. He employed the fashionable jargon in 
 speeches, epistles, and reflective digressions. But his 
 narrative is clear and flowing, and he has far more to 
 tell than Lyly. His own experience of life had been 
 varied and interesting. He knew how to reproduce it 
 
HIS NOVELS. 553 
 
 with much liveHness in the delineation of characters, 
 the invention of incidents, and the analysis of passions, 
 strong and firmly outlined, if not remarkable for depth. 
 The autobiographical pamphlets, ' Never Too Late,' 
 ' Francesco's Fortunes,' ' Greene's Groatsworth,' and 
 his ' Repentance,' are powerfully written, with direct 
 simplicity of language. Even now they deserve atten- 
 tion, both for their revelation of the playwright's cha- 
 racter and for the light they throw upon the manners 
 of Bohemians in London. Nor must it be forgotten 
 that Shakspere founded the ' Winter's Tale ' on 
 Greene's ' Pandosto.' 
 
 Greene interspersed his novels with lyrics ; a cus- 
 tom derived from Sannazzaro, and illustrated by 
 Sidney. To these songs imperfect justice has, in my 
 opinion, hitherto been done. Though far from taking 
 high rank among the lyrics of the age — though in- 
 ferior to the similar compositions of Lodge and Barn- 
 field — they are distinguished by a certain sweetness, a 
 fluent vein of fancy, and a diction at once poetical and 
 easy to be understood. That they exerted no slight 
 influence over the work of succeeding song-writers, 
 will be evident from a few extracts. 1 will first select 
 ' Philomela's Ode that she sung in her Arbour : ' 
 
 Sitting by a river's side, 
 Where a silent stream did glide. 
 Muse I did of many things 
 That the mind in quiet brings. 
 I gan think how some men deem 
 Gold their god ; and some esteem 
 Honour is the chief content 
 That to man in life is lent ; 
 And some others do contend 
 Quiet none like to a friend ; 
 
554 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Others hold there is no wealth 
 Compared to a perfect health ; 
 Some man's mind in quiet stands 
 When he is lord of many lands : 
 But I did sigh, and said all this 
 Was but a shade of perfect bliss ; 
 And in my thoughts I did approve 
 Nought so sweet as is true love. 
 Love twixt lovers passeth these, 
 When mouth kisseth and heart agrees, 
 With folded arms and lips meeting, 
 Each soul another sweetly greeting ; 
 For by the breath the soul fleeteth. 
 And soul with soul in kissing meeteth. 
 If love be so sweet a thing, 
 That such happy bliss doth bring, 
 Happy is love's sugared thrall ; 
 But, unhappy maidens all. 
 Who esteem your virgin blisses 
 Sweeter than a wife's sweet kisses ! 
 No such quiet to the mind 
 As true love with kisses kind : 
 But if a kiss prove unchaste, 
 Then is true love quite disgraced. 
 Though love be sweet, learn this of me. 
 No love sweet but honesty. 
 
 A little group of these lyrics is devoted to the 
 loves of Venus and Adonis, which possessed so en- 
 thralling an attraction for the poets of that age — ^for 
 the young Shakspere — for Constable and Lodge and 
 Richard Barnfield. We may detect a foretaste of their 
 ricl er music in the following stanzas : 
 
 In Cyprus sat fair Venus by a fount, 
 
 Wanton Adonis toying on her knee : 
 She kissed the wag, her darling of account ; 
 
 The boy gan blush ; which when his lover see. 
 She smiled, and told him love might challenge debt, 
 And he was young, and might be wanton yet. 
 
HIS LYRICS. 555 
 
 Reason replied that beauty was a bane 
 
 To such as feed their fancy with, fond love, 
 
 That when sweet youth with lust is overta'en, 
 It rues in age : this could not Adon move, 
 
 For Venus taught him still this rest to set, 
 
 That he was young, and might be wanton yet. 
 
 Infida's song, from ' Never Too Late,' upon the 
 same theme, is slight, but very pretty : 
 
 Sweet Adon, darest not glance thine eye — 
 
 N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami ? — 
 Upon thy Venus that must die ? 
 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ; 
 N'oserez-vous, mon bel, mon bel, 
 N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami ? 
 
 See how sad thy Venus lies, — 
 
 N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami ? — 
 Love in heart, and tears in eyes ; 
 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ; 
 N'oserez-vous, mon bel, mon bel, 
 N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami ? 
 
 Here again is a charming sketch of Love dressed 
 like a pilgrim : 
 
 Down the valley gan he track, 
 Bag and bottle at his back, 
 In a surcoat all of grey ; 
 Such wear palmers on the way. 
 When with scrip and staff they see 
 Jesus' grave on Calvary . . . 
 Adon was not thought more fair : 
 Curlfed locks of amber hair. 
 Locks where love did sit and twine 
 Nets to snare the gazers' eyne. 
 Such a palmer ne'er was seen, 
 'Less Love himself had palmer been. 
 
 The Shepherd's Wife's Song praises the pleasures 
 of a pastoral life in a series of graceful stanzas : 
 
5S6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Ah, what is love ? It is a pretty thing, 
 As sweet unto a shepherd as a king ; 
 
 And sweeter too : 
 For kings have cares that wait upon a crown. 
 And cares can make the sweetest love to frown : 
 
 Ah then, ah then, 
 If country loves such sweet desires do gain, 
 What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 
 
 His flocks are folded, he comes home at night, 
 As merry as a king in his delight ; 
 
 And merrier too : 
 For kings bethink them what the state require. 
 Where shepherds carol careless by the fire : 
 
 Ah then, ah then. 
 If country loves such sweet desires gain, 
 What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 
 
 The best of Greene's lyrical verses are in Se- 
 phestia's Song to her Child, from ' Menaphon : ' 
 
 Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee ; 
 When thou art old there 's grief enough for thee. 
 
 Mother's wag, pretty boy. 
 
 Father's sorrow, father's joy ; 
 
 When thy father first did see 
 
 Such a boy by him and me. 
 
 He was glad, I was woe ; 
 
 Fortune changed made him so. 
 
 When he left his pretty boy. 
 
 Last his sorrow, first his joy. 
 
 Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee ; 
 When thou art old there 's grief enough for thee. 
 
 The wanton smiled, father wept. 
 
 Mother cried, baby leapt ; 
 
 More he crowed, more we cried. 
 
 Nature could not sorrow hide ; 
 
 He must go, 'he must kiss 
 
 Child and mother, baby bless, 
 
 For he left his pretty boy. 
 
 Father's sorrow, father's joy. 
 Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee ; 
 When thou art old there 's grief enough for thee. 
 
ELIZABETHAN MUSIC. 557 
 
 It may be remarked that the earlier dramatists 
 commanded rhyme and lyrical measures more effec- 
 tively than prose or blank verse. In England lyrical 
 poetry was not at that epoch dissociated from music. 
 A sonnet ascribed to Shakspere compares Dowland 
 upon equal terms with Spenser. Dekker places the 
 poets and musicians together in Elysium : ' the one 
 creates the ditty, and gives it the life and number ; the 
 other lends it voice, and makes it speak music' Every 
 house had its lute and virginal or spinet. Every 
 lover could salute his lady with a madrigal, or join in 
 part-songs at her table. The Puritans swept music 
 into the dusthole of oblivion, whence it has never 
 again emerged to gladden English ears with strains of 
 native art. But in the days of Elizabeth this change 
 was still far distant. V/hen therefore Greene and his 
 contemporaries wrote Canzonets and Sonnets, they 
 were using a well-tried and supple instrument. When 
 they endeavoured to construct blank verse, or to build 
 harmonious periods in prose, they were creating new 
 forms, and could not at first exercise the unfamiliar art 
 with ease. This accounts for the superior smoothness 
 and metrical variety which may be noticed in the 
 songs of Greene. 
 
 VI. 
 
 In Greene's plays we can always trace the hand of 
 the novelist. He did not aim at unity of plot, or at 
 firm definition of character. Yet he manages to sus- 
 tain attention by his power of telling a story, inventing 
 an inexhaustible variety of motives, combining several 
 threads of interest with facility, and so arranging his 
 
558 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 incongruous materials as to produce a pleasing general 
 effect. He has the merit of simplicity in details, and 
 avoids the pompous circumlocution in vogue among 
 contemporary authors. His main stylistic defect is 
 the employment of cheap Latin mythology in and out 
 of season. But his scenes abound in vivid incidents, 
 which divert criticism from the threadbare thinness 
 of the main conception, and offer opportunities to 
 clever actors. In spite of these good points, we feel 
 how crude and poor a thing the drama still remained. 
 Greene's plays, intermediate between comedy, tragedy, 
 and history, illustrate a step in the development of 
 the Romantic Drama, which had to be taken before 
 Shakspere set his own and final seal upon that form 
 of art. Stale devices of the Miracle and Morality 
 survive, indicating the poet's lack of power to or- 
 ganise the mechanism of a play. The Vice and 
 Devil still amuse the groundlings ; and the principal 
 personages introduce their parts, more antiquo, with 
 a blunt description of their qualities and claims to 
 notice. The best of Greene's work realises Cecchi's 
 description of the Farsa} The worst relapses into 
 the insipid buffoonery of the old English jig and 
 merriment. 
 
 We possess none of Greene's earlier dramatic 
 compositions. Those which survive are posterior to 
 Marlowe's ' Tamburlaine.' Greene uses blank verse, 
 but in his use of it betrays the manner of the couplet. 
 His ' Orlando' is versified from Ariosto, and contains 
 a whole Italian stanza embedded in its English. 
 The ' Looking-Glass for London ' dramatises the 
 ' See above, p. 260. 
 
GREENE'S PLAYS. 559 
 
 history of Jonah at Nineveh, so as to point a 
 moral for the capital of England. ' Alphonsus 
 Prince of Arragon ' is a stage-show of processions, 
 battles, coronations, and the like, without dramatic 
 merit. ' James the Fourth of Scotland ' claims a 
 somewhat higher place. It partakes of the history 
 play and the novella, pretending to be borrowed 
 from Scotch annals, but relying for its interest 
 upon a romantic love-story. The induction might be 
 mentioned as an early instance of a very popular 
 theatrical device. In order to create more perfect 
 illusion, or to enliven the pauses between the acts 
 with dialogue, our elder dramatists represented the 
 real fruit of their invention as a play within a play, 
 feigning that the persons who first appeared upon the 
 stage fell asleep and saw the drama in a vision, or that 
 it was conjured up by magic art before them, or that 
 they chanced upon some strange adventure while wan- 
 dering in woody places. The ' Taming of a Shrew,' 
 before Shakspere touched it, was already furnished 
 with that humorous deception practised upon Sly, 
 which serves to introduce the comedy. Lyly begged 
 his audience to regard two of his pieces as dreams. 
 Peele caused the action of one of his rural medleys to 
 grow from a discussion between travellers belated in a 
 forest. Hey wood in his Masque of ' Love's Mistress ' 
 brings Midas and Apuleius on the stage, disputing 
 about poetry. The play occurs as matter for their 
 argument, and they canvass it at intervals between 
 the scenes. Jonson and Marston employed similar arti- 
 fices for blending criticism with the drama. Beaumont 
 introduced the ' Knight of the Burning Pestle ' with a 
 
s6o SHAKSPERE^S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 humorous dialogue between a citizen and his wife, 
 who insist upon their prentice taking part in the per- 
 formance. The introduction to Greene's ' James the 
 Fourth ' brings Oberon with his elves and a discon- 
 tented Scot upon the stage. The elves dance ; the 
 Scot produces the play in order to explain his discon- 
 tent. Oberon remains as a spectator, and makes 
 mirth during the intervals by dances of his fairies. 
 The drama illustrates the miseries of states, when 
 flatterers rule the Court, and kings yield to lawless 
 vice. In the portrait of the Lady Ida, for whose love 
 James deserts his wife and plots her murder, Greene 
 conceived and half expressed a true woman's character. 
 There is a simplicity, a perfume of purity, in Ida, 
 which proceeds from the poet's highest source of 
 inspiration. Nor do the romantic adventures and 
 pathetic trials of the queen fall far short of a melo- 
 dramatic success. That this man, dissolute and vicious 
 as he was, should have been the first of our playwrights 
 to feel and represent the charm of maiden modesty 
 upon the public stage, is not a little singular. Perhaps 
 it was, in part, to this that Greene owed his popularity. 
 Fawnia in ' Pandosto,' Margaret in ' Friar Bacon,' 
 Sephestia in ' Menaphon,' Ida and Dorothea in ' James 
 the Fourth,' Philomela and the Shepherd's Wife in 
 the ' Mourning Garment,' belong to one sisterhood, 
 in whom the innocence of country life, unselfish love, 
 and maternity are sketched with delicate and feeling 
 touches. 
 
 'Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay' takes its name 
 from the famous Franciscan monk, and closely follows 
 an old English version of his legend in one portion of 
 
' FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGA V.' 561 
 
 the plot. The conjuring tricks and incantations of the 
 Friar are cleverly interwoven with a romantic tale of 
 Edward Prince of Wales's love for Margaret, the fair 
 maid of Fresingfield ; the Earl of Lincoln's honest 
 treachery, who woos her for his lord and wins her for 
 himself ; and the history of her two suitors, Lambert 
 and Serlsby, who, together with their sons, are paren- 
 thetically killed upon the stage. A double comic 
 interest is sustained by Edward's Court fool Ralph, 
 and Miles the servant of Bacon. Written by a clever 
 story-teller, who, without a high ideal of art or deep 
 insight into character, could piece a tale together with 
 variety of incidents, this play is decidedly interesting. 
 The action never flags. Pretty scenes succeed each 
 other : now pastoral at Fresingfield, now grave at 
 Oxford, now terrible in Bacon's cell, now splendid at 
 the Court, now humorous with Miles, the friar's man. 
 A jocund freshness of blithe country air blows through 
 the piece, and its two threads of interest are properly 
 combined in the conclusion. Edward pardons the 
 Earl of Lincoln by giving him Margaret in marriage 
 on the same day that he weds Eleanor of Castile. 
 Friar Bacon foregoes his magic arts ; and Miles, who 
 is a lineal descendant of the Vice, dances off the stage 
 upon a merry devil's back, promising to play the 
 tapster in a certain thirsty place where ' men are mar- 
 vellous dry.' 
 
 In his treatment of the magician, Greene differed 
 widely from his friend Marlowe. Marlowe idealised 
 the character of Faustus, using that legend for his inter- 
 pretation of the criminal passion for unlawful power, 
 Greene left Bacon as he found him in the popular 
 
 9 
 
S62 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 romance — a necromancer, whose ambition is to circle 
 England with a brazen wall ; a conjuror with familiar 
 spirits at his beck, the maker of the brazen head, and 
 the possessor of a magic glass. H is chief exploits are 
 the discomfiture of various obnoxious personages, whom 
 he spirits through the air or strikes with dumbness, 
 and the service rendered to the Prince of Wales by- 
 suspending Margaret's marriage rites at the distance of 
 many miles. 
 
 The language of the play, in spite of its essentially 
 English character, is curiously defaced with superficial 
 pedantry. The serious characters make use of classical 
 mythology on all occasions. Young Edward describes 
 the keeper's daughter of Fresingfield as ' sweeping 
 like Venus through the house,' and ' shining among 
 her cream-bowls as Pallas 'mongst her princely house- 
 wifery.' Margaret herself is no less glib with allusions 
 to Semele and Paris and CEnone. But these flowers 
 of rhetoric are mere excrescences upon a style of silvery 
 simplicity. As a fair specimen of Greene's natural 
 manner, I will quote a description of Oxford, first seen 
 by King Henry and the Emperor riding over Magdalen 
 Bridge : 
 
 Trust me, Plantagenet, these Oxford schools 
 Are richly seated near the river side : 
 The mountains full of fat and fallow deer, 
 The battling pastures lade with kine and flocks, 
 The town gorgeous with high-built colleges. 
 And scholars seemly in their grave attire. 
 Learned in searching principles of art. 
 
 Writing in direct competition with Marlowe, and 
 striving to produce ' strong lines,' Greene indulged in 
 extravagant imagery, which, because it lacks the ani- 
 
GEORGE PEELE. 563 
 
 mating fire of Marlowe's rapture, degenerates into 
 mere bombast. The Prince of Wales is wooing the 
 keeper's daughter : 
 
 I tell thee, Peggy, I will have thy loves : 
 Edward or none shall conquer Margaret. 
 In frigates bottomed with rich Sethin planks, 
 Topt with the lofty firs of Ixbanon, 
 Stemmed and incased with burnished ivory. 
 And over-laid with plates of Persian wealth, 
 Like Thetis thou shalt wanton on the waves. 
 And draw the dolphins to thy lovely eyes 
 To dance lavoltas in the purple streams : 
 Sirens, with harps and silver psalteries, 
 Shall wait with music at thy frigate's stem, 
 And entertain fair Margaret with their lays. 
 
 There is one good line here. ' Sirens with harps and 
 silver psalteries,' is pretty ; and the whole passage 
 illustrates the rococo of the English Renaissance which 
 Marlowe made fashionable.^ 
 
 VII. 
 
 Peele, though less prolific and many-sided than 
 Greene, early won and late retained the reputation of 
 a better poet. Nash, the friend of both, called him 
 primus verborum artifex, and 'an Atlas of poetry.' 
 Campbell observes : ' We may justly cherish the 
 memory of Peele as the oldest genuine dramatic poet 
 of our language. His " David and Bethsabe " is the 
 earliest fountain of pathos and harmony that can be 
 traced in our dramatic poetry. His fancy is rich and 
 
 ' See the description of Hero's buskins in Hero and Leander, and the 
 curious attire promised to the Shepherdess in ' Come, live with me.' 
 Marlowe's imitators loved to indulge this vein, as might be illustrated 
 from Lust's Dominion. 
 
 2 
 
564 SJflAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 his feeling tender ; and his conceptions of dramatic 
 character have no inconsiderable mixture of solid 
 veracity and ideal beauty. There is no such sweetness 
 of versification and imagery to be found in our blank 
 verse anterior to Shakspere.' This judgment, consider- 
 ing that Marlowe preceded Shakspere, and formed the 
 style of his immediate contemporaries, cannot be sup- 
 ported. Gifford places Peele, together with Marlowe, 
 at the point in our dramatic history when ' the chaos 
 of ignorance was breaking up : they were among the 
 earliest to perceive the glimmering of sense and nature, 
 and struggled to reach the light.' Lamb dismisses the 
 Scriptural play so highly praised by Campbell in one 
 contemptuous word, calling it ' stuff.' The truth is 
 that Peele exercised far less influence over the develop- 
 ment of our Drama than either Lyly or Greene, not to 
 mention Marlowe. The Court Comedies of Lyly and 
 the romantic medleys of Greene led by no uncertain 
 steps to Shakspere's comedies of the imagination. 
 Marlowe determined the metre and fixed the form of 
 tragedy. Peele discovered no new vein. It is in 
 elegant descriptions, in graceful and ingenious employ- 
 ment of mythology, in feeling for the charms of nature, 
 in tenderness of expression and sweetness of versifi- 
 cation, that we find his highest poetical qualities. These 
 he possessed in an eminent degree, considering the age 
 in which he lived. His best,, but also his earliest, 
 work, the ' Arraignment of Paris,' is distinguished by 
 a certain sense of proportion, dignity of repose, and 
 harmonious distribution of parts, which prove that he 
 might have become a correct poet in that period of 
 bombast and exaggeration. But his necessities forced 
 
'BATTLE OF ALCAZAR: 565 
 
 him to follow the taste of the time ; and the Calipolis 
 of one of his romantic tragedies passed with Cambyses 
 and Tamburlaine into a by-word for extravagance. 
 
 Three of Peele's plays may be dismissed with a bare 
 mention. In the 'Chronicle of Edward' he used a 
 ballad grossly libellous of Eleanor, the good queen. 
 As Eleanor was a Spaniard, it is not improbable that 
 Peele displayed her character in the worst light in 
 order to court popularity at a time when the prospect 
 of a Spanish marriage was odious to the English people. 
 At any rate, ' Longshanks,' as the Chronicle was called, 
 became a favourite with the play-going public, and 
 kept the stage long after Peele and his associates had 
 been superseded by better playwrights. ' The Battle 
 of Alcazar,' like Greene's ' Alphonsus,' is a mere melo- 
 drama of ' sound and fury, signifying nothing.' The 
 introduction of the popular hero, Thomas Stukeley. 
 gives -it a certain interest. To the student of dramatic 
 evolution this play furnishes an excellent example of 
 the machinery employed by our oldest writers, in order 
 to make their scenes intelligible in the absence of proper 
 theatrical apparatus. A Presenter appeared before 
 each act and recited the argument, eking out his 
 explanatory remarks with a dumb show or symbolical 
 representation, so that the subject was analysed and 
 exhibited in brief, and the minds of the spectators were 
 prepared to follow the action with undisturbed atten- 
 tion. Fame, in the ' Battle of Alcazar,' enters the stage 
 at the end of the fourth act. Thunder and lightning, 
 comets and fireworks, herald her advent. The Pre- 
 senter, hereupon, declares that danger menaces the 
 kingdoms of Barbary, Morocco, and Portugal. Fame 
 
S66 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 advances, and suspends three crowns upon the branches 
 of a tree. In the hurly-burly of the tempest these 
 are shaken down ; and as each falls, the Presenter 
 pronounces the name of the ruined throne. It will 
 be remembered that a Doctor or Expositor played 
 a prominent part in the Miracles ; the Presenter is a 
 survival of that antique functionary.-^ 
 
 Peek's ' Old Wives' Tale ' deserves to be remem- 
 bered because of its resemblance to ' Comus.' If 
 Milton borrowed the conception of his Masque from 
 this rustic comedy, he undoubtedly performed the pro- 
 verbial miracle of making a silk purse out of a sow's 
 ear. The mere outline of both pieces is the same. 
 Two brothers, seeking a lost sister in a wood by night, 
 find that she has fallen into the power of a sorcerer, 
 from whom she cannot be rescued until his magic 
 wreath has been torn off, his sword broken, and his 
 lamp extinguished. Moreover, the instrumentality of 
 a spirit is needed to accomplish her emancipation. So 
 far the coincidence with ' Comus ' is manifest. But 
 Peele takes no advantage of these romantic circum- 
 stances, either to point a moral or to lift his subject 
 into the heavens of poetry. His heroine has actually 
 become besotted by the wizard. The wizard is a 
 common conjuror. The spirit is a vulgar village ghost 
 In nothing is the genius of a true poet more conspi- 
 cuous than in the intuition which enabled Milton to 
 perceive that such a dead thing might be pierced with 
 
 1 Gower, in Pericles, presents the scenes and interprets- the dumb 
 shows. In the Second Part oi Henry IV. Rumour is called the Presenter, 
 but only speaks a prologue. In Henry V. a Chorus performs the Pre- 
 senter's duty, but without dumb shows. 
 
'OLD WIVES' TALE} 567 
 
 ' inbreathed life ' of art, philosophy, and allegory. So 
 far as the history of our Drama is concerned, the chief 
 interest of the ' Old Wives' Tale ' lies in its setting.^ 
 Three clowns lose their way in a wood, and come by 
 chance upon a poor smith's cottage. There is not 
 room for all of them to sleep in bed ; so the smith's 
 wife proposes to keep them waking with a merry tale. 
 She begins a rambling story about' giants, conjurors, 
 and princesses, hopelessly confusing herself in the 
 labyrinth of her narrative, and suffering divers inter- 
 ruptions from her audience. Then the real actors — 
 the two brothers — enter, lamenting in blank verse their 
 sister's loss. The smith's wife hereupon suspends her 
 tale, and, with the clowns, hears out the piece and 
 comments on its incidents. 
 
 Peek's earliest essay in dramatic writing was ' The 
 Arraignment of Paris,' a Classical Masque or Court 
 Comedy in honour of Elizabeth. Printed in 1584, 
 this ' first increase ' of his wit, as Nash calls it, can 
 have owed nothing to Lyly. It shows no traces of 
 Lyly's style, and is moreover written, not in prose, but 
 in a variety of rhyming metres and blank verse. The 
 scene opens with an assembly of the rural gods in Ida. 
 Pan, Faun, and Sylvan have met ' to bid Queen Juno 
 and her feres most humble welcome hither.' Pomona 
 joins them with a gift of fruit, and Flora scatters 
 flowers upon the meadow. When the three great 
 ladies of Olympus enter, these rustic deities, who play 
 the part of foresters and woodmen, invite them to the 
 simple pleasures of a y?/^ f,^«OT/^/^^. Then the scene 
 
 ^ See above, p. 559. 
 
568 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 changes to a grove, where Paris and CEnone are dis- 
 coursing of their loves. He pipes, and she sings that 
 well-known roundelay, which has for its refrain the 
 curse of Cupid : 
 
 They that do change old loves for new, 
 Pray gods they change for worse. 
 
 In the second act, Ate's golden ball, inscribed with the 
 fatal words Detur pulcherrimcs, is discovered by the 
 goddesses, who refer their claims to Paris. Each 
 speaks in turn, offering the shepherd gifts to sway his 
 judgment. Juno says : 
 
 Shepherd ! 
 
 I will reward thee with great monarchies. 
 Empires and kingdoms, heaps of massy gold, 
 Sceptres and diadems. 
 
 Pallas disdains these trivial bribes : 
 
 Me list not tempt thee with decaying wealth . . . 
 But if thou have a mind to fly above, 
 If thou aspire to wisdom's worthiness. 
 If thou desire honour of chivalry, 
 To fight it out, and in the champaign field 
 To shroud thee under Pallas' warlike shield. 
 To prance on barbed steeds ; this honour, lo, 
 Myself for guerdon shall on thee bestow. 
 
 Venus speaks of love after the wanton fashion of the 
 sixteenth century, and reveals a stationary figure ot 
 Helen attired ' in all her bravery.' Helen sings an 
 Italian sonnet, while attendant Cupids ' fan fresh air in 
 her face.' Paris decides that if beauty is to have the 
 ball, it must belong to Venus. With this verdict the 
 rival goddesses are dissatisfied, and the shepherd is 
 arraigned before the high court of Olympus. Mercury, 
 
'ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.' 569 
 
 sent down to summon Paris, finds him conversing with 
 Venus, who describes the punishment of infideHty : 
 
 In hell there is a tree. 
 Where once a day do sleep the souls of false forsworen lovers, 
 With open hearts ; and thereabout in swarms the number hovers 
 Of poor forsaken ghosts whose wings from off this tree do beat 
 Round drops of fiery Phlegethon to scorch false hearts with heat. 
 
 Paris is now conducted to the council of the gods, 
 before whom he stands and pleads : 
 
 A mortal man amid this heavenly presence. 
 
 He denies the charge of partiality and corruption, 
 arguing that the apple was due to pre-eminent beauty. 
 His speech is eloquent and powerful. The gods ad- 
 mire his manliness, applaud his verdict, and send him 
 back to earth. But Juno and Pallas being still un- 
 satisfied, Venus lays her prize before the male gods, 
 and leaves them to adjudicate. Jupiter, between the 
 claims of justice and his fear of Juno, is perplexed. 
 Vulcan's jealousy prevents him from supporting Venus. 
 Saturn takes no interest in so insignificant a contest. 
 At length Apollo rises, declares that women must be 
 judged by women, and refers the suit to Diana. This 
 leads to the catastrophe. In the last act Diana de- 
 livers her sentence to the satisfaction of all. She 
 describes England and Elizabeth in glowing language, 
 hyperbolical and tender, such as the old poets used 
 when treating of so dear a theme. The Fates, she 
 says, intend that day to shower upon the maiden 
 monarch all their choicest gifts. Let the goddesses 
 go too, and lay the apple at Eliza's feet. This they 
 
S70 SHAK'SPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 do with cheerful acquiescence, and the play ends with 
 an epilogue sung by all the actors : 
 
 Vive diu felix votis hominumque deumque, 
 Corpore mente libra doctissima Candida casta. 
 
 This solution of the plot, though extravagantly flatter- 
 ing, is both ingenious and felicitous ; and the whole 
 play deserves high praise for its artistic construction. 
 
 ' David and Bethsabe,' regarded by some of Peele's 
 critics as his masterpiece, presents us with a curious 
 specimen of the Miracle Play in its most modern form. 
 Joab, Abishai, and Jonadab discourse in the euphuistic 
 language of the period ; but when we reflect that they 
 probably wore trunk -hose and ruffs, the inconsistency 
 does not appear so glaring. Peele endeavoured to 
 invest his imagery with Oriental splendour ; nor has 
 he altogether failed. David's passion is expressed in 
 glowing hyperboles. Metaphors borrowed from the 
 Song of Solomon recur throughout the piece ; and when 
 
 we read of the 
 
 Kingly bower, 
 Seated in hearing of a hundred streams, 
 
 through which the mistress of the king comes ' tripping 
 like a roe,' bringing his 'longings tangled in her hair,' 
 we feel that some measure of inspiration was granted to 
 the poet. There is imagination, though of a turbid and 
 plethoric species, in the following apostrophe to Tamar 
 on her shameful love : 
 
 Fair Thamar, now dishonour hunts thy foot. 
 And follows thee through every covert shade, 
 Discovering thy shame and nakedness, 
 Even from the valley of Jehosophat 
 Up to the lofty mounts of Lebanon ; 
 
'DAVID AND BETHSAEE: 571 
 
 Where cedars, stirred with anger of the winds, 
 
 Sounding in storms the tale of thy disgrace. 
 
 Tremble with fury, and with murmur shake 
 
 Earth with their feet and with their heads the heavens. 
 
 Beating the clouds into their swiftest rack. 
 
 To bear this wonder round about the world. 
 
 That is Cambyses' vein applied to what Mr. Ruskin 
 calls the ' pathetic- fallacy ' — the greatest powers of 
 nature in commotion, storms rushing through the 
 length of Palestine, immemorial cedars shaken on their 
 everlasting hills, the depths below and heights above, 
 all agitated by the story of a woman's shame. 
 
 It is doubtful whether a dull rhyming play en- 
 titled ' Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes ' be Peele's. 
 Anyhow, it does not call for comment. I prefer to 
 quote some lines from the warlike ode addressed to 
 Sir John N orris and Sir Francis Drake upon the eve 
 of their disastrous expedition to Portugal. Written 
 when the defeat of the Armada was yet fresh, it glows 
 with the awakened spirit of the English nation, and 
 sounds a clarion note of what would now be called 
 Elizabethan Jingoism : 
 
 Bid theatres and proud tragedians, 
 Bid Mahomet, Scipio,' and mighty Tamburlane, 
 King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley, and the rest, 
 Adieu. To arms, to arms, to glorious arms ! 
 With noble Norris, and victorious Drake, 
 Under the sanguine cross brave England's badge 
 To propagate religious piety, 
 And hew a passage with your conquering swords 
 By land and sea, wherever Phoebus' eye, 
 Th' eternal lamp of heaven, lends us light; 
 
 ' Is this rightly corrected ? Or should we adopt Hoo or Howe ? The 
 old copies give Poo, I believe. 
 
572 SHAICSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 By golden Tagus, or the western Inde, 
 
 Or through the spacious bay of Portugal, 
 
 The wealthy ocean-main, the Tyrrhene sea. 
 
 From great Alcides' pillars branching forth 
 
 Even to the gulf that leads to lofty Rome ; 
 
 There to deface the pride of Antichrist, 
 
 And pull his paper walls and popery down, — 
 
 A famous enterprise for England's strength, 
 
 To steel your swords on avarice's triple crown. 
 
 And cleanse Augeas' stalls in Italy. 
 
 To arms ! my fellow soldiers ! Sea and land 
 
 Lie open to the voyage you intend ; 
 
 And sea or land, bold Britons, far or near. 
 
 Whatever course your matchless virtue shapes. 
 
 Whether to Europe's bounds or Asian plains. 
 
 To Afric's shore, or rich America, 
 
 Down to the shades of deep Avernus' crags, 
 
 Sail on, pursue your honours to your graves : 
 
 Heaven is a sacred covering for your heads. 
 
 And every climate virtue's tabernacle. 
 
 To arms, to arms, to honourable arms ! 
 
 Hoise sails, weigh anchors up, plough up the seas 
 
 With flying keels, plough up the land with swords : 
 
 In God's name venture on ■ and let me say 
 
 To you, my mates, as Caesar said to his. 
 
 Striving with Neptune's hills ; ' you bear,' quoth he, 
 
 ' Caesar and Caesar's fortune in your ships.' 
 
 You follow them whose swords successful are ; 
 
 You follow Drake, by sea the scourge of Spain, 
 
 The dreadful dragon, terror to your foes, 
 
 Victorious in his return from Inde, 
 
 In all his high attempts unvanquishfed ; 
 
 You follow noble Norris, whose renown 
 
 Won in the fertile fields of Belgia, 
 
 Spread by the gates of Europe to the courts 
 
 Of Christian kings and heathen potentates; 
 
 You fight for Christ and England's peerless Queen 
 
 Elizabeth, the wonder of the world. 
 
 Over whose throne the enemies of God 
 
 Have thundered erst their vain successless braves. 
 
 O, ten-times-treble happy men that fight 
 
 Under the cross of Christ, and England's Queen, 
 
 And follow such as Drake and Norris are I 
 
PATRIOTIC POEMS. ;?3 
 
 The same spirit animates Peek's poem on the Order 
 of the Garter. The first knights or Founders of the 
 Garter are thus enumerated •} 
 
 Edward, Prince of Wales, 
 Was first ; then Henry, Duke of Lancaster ; 
 And Nicholas, Earl of Warwick, made the third; 
 Captain de Buch was next, renowned for arms ; 
 Then the brave Earls of Stafford and Southampton, 
 And Mortimer, a gentle, trusty lord ; 
 Then Lisle, and Burghersh, Beauchamp, and Mohun, 
 Grey, Courtenay, and the Hollands, worthy knights, 
 Fitz-Simon, Wale, and Sir Hugh Wrottesley, 
 Nele Loring, Chandos, Sir Miles Stapleton, 
 Walter Pagannel, Eam, and D'Audley ; last 
 Was the good knight Sir Sanchet D'Abrichecourt. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Thomas Nash claims a place of no little importance 
 in the history of English prose. His pamphlets, 
 modelled upon those in vogue among Italian writers of 
 the school of Aretine, display a trenchant wit and a 
 directness in the use of language, which were rare in 
 that age. He was a born satirist, hitting hard, absjain- 
 ing from rhetorical parades of erudition, sketching a 
 caricature with firm and broad touches, and coining 
 pithy epigrams which stung like poisoned arrows. No 
 writer before Nash, and few since his death, have 
 used the English language as an instrument of pure 
 invective with more complete mastery and originality 
 of manner. Returning from an Italian journey in the 
 summer of 1588, Nash joined Greene's circle, and 
 
 ' Piety to these knights of the French wars, among whom I count a 
 collateral ancestor, Sir Richard Fitz-Simon, rather than admiration for 
 the poetry of this passage, makes me print these lines. 
 
574 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 began to employ his pen at the dictation of the 
 Bishops Whitgift and Bancroft in the Martin Mar- 
 prelate dispute. It was his chief literaiy exploit to 
 bring the matter of ecclesiastical debate from the 
 pulpit down into the market-place, and to disarm a 
 cumbrous antagonist by ridicule and scurrilous abuse 
 instead of argument and dissertation. Thus much in 
 the art of controversy Nash had learned from the 
 Italian humanists and their successors, the Venetian 
 pamphleteers. But these foreign weapons he used 
 with the coarse vigour and grotesque humour of an 
 Englishman. His lampoons attracted immediate at- 
 tention. Their style was imitated but not equalled 
 by Lodge, Lyly, and others. Nash acquired a sudden 
 and a lasting reputation as the first and most for- 
 midable satirist of his epoch. His name is always 
 coupled with some epithet like ' gallant Juvenal,' the 
 'English Aretine,' and 'railing' Nash. The friend- 
 ship he formed with Greene was close, and lasted 
 to the end of that unhappy poet's life. Nash, it is 
 said, assisted at the supper which resulted in Greene's 
 fatal illness. After his comrade's death he was drawn 
 into a famous word-conflict with Gabriel Harvey, the 
 Cambridge pedant and friend of Spenser, who currishly 
 vented his spleen against the dead man in a clumsy 
 satire. Nash took the cudgels up, and overwhelmed 
 Harvey with such abuse as he alone could hurl at an 
 antagonist, pouring forth pamphlet after pamphlet of 
 the bitterest sarcasm and most voluble denunciation. 
 Harvey responded, as well as his more lumbering wits 
 were able ; till at last the See of Canterbury intervened 
 with an order that the tracts hitherto published by 
 
NASH'S PAMPHLETS. 575 
 
 both champions should be taken up and destroyed, 
 and that no printer should regale the public with any 
 further libels from their scandalous pens. Enough 
 attention has been called on various occasions and by 
 several critics to these obsolete literary conflicts. In a 
 survey of the Elizabethan stage, it is not needful to 
 revert to them, except with the purpose of characteris- 
 ing an author, who, while he was the first pamphleteer, 
 took rank as one of the least eminent among the many 
 playwrights of his age. Yet one word may still be 
 added upon a prose tract, rather autobiographical than 
 controversial, in which Nash has bequeathed to us some 
 interesting sketches of contemporary London manners. 
 ' Pierce Penniless, his Supplication to the Devil,' was 
 clearly written to relieve its author's necessities. The 
 introduction sets forth in grave and heartfelt terms the 
 discouragement of a scholar driven to desperate shifts 
 and seduced to evil courses by the neglect of patrons 
 and the difficulty of making a livelihood out of litera- 
 ture. It confirms the truth of Greene's dying appeal 
 to his Bohemian companions, and illustrates the miser- 
 able position of those academical writers, cast adrift in 
 London without a fixed employment or a recognised 
 profession, who were doomed, less by their own fault 
 than by the adverse circumstances of the literary life 
 as they pursued it, to failure, indigence, and early 
 death. The London of Elizabeth had in fact its Grub 
 Street no less than the London of Queen Anne. ' Pierce 
 Penniless ' is further valuable for the series of animated 
 portraits it contains, studied from the life and repre- 
 senting types pf character about town. To these and 
 to the incidental defence of stage-plays, which Nash 
 
576 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 found occasion to introduce, I shall return at the proper 
 opportunity. 
 
 Nash's fame as a dramatist rests upon three plays. 
 The first of these, and probably the most characteristic 
 of his genius, was never printed. It bore the title of 
 the ' Isle of Dogs,' was possibly, but not certainly, a 
 political satire, and cost its author an imprisonment in 
 gaol. This punishment brought him, however, rather 
 reputation than disgrace. Meres, in his ' Palladis 
 Tamia,' alludes kindly to the incident : ' Dogs were 
 the death of Euripides ; but be not disconsolate, gallant 
 young Juvenal ; Linus, the son of Apollo, died the same 
 death. Yet God forbid that so brave a wit should so 
 basely perish ! Thine are but paper dogs ; neither is 
 thy banishment, like Ovid's, eternally to converse with 
 the barbarous Getes.' When Nash came out of prison, 
 he took credit to himself for the past consequences of 
 his caustic speech ; whence we may infer that, if not 
 political, the satire of his ' Isle of Dogs ' concerned 
 some persons of importance, to libel whom was not less 
 honourable than perilous. 
 
 Nash had some share, but what share it is im- 
 possible to settle, in a dramatic adaptation of the 
 Fourth yEneid, which appeared in 1594 under Mar- 
 lowe's name. It is possible that the MS. was left 
 unfinished, and that Nash, a friend of Marlowe, did no 
 more than to edit and prepare it for the stage. All 
 that is original and striking in this tragedy, especially 
 the opening scene in Olympus, and the part assigned 
 to Cupid, may with certainty be ascribed to Marlowe. 
 There remains, perhaps, a sufficiency of plain pedes- 
 trian blank verse, to establish the inferior poet's title to 
 
NASH AS DRAMATIST. 577 
 
 collaboration. But after careful study of 'Queen Dido,' 
 I am inclined to think that Nash's share in it was 
 small, and that the play was one of Marlowe's earlier 
 essays, thrust aside for some uncertain reason, and 
 brought forth when death had added lustre to his 
 name. It abounds in rhyming lines and assonances, 
 which points to an early date of composition ; but its 
 style is distinguished throughout by traces of Marlowe's 
 peculiar manner. 
 
 Of what dramatic work, in conception and in 
 versification, Nash himself was capable, is apparent 
 from his sole surviving piece, ' Will Summer's Testa- 
 ment' This is a Court Comedy, or Show, without a 
 plot, depending for its now evaporated interest on 
 learned quips and fashionable cranks served up with 
 masquerade and satire for the Queen's amusement. It 
 represents a bygone phase of taste, before the world 
 had learned to read, when word-of-mouth tirades on 
 things in general had their savour. The motive is 
 a play of words maintained upon the name of Summer. 
 Will Summer, the Court fool of Henry VIII.; whose 
 portrait by Holbein still exists at Kensington, speaks 
 prologue, and conducts the piece. He or his ghost 
 appears in clown's costume, and nodding to the audience, 
 opens with : 'I'll show you what a scurvy prologue 
 our play-maker has made in an old vein of similitudes.' 
 Summer then pulls forth and reads a pompous parody 
 of Euphuism in a long preposterously laboured dia- 
 tribe of nonsense. This, when he has played with it 
 for a few paragraphs, the fool tosses carelessly aside, 
 and speaks in his own person to the audience. ' How 
 say, you, my masters ? Do you not laugh at him for 
 
 p p 
 
57B SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 a coxcomb ? Why, he hath made a prologue longer 
 than his play ! Nay, 'tis no play neither, but a show.' 
 After this box-on-the-ears to Lyly, Summer, the 
 Season, enters, holds his Court, reviews the revolu- 
 tions of the year, and makes his will, reserving all the 
 honours of the prime to Queen Elizabeth : 
 
 Unto Eliza, that most sacred dame. 
 
 Whom none but saints and angels ought to name. 
 
 While the Seasons in their masquing dresses pass across 
 the stage and furnish forth appropriate entertainment. 
 Summer, the Court fool, sits by and comments. To 
 modern readers the fun of the show, if fun it ever had, 
 is withered and gone by — more withered than the 
 roses, and more wasted than the snows of yester-year. 
 ' Ingenious, fluent, facetious Thomas Nash,' wrote 
 genial Dekker ; ' from what abundant pen flowed honey 
 to thy friends, and mortal aconite to thy enemies ! ' 
 Alas, poor Tom Nash ! Little enough is left of thee, 
 thy humour and thy satire ! The men of our days 
 cannot taste thy honey, and thy aconite has lost its 
 venom. Dust too are the pedants and the puritans 
 on whom it was so freely spilt. Yet something still 
 survives from this dry caput mortuum of an ephemeral 
 medley. The first lyric printed in the ' Golden Trea- 
 sury,' that gift-book to all children of our time and 
 vade-mecum of all lovers of old literature, is a spring 
 song from ' Will Summer's Testament.' Nor is there 
 wanting in its scenes a second ditty, of less general 
 application, but sweeter still and sadder, in which the 
 dying Summer proves that our ' young gallant Juvenal ' 
 
LODGE AS DRAMATIST. 579 
 
 was a real poet. Let one of its stanzas s^rve to vin- 
 dicate this claim, and satisfy his disappointed ghost : 
 
 Beauty is but a flower, 
 Which wrinkles will devour : 
 Brightness falls from the air ; 
 Queens have died young and fair : 
 Dust hath closed Helen's eye : 
 I am sick, I must die. 
 Lord, have mercy on us ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 One more dramatist of Greene's brood must be 
 mentioned. Thomas Lodge, Lord Mayor's son, 
 master of arts, law student, perhaps actor, buccaneer, 
 physician, poet of Scylla and of Rosalynde, satirist of 
 manners, defender of the stage, exposer of money- 
 lenders and their myrmidons — this man of multifarious 
 ability and chequered experience, was also a play- 
 wright. In proportion to his other works, the plays 
 of Lodge are insignificant. He aided his friend 
 Greene in ' The Looking Glass for London,' and 
 quarried a tragedy from Plutarch on the rivalries of 
 Marius and Sylla. ' The Wounds of Civil War ' is 
 disappointing in execution — especially in the versifica- 
 tion, which shows no effort to profit by Marlowe's 
 invention, and in the comic parts, which fall below the 
 usual level of such stuff. Lodge may indeed be 
 credited with an honest effort to trace firm outlines 
 of his principal male characters. Yet his reputation 
 as an English poet will not rest upon this lifeless 
 
 PP2 
 
58o SHAKSPEREiS PREDECESSORS. 
 
 play, but on the charming lyrics which are scattered 
 through his novels. 
 
 X. 
 
 It is time to leave the little coterie of friends who 
 clustered around Greene in London, and to concen- 
 trate attention upon Marlowe, himself a member of 
 their society, but far superior in all qualities which 
 make a dramatist and poet. In the prose romances of 
 this group, the influence of Lyly's style is still dis- 
 cernible. But Greene marks a new departure in 
 dramatic literature. The romantic play, the English 
 Farsa, may be called in a great measure his discovery. 
 Nash marks a no less noticeable departure in the 
 prose of controversy and satire. Peele is a sweet 
 versifier and an artist gifted with a sense of proportion 
 unusual in his age. Lodge distinguishes himself as a 
 rarely musical and natural lyrist. Marlowe, intervening 
 at the height of Greene's popularity, imposed his style 
 in a measure on these contemporaries. But none of 
 them were able effectively to profit by the contact of 
 this fiery spirit. He took the town by storm ; they 
 adopted some of his inventions, without understanding 
 their importance and without assimilating the more 
 potent influences of his art. 
 
 ' Lodge has found so genial and able an expositor in Mr. Gosse, that 
 I have purposely curtailed the above notice of his interesting career and 
 distinguished literary work. See the first essay in that charming collection, 
 Seventeenth Century Studies, by (t. W. Gosse. 
 

 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MARLOWE. 
 
 I. The Life of Marlowe — Catalogue of his Works. — II. The Father of 
 English Dramatic Poetry — He Fixes the Romantic Type — Adopts 
 the Popular Dramatic Form, the Blank Verse Metre of the Scholars 
 — He Transfigures both Form and Metre — His Consciousness of his 
 Vocation. — III. The History of Blank Verse in England — Italian 
 Precedent — Marlowe's Predecessors — Modern and Classical Metrical 
 Systems — Quantity and Accent — The Licentiate Iambic — Gascoigne's 
 Critique — Marlowe's Innovations in Blank Verse — Pause— Emphasis 
 — Rhetoric a Key to good Blank Verse — The Variety of Marlowe's 
 Metre. — IV. His Transfiguration of Tragedy — The Immediate Effect 
 of his Improvements — He marks an Epoch in the Drama. — V. Co- 
 lossal Scale of Marlowe's Works — Dramatisation of Ideals — Defect 
 of Humour — No Female Characters. —VI. Marlowe's Leading 
 Motive — The Impossible Amour — The Love of the Impossible por- 
 trayed in the Guise — In Tamburlaine — In Faustus — In Mortimer — 
 Impossible Beauty — What would Marlowe have made of ' Tann- 
 haiiser' ? — Barabas— The Apotheosis of Avarice. — VII. The Poet 
 and Dramatist inseparable in Marlowe — Character of Tamburlaine. 
 — VIII. The German Faustiad — Its Northern Character — Psycho- 
 logical Analysis in 'Doctor Faustus' — The Teutonic Sceptic — For- 
 bidden Knowledge and Power — Grim Justice — Faustus and Mephis- 
 tophilis — The Last Hour of Faustus— Autobiographical Elements in 
 'Doctor Faustus.'— IX. 'The Jew of Malta' — Shylock — Spanish 
 Source of the Story — An Episode of Spanish Humour — Acting Quali- 
 ties of Marlowe's Plays. — X. 'Edward II.' — Shakspere and Marlowe 
 in the Chronicle-Play — Variety of Characters — Dialogue — The Open- 
 ing of this Play — Gaveston — Edward's Last Hours. — XI. 'The 
 Massacre at Paris ' — Its Unfinished or Mangled Text — Tragedy of 
 'Dido' — Hyperbohcal Ornament — Romantic and Classic Art.— XII. 
 Marlowe greater as a Poet than a Dramatist — His Reputation with 
 Contemporaries. 
 
 I. 
 
 Of the life of Christopher Marlowe very little is known. 
 He was a shoemaker's son, born at Canterbury in 1564, 
 
S82 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 — two months earlier than Shakspere at Stratford — 
 and was educated at the King's School in that town. 
 He entered Benet College, Cambridge, as a Pensioner, 
 in 1 58 1, and after taking his B.A. degree came up to 
 seek his fortune in London, ' a boy in years, a man in 
 genius, a god in ambition,' as Swinburne no less truly 
 than finely writes of the young Titan of the stage. It 
 is more than probable that Marlowe, under the in- 
 fluence perhaps of Francis Kett, who was a Fellow of 
 Benet College in 1573, and was burned at Norwich in 
 1589 for anti-Christian heresy, had already contracted 
 opinions which closed a clerical career against him, 
 and which rendered any of the recognised professions 
 distasteful. Be this as it may, he was indubitably born 
 a poet, and nothing but the exercise of his already full- 
 grown genius could have satisfied his nature. The 
 most remarkable point to notice about Marlowe is that 
 he served no apprenticeship to art, and went to school 
 with none of the acknowledged masters of his age. 
 His first extant tragedy shows him in possession of a 
 new style, peculiar to himself, representative of his own 
 temperament, and destined by its force, attractiveness, 
 and truth to revolutionise the practice of all elder play- 
 wrights and contemporaries. The demand for plays 
 in public theatres was sufficient at this epoch to make 
 dramatic authorship fairly profitable. The society of 
 the green-room and the stage, in revolt against con- 
 ventions and tolerant of eccentricities in conduct and 
 opinion, suited the wild and ardent spirit of a man who 
 thirsted lawlessly for pleasure and forbidden things. 
 Marlowe does not seem to have hesitated in his choice 
 of life, but threw his lot in frankly with the libertines 
 
MARLOWE'S LIFE. 583 
 
 and reprobates, whose art he raised from insignificance 
 to power and beauty. No sooner had his imagination 
 given birth to the first part of ' Tamburlaine ' than he 
 became the idol of the town.^ 
 
 Marlowe took his Master's degree in 1587, and 
 before this date ' Tamburlaine ' had been performed. 
 The rest of his short life was spent in writing tragedies 
 for money. What he gained by his pen he is said to 
 have squandered among the frequenters of suburban 
 taverns. Puritans, who did their best to stigmatise the 
 morals of the stage, described him as a blasphemer and 
 notorious evil-liver. We cannot feel sure that their 
 portrait of the man was substantially correct ; though 
 Greene's address to Marlowe on his death-bed makes it 
 appear that, even among his intimate friends, he had 
 gained a reputation for insolent atheism. His end was 
 tragic : a rival in some love adventure stabbed him with 
 his own dagger in a tavern at Deptfoiti. This was in 
 1593, before the completion of his thirtieth year. If we 
 assign the first part of 'Tamburlaine' to 1587, this gives 
 a period of some six years to Marlowe's activity as an 
 author. Within that brief space of time he successively 
 produced the second part of 'Tamburlaine,' 'Dr. 
 Faustus,' ' The Massacre at Paris,' 'The Jew of Malta,' 
 and ' Edward 1 1.' These tragedies were performed dur- 
 ing their author's lifetime ; and though it is impossible to 
 fix their order with any certainty, internal evidence of 
 
 ' If we could trust the genuineness of an old ballad, The Atheist's 
 Tragedy, published by Dyce at the end of his edition of Marlowe's works, 
 we should believe that Marlowe began his theatrical career as an actor at 
 the Curtain, where he broke his leg. But the ballad in question, printed 
 from a MS. in the possession of the late Mr. J. P. Collier, has to be 
 classified with other dubious materials furnished by that ingenious student, 
 on which a cautious critic will prefer to found no theories. 
 
S84 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Style justifies us in assigning the two last-named plays 
 to the later years of his life, while the two ' Tambur- 
 laines ' are undoubtedly among the earliest fruits of his 
 genius. At his death he left an unfinished drama on 
 the tragedy of ' Dido,' which I am inclined to refer to 
 the beginning of his career as playwright. It shows a 
 still imperfect command of blank verse and a hesitation 
 between that measure and rhyme, which does not 
 belong to the poet's maturity. In addition to these 
 dramatic works Marlowe bequeathed to the world the 
 fragment of a narrative poem, which stands higher in 
 poetic quality, both of conception and execution, than 
 any similar work of the Elizabethan age, not excepting 
 Shakspere's ' Venus and Adonis.' I mean, of course, 
 the ' Hero and Leander.' The translation into blank 
 verse of the first book of Lucan's ' Pharsalia ' may pass 
 for an exercise in Marlowe's' own ' licentiate iambic ' 
 metre. The rhymed translation of Ovid's ' Amores,' 
 which an Archbishop of Canterbury and a Bishop of 
 London thought worthy of public burning, may also be 
 regarded as an exercise prelusive to that liberal use of 
 the couplet in ' Hero and Leander,' whereby Marlowe 
 stamped rhyming heroic verse with his own seal no less 
 emphatically than he had stamped unrhymed heroic 
 verse in ' Tamburlaine.' A few minor pieces, including 
 the beautiful and well-known pastoral, ' Come live with 
 me and be my love,' complete the tale of the young 
 poet's contributions to our literature. 
 
THE FOUNDER OF ENGLISH DRAMA. 585 
 
 II. 
 
 Marlowe has been styled, and not unjustly styled, 
 the father of English dramatic poetry. When we 
 reflect on the conditions of the stage before he pro- 
 duced ' Tamburlaine,' and consider the state in which 
 he left it after the appearance of 'Edward II.,' we 
 shall be able to estimate his true right to this title. Art, 
 like Nature, does not move by sudden leaps and bounds. 
 It required a slow elaboration of divers elements, the 
 formation of a public able to take interest in dramatic 
 exhibitions, the determination of the national taste 
 toward the romantic rather than the classic type of 
 art, and all the other circumstances which have been 
 dwelt upon in the preceding studies, to render Mar- 
 lowe's advent as decisive as it proved. Before he 
 began to write, various dramatic species had been 
 essayed with more or less success. Comedies modelled 
 in form upon the types of Plautus and Terence ; 
 tragedies conceived in the spirit of Seneca ; chronicles 
 rudely arranged in scenes for representation ; drama- 
 tised novels and tales of private life ; Court comedies 
 of compliment and allegory ; had succeeded to the 
 religious Miracles and ethical Moralities. There was 
 plenty of productive energy, plenty of enthusiasm and 
 activity. Theatres continued to spring up, and 
 acting came to rank among the recognised profes- 
 sions. But this activity was still chaotic. None could 
 say where or whether the germ of a great national 
 art existed. To us, students of the past, it is indeed 
 clear enough in what direction lay the real life of the 
 
S86 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 drama ; but this was not apparent to contemporaries. 
 Scholars despised the shows of mingled bloodshed 
 and buffoonery in which the populace delighted. The 
 people had no taste for dry and formal disquisitions 
 in the style of ' Gorboduc' The blank verse of 
 Sackville and Hughes rang hollow; the prose of 
 Lyly was affected ; the rhyming couplets of the 
 popular theatre interfered with dialogue and free 
 development of character. The public itself was 
 divided in its tastes and instincts ; the mob inclining to 
 mere drolleries and merriments upon the stage, the 
 better vulgar to formalities and studied imitations. A 
 powerful body of sober citizens, by no means wholly 
 composed of Puritans and ascetics, regarded all forms 
 of dramatic art with undisguised hostility. Meanwhile, 
 no really great poet had arisen to stamp the tendencies 
 of either Court or town with the authentic seal of 
 genius. There seemed a danger lest the fortunes of 
 the stage in England should be lost between the pre- 
 judices of a literary class, the puerile and lifeless 
 pastimes of the multitude, and the disfavour of con- 
 servative moralists. From this peril Marlowe saved 
 the English drama. Amid the chaos of conflicting 
 elements he discerned the true and living germ of art, 
 and set its growth beyond all risks of accident by his 
 achievement. 
 
 When, therefore, we style Marlowe the father and 
 founder of English dramatic poetry, we mean that he 
 perceived the capacities for noble art inherent in the 
 Romantic Drama, and proved its adaptation to high 
 purpose by his practice. Out of confusion he brought 
 
CLASSIC METRE AND ROMANTIC MATTER. 587 
 
 order, following the clue of his own genius through a 
 labyrinth of dim unmastered possibilities. Like all 
 gi'eat craftsmen, he worked by selection and exclusion 
 on the whole mass of material ready to his hand ; and 
 his instinct in this double process is the proof of his 
 originality. He adopted the romantic drama in lieu of 
 the classic, the popular instead of the literary type. 
 But he saw that the right formal vehicle, blank verse, 
 had been suggested by the school which he rejected. 
 Rhyme, the earlier metre of the romantic drama, had 
 to be abandoned. Blank verse, the metre of the 
 pedants, had to be accepted. To employ blank verse 
 in the romantic drama was the first step in his revolu- 
 tion. But this was only the first step. Both form 
 and matter had alike to be transfigured. And it was 
 precisely in this transfiguration of the right dramatic 
 metre, in this transfiguration of the right dramatic 
 stuff, that Marlowe showed himself a creative poet. 
 What we call the English, or the Elizabethan, or 
 better perhaps the Shaksperian Drama, came into 
 existence by this double process. Marlowe found the 
 public stage abandoned to aimless trivialities, but 
 abounding in the rich life of the nation, and with the 
 sympathies of the people firmly enlisted on the side of 
 its romantic presentation. He introduced a new class 
 of heroic subjects, eminently fitted for dramatic hand- 
 ling. He moulded characters, and formed a vigorous 
 conception of the parts they had to play. Under his 
 touch the dialogue moved with spirit ; men and women 
 spoke and acted with the energy and spontaneity of 
 nature. He found the blank verse of the literary 
 
588 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 school monotonous, tame, nerveless, without life or 
 movement. But he had the tact to understand its 
 vast capacities, so vastly wider than its makers had 
 divined, so immeasurably more elastic than the rhymes 
 for which he substituted its sonorous cadence. Mar- 
 lowe, first of Englishmen, perceived how noble was 
 the instrument he handled, how well adapted to the 
 closest reasoning, the sharpest epigram, the loftiest 
 flight of poetry, the subtlest music, and the most 
 luxuriant debauch of fancy. Touched by his hands 
 the thing became an organ capable of rolling thunders 
 and of whispering sighs, of moving with pompous 
 volubility or gliding like a silvery stream, of blowing 
 trumpet-blasts to battle or sounding the soft secrets 
 of a lover's heart. I do not assert that Marlowe made 
 it discourse music of so many moods. But what he 
 did with it, unlocked the secrets of the verse, and 
 taught successors how to play upon its hundred stops. 
 He found it what Greene calls a ' drumming deca- 
 syllabon.' Each line stood alone, formed after the same 
 model, ending with a strongly accented monosyllable. 
 Marlowe varied the pauses in its rhythm; combined 
 the structure of succeeding verses into periods ; altered 
 the incidence of accent in many divers forms and left the 
 metre fit to be the vehicle of Shakspere's or of Milton's 
 thought. Compared with either of those greatest 
 poets, Marlowe, as a versifier, lacks indeed variety of 
 cadence, and palls our sense of melody by emphatic 
 magniloquence. The pomp of his 'mighty line ' tends 
 to monotony ; nor was he quite sure in his employment 
 of the instrument which he discovered and divined. 
 The finest bursts of metrical music in his dramas seem 
 
MARLOWE'S ORIGINALITY. 589 
 
 often the result of momentary inspiration rather than 
 the studied style of a deliberate artist.^ 
 
 This adaptation of blank verse to the romantic 
 drama, this blending of classic form with popular 
 material, and the specific heightening of both form 
 and matter by the application of poetic genius to the 
 task, constitutes Marlowe's claims to be styled the 
 father and the founder of our stage. We are so accus- 
 tomed to Shakspere that it is not easy, to estimate the 
 full importance of his predecessor's revolution. Once 
 again, therefore, let us try to bear in mind the three 
 cardinal points of Marlowe's originality. In the first 
 place, he saw that the romantic drama, the drama of 
 the public theatres, had a great future before it. In 
 the second place, he saw that the playwrights of the 
 classic school had discovered the right dramatic metre. 
 In the third place, he raised both matter and metre, 
 the subjects of the romantic and the verse of the 
 classic school, to heights as yet unapprehended in his 
 days. Into both he breathed the breath of life; heroic, 
 poetic, artistic, vivid with the spirit of his age. From 
 the chaotic and conflicting elements around him he 
 drew forth the unity of English Drama, and produced 
 the thing which was to be so great, is still so perfect. 
 
 Marlowe was fully aware of his object. The few 
 and seemingly negligent lines which serve as prologue 
 to ' Tamburlaine,' written probably when he was a 
 
 ' These remarks on Marlowe's use of Blank Verse remain much as I 
 first wrote them in September 1864. Their substance I have already 
 published in Comhill essays on ' The Drama of Elizabeth and James ' and 
 'Blank Verse' (1865-6) and a Pall Mall Gazette article on 'Marlowe' 
 (1867). After nearly twenty years I do not see reason to modify in any 
 essential points the panegyric I then penned, and which has been far 
 more eloquently uttered since by Mr. Swinburne. 
 
590 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 youth of twenty-two, set forth his purpose in plain 
 terms : 
 
 From jigging veins of rhyming mother-wits, 
 And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay. 
 We '11 lead you to the stately tent of war ; 
 Where you shall hear the Scythian Tamburlaine 
 Threatening the world with high astounding terms. 
 And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword. 
 
 In other words, Marlowe undertakes to wean the 
 public from its drolleries and merriments. He adver- 
 tises a metre hitherto unused upon the popular stage. 
 He promises an entertainment in which heroic actions 
 shall be displayed with the pomp of a new style. The 
 puerilities of clownage are to retire into the second 
 place. Yet the essential feature of the romantic drama, 
 its power to fascinate and please a public audience, is 
 not to be abandoned. 
 
 HI. 
 
 The importance of Blank Verse in the history of 
 English poetry, especially dramatic poetry, is so great 
 that Marlowe's innovations in the use of it demand a 
 somewhat lengthy introduction, in order that their 
 scope may be understood. 
 
 The single line, or unit, in a blank verse period is 
 a line of normally five accents, of which the final accent 
 falls on the last syllable, or, if that syllable be not defi- 
 nitely accented, is supplied by the closing pause.^ It 
 
 ' As the terminal syllable in the classical metres may be long or short, 
 so the terminal syllable in blank verse may be accented or unaccented, 
 the close of the verse sufficing. Sophocles ends a line, e.g., with i'KavveTe, 
 and Shakspere one with alacrity. This observation might lead to further 
 remarks upon what quantity and accent have in common, metrically 
 speaking; but the inquiry would be too long. 
 
THE NORMAL HEROIC LINE. 591 
 
 consists frequently, but by no means invariably, of ten 
 syllables. It has usually, but not inevitably, a more 
 or less discernible pause, falling after the fourth or 
 the sixth syllable. Out of these determinations, it is 
 possible to make or to select a typical line — the normal 
 line of English heroic rhythm. And for this purpose 
 we can do no better than choose the one indicated by 
 Johnson from Milton : 
 
 Love lights his lamp, and waves his purple wing. 
 
 Here it will be noticed we get five accents regularly 
 falling on the second syllable of each foot, and a pause 
 marked at the end of the fourth syllable. Such a line 
 may be termed the ideal line of English heroic pro- 
 sody ; and it is our business to keep its scheme some- 
 where, in however shadowy a shape, present to our 
 mind, in order to appreciate and judge the almost in- 
 numerable declensions from the type, which constitute 
 the variety and beauty of the metre in the handling 
 of great masters. 
 
 This line, which has become the standard metre 
 of serious English poetry in epic, story, idyll, satire, 
 drama, elegy, and meditative lyric, had been used from 
 early times anterior to its application to blank verse. 
 Chaucer and his followers employed it in the couplet 
 and rime royal ; Surrey, Wyatt, and Sidney in the 
 sonnet ; Spenser in the stanzas of the ' Faery Queen.' 
 But in the hands of these masters, and applied to these 
 purposes, the verse was still subservient to rhyme. 
 Surrey, in his translation of the ' /Eneid,' was the first 
 poet who attempted to free the measure from this 
 servitude. It is supposed that, in making his experi- 
 
592 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 ment, he followed Italian models. The Italian heroic 
 verse, a line of five accents, but commonly of eleven 
 syllables, and not distinguished by a normal pause, 
 had undergone a similar transition from rhymed to un- 
 rhymed usage. Employed at first in the terza rima 
 of Dante, the ottava rima of Boccaccio, the sonnet of 
 Petrarch, it had been emancipated from rhyme by 
 Trissino, Rucellai, and Alamanni, writers of tragic, 
 epic, and didactic poems. Among the Italians the 
 transformed measure acquired the name of versi scioltt, 
 or verse freed from rhyme. Surrey is presumed to 
 have imitated the example of these poets when he 
 attempted what we call Blank Verse — verse, that is, 
 where the rhymes are blank or vacant. We may, at 
 any rate, affirm that Surrey's innovation rested on the 
 same scholastic basis as that of his Italian predecessors. 
 The humanistic tendencies of the Renaissance referred 
 all canons of artistic method to classical precedents. 
 The ancients did not rhyme. It seemed, therefore, 
 right and reasonable to these students of antiquity that 
 rhyme should be discarded. From this deliberate act 
 of reasoning proceeded the effort to dispense with 
 rhyme in the Italian versi sciolti and in English blank 
 verse. When the effort had been made in England, 
 and the practice of a hundred playwrights had proved it 
 successful, Milton theorised the system in his preface 
 to ' Paradise Lost : ' ^ 
 
 The measure is English Heroic Verse, without Rime, as that of 
 Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin ; Rime being no necessary 
 
 1 Ascham, in The Schoolmaster, said all that needed to be said about 
 the place of rhyme in English poetry and its omission, before Milton made 
 his dictatorial remarks. 
 
OMISSION OF RHYME. 593 
 
 Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works 
 especially, bijt the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched 
 Matter and lame Meeter. 
 
 It was thus, obeying humanistic and Italian influ- 
 ences, that Surrey, followed by Sackville, Norton, and 
 Hughes, first discarded rhyme in the verse of five 
 accents. Under the same influences, Sidney and his 
 coterie of learned poets attempted the Hexameter, the 
 Sapphic, Asclepiad, and other unrhymed classic metres 
 in the English tongue. The success of their ex- 
 periments was slight. These Latin measures never 
 took root in our literature ; whereas blank verse was 
 destined to a brilliant future. The reason for this dif- 
 ference is obvious. Sapphics, hexameters, asclepiads, 
 and so forth, are metres based on the principle of quan- 
 titative scansion, the effect of which can be but poorly 
 and awkwardly imitated by means of accent. They 
 are exotic to the English system of versification in 
 form and structure. The heroic line, on the contrary, 
 is native to our language ; combining, as the language 
 itself combines, indigenous^ Teutonic and exotic Latin 
 qualities. The omission of the rhyme, to which it 
 was originally linked, does not structurally alter it — 
 although, as will be afterwards observed, this omission 
 very essentially affects the mode of its employment 
 and the metrical effects of which it can be made the 
 vehicle. 
 
 The cultivated poets who first employed this un- 
 rhymed verse, were struck with the sim ilarity it offered 
 to the Iambic measure of the ancients. Having studied 
 prosody in Greek and Latin metres, they applied the 
 classical nomenclature of quant itative scansion to Eng- 
 
 Q<2 
 
594 SHAKSPERB'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 lish rhythms. At the same time they overlooked this 
 important circumstance, that the heroic line fell short 
 of the Greek senarius by one whole foot. Hence, in 
 the very origin of metrical criticism, a slight but not 
 insignificant confusion was introduced ; for terms which 
 are proper to a quantitative system, and rules which 
 govern the Greek tragic senarius, will never exactly suit 
 another rhythm and a shorter line constructed on the 
 principle of accent. Iambs, trochees, dactyls, anapaests, 
 and other classical feet, from choriambi to molossi, 
 can indeed be found in every language, and may 
 be observed even in verses which do not owe to 
 them their melody. These feet represent fixed re- 
 lations in the value of syllables ; the word harmony in 
 English, for example, is both by quantity and accent 
 a dactyl. But the detection of these feet in accentual 
 verses does not throw any clear light on their scansion. 
 It may even lead to such misapprehensions of metrical 
 laws as Collier made, when he described Marlowe's 
 lines of five accents and eleven syllables as iambic 
 lines closed with trochees ; or as Todd made, when he 
 scanned two hues of Milton as iambics with 'chor- 
 iambics in the third and fourth and in the fourth and 
 fifth places.' Trochees at the end of a tragic or a comic 
 Greek iambic, choriambics anywhere, would be wholly 
 inadmissible ; and thus the primal laws of classic 
 prosody are overlooked in the unintelligent effort to 
 apply them to a metre which is not quantitative but 
 accentual. That English verses can be quantitative, 
 as is proved by Tennyson's experiments in the Alcaic 
 and Hendecasyllabic metres, does not affect the ques- 
 tion. What we have to bear in mind is that the heroic 
 
LICENTIATE IAMBIC. 595 
 
 English line, though similar in rhythm to the classical 
 iambic, is not a quantitative but an accentual verse, 
 and that its prosody cannot therefore be analysed by 
 a strict application of classical terms and rules.-' 
 
 Starting with the notion that the heroic line was 
 what an old critic has called it, ' a licentiate iambic,' 
 the first writers of blank verse took pains to imitate 
 the iambic rhythm as closely as possible by alternating 
 an unaccented with an accented syllable throughout 
 the line. This process led them to end the line with 
 a strong monosyllable, and to isolate each verse. The 
 metre moved tamely thus : 
 
 O mother, thou to murder thus thy child ! 
 Ah noble prince, how oft have I beheld ! 
 
 George Gascoigne, in his short tract ' On the Making 
 of Verse in English,' was quick to perceive the con- 
 sequent impoverishment of rhythm. ' Surely I can 
 lament,' he says, ' that we are fallen into such a plain 
 and simple manner of writing that there is none other 
 foot used but one.' Gascoigne was well aware that 
 English prosody relied on accent ; and he described 
 this foot of whose tyranny he complained, as composed 
 ' of two syllables, whereof the first is depressed or made 
 short, and the second is elevate or made long.' He 
 further pointed out that Chaucer had used greater liber- 
 
 ' The redundant unaccented syllable at the end of the line, so 
 common in blank verse, would be sufficient to prove this point. When 
 the verse of five accents rhymed, a double rhyme was admissible, the 
 accent always falling on the penultimate syllable. When the rhyme was 
 removed, the same privilege remained to blank verse ; but this privilege 
 was not granted to the quantitative metres of antiquity. Euripides could 
 not have written : 
 
 ivravS 6 ;^pu<ror eVri " irr]ji(loi> 8e tovto. 
 QQ2 
 
596 SHAKSPERE 'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 ties with metre ; ' and whosoever do peruse and well 
 consider his works, he shall find that although his lines 
 are not always of one self-same number of syllables, 
 yet, being read by one that hath understanding, the 
 longest verse and that which hath most syllables in it 
 will fall to the ear correspondent unto that which hath 
 fewest syllables in it ; and likewise, that which hath 
 in it fewest syllables, shall be found yet to consist of 
 words that have such natural sound, as may seem equal 
 in length to a verse which hath many more syllables 
 of lighter accents.' This passage contained the pith of 
 the whole matter ; and closer analysis of classic and 
 Italian metres led poets to the same result ; namely, 
 that what they called ' the licentiate Iambic ' could be 
 written with far greater effect of melody and force of 
 rhetoric by varying the unit of the rhythm, or the 
 foot. 
 
 Here, however, intervened the great difficulty of 
 English scansion, so long as that scansion was still 
 referred to the quantitative theory. A Greek tragic 
 senarius consisted of six feet ; each foot consisted of a 
 short syllable followed by a long ; but in certain places 
 of the verse, in the first, third, and fifth, two longs 
 might be used. Thus the normal structure of the line 
 was this : 
 
 Furthermore, equivalents for both the iamb and the 
 spondee might be employed at fixed intervals ; and thus 
 the tribrach, anapaest, and dactyl were, under certain re- 
 strictions, admitted into the verse. The one inadmissible 
 foot was the trochee ; and the one invariable foot was an 
 lamb in the final place. Now, in order to imitate an 
 
GREEK AND ENGLISH METRE. 597 
 
 iambic line upon the accentual system, it was necessary 
 to make an unaccented syllable pass for a short, and 
 an accented syllable for a long. According to the prac- 
 tice of Surrey and Sackville the imitative process seemed 
 easy, so long as the versifier confined himself to the 
 simple foot of which Gascoigne complained. He sacri- 
 ficed the native variety of the English rhythm, and did 
 not profit by the foreign varieties of the classical metre. 
 This was because he was working upon a radically 
 false theory. But no sooner did a poet arise who flung 
 theory to the winds and returned to the native liberty 
 of English accentual versification, than variety was at 
 once attained without the sacrifice of melody, but at the 
 same time the laws of classical or quantitative prosody 
 of the iambic had to be freely violated. Trochees 
 appeared in all places but the last, and chimerical 
 choriambi sprawled, to' the purblind eyes of pedants, 
 over two feet. Take this line of Marlowe's for 
 example : 
 
 See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament. 
 
 Scanned according to the nomenclature of classical 
 prosody this is a quinarius, with a trochee in the first 
 place, a spondee in the second, a trochee in the fourth, 
 and two iambs to wind up with. Take another line 
 from Shakspere : 
 
 Thy knee bussing the stones, — for in such business. 
 
 There is here a trochee in the second place, while the 
 fourth place has what cannot properly be called an 
 iamb or a trochee, and the whole verse is closed with 
 two strongly accented syllables followed by a redundant 
 
598 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 syllable— a foot which must be quantitatively described 
 as a spondee, with a short syllable over. It might 
 indeed be argued that though there is not enough accent 
 in the words ' for in ' to make an accentual iamb or 
 trochee, yet they form a quantitative iamb. But if we 
 invoke quantity in this place we shall be met with 
 a palpable spondee in the last place. In fact, it is 
 inadmissible at one moment to use quantity and at 
 the next accent, for the sake of adapting English 
 to Greek scansion ; and this illustration proves how 
 dangerous it is to apply quantitative terms in the 
 analysis of an accentual scheme. Take yet another 
 line from Milton : 
 
 Burned after them to the bottomless pit. 
 
 This is equally monstrous, viewed as a tragic iambic 
 
 line, of the Greek type : a trochee in the first place, 
 
 an iamb in the second, followed by two successive 
 
 trochees and a final iamb. Take still another line from 
 
 Milton : 
 
 Me, me only, just object of his ire. 
 
 The first foot is a spondee or a trochee or an iamb, 
 according as we choose to emphasise. The second is a 
 trochee. The third is a spondee. The fourth becomes 
 an iamb by forcing an accent on the word ' of,' but is a 
 decided quantitative trochee. The fifth is, both accen- 
 tually and quantitatively, a good iamb. The awkward- 
 ness and indecision of scansion thus conducted prove 
 its absurdity. 
 
 Such instances might be chosen from nearly every 
 page of every poet who has used blank verse with 
 spirit and variety. It is clear that the line which forms 
 
QUANTITY AND ACCENT. 599 
 
 the unit of the measure is, to say the very least, an 
 exceedingly licentiate iambic. So long .as our nomen- 
 clature of prosody remains what it is, we may feel 
 obliged, when thinking of the normal blank verse line, 
 to describe it as an iambic, with laws and licences dif- 
 ferent from those of the Greek tragic metre. But this 
 necessity should not make us forget that those laws 
 and licences, on which its special quality depends, are 
 determined by the fact that it is accentual and not 
 quantitative ; and that, though accent may be made to 
 do the work of quantity, it imposes different conditions 
 on the prosody of which it forms the natural basis. A 
 rhythm born and bred in a nation which knew nothing 
 about quantity, a rhythm developed with variety by 
 Chaucer before the humanistic revival, has to be 
 studied in its origins and analysed according to its pri- 
 mitive structure. Instead of seeking to define its five 
 feet by terms of quantity, it were better to classify the 
 incidences of its accents, and to examine these in relation 
 to the pause ; keeping meanwhile suspended in our 
 memory the rhythm of the normal line, and testing by 
 this standard the divergences we notice.^ At the same 
 time we may profitably bear in mind that the dramatic 
 poets with whose work we have to deal, deliberately 
 sought to adapt their versification to Greek, Latin, and 
 
 ' Great advance toward a sound theory of English prosody has 
 recently been made by classifying the numerous cadences of blank verse 
 from the normal type. See, for instance, Dr. Abbott's Shakespearian 
 Grammar. But how uncertain the method of analysis still is, may be 
 perceived by comparing such an essay as this of Dr. Abbott's with Dr. 
 Guest's History of English Rhythms, where a totally opposite theory is 
 supported with a vast mass of erudition. Whatever may be thought 
 of his principles. Dr. Guest deserves the truest gratitude of students for 
 his minute investigation of the native English rhythms, out of which 
 the metres of our Renaissance period emerged. 
 
6oo SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Italian rules of prosody, as these had then been im- 
 perfectly analysed. On the Old English stock they 
 grafted slips of artful growth imported from their classic 
 and Italian studies. The developed blank verse of the 
 Elizabethan age is, therefore, a hybrid between a 
 native rhythm and an antique metre. Unless we grasp 
 this fact we shall miss some of the specific beauties of 
 a measure which, without ceasing to be native and 
 accentual, adopted qualities of rhetoric and movement 
 from the Attic stage, the Latin epic, and the Italian 
 imitators of the classic style. 
 
 Since blank verse is an accentual rhythm, it lends 
 itself with great effect to emphasis — for emphasis is 
 only enforced accent. The facility with which it can 
 be written, the monotony to which it is peculiarly 
 liable in the hands of a weak versifier, justify, nay, 
 almost necessitate, daring variations in its structure ; 
 and these variations assist rhetorical effects. In the 
 absence of rhyme one line can be linked to another 
 without injury, and periods may be formed, like those 
 of prose, in which phrase balances phrase, and the 
 music of language is drawn through sequences of 
 mutually helpful verses. The pause and stop, which 
 are important elements in English prosody, add another 
 element of variety, by allowing each line to be broken 
 in more than one place, and enabling a skilful crafts- 
 man to open and close periods of rhythmic melody at 
 several points in the structure. Reviewing these 
 qualities of English blank verse, we shall perceive that 
 it is an eminently dramatic metre. Its facility and 
 rapid movement bring it into close relation to the 
 speech of common life, and impose no shackling limita- 
 
DRAMATIC BLANK VERSE. 6oi 
 
 tions Upon dialogue. At the same time the fixed 
 element of rhythm raises it above colloquial language, 
 and renders even abrupt transitions from the pedes- 
 trian to the impassioned style of poetry both natural 
 and easy. The emphasis on which it mainly relies for 
 variety of music, gives scope to rhetoric. By shifting 
 the incidence of accent, a playwright not only animates 
 his verse and produces agreeable changes in the rhythm; 
 but he also marks the meaning of his words, and yields 
 opportunities for subtly modulated declamation to the 
 actor. The same end is gained by altering the pauses, 
 on which a very wide scale of oratorical effects can be 
 touched. When Johnson complained that Milton's 
 method of versification ' changes the measures of a 
 poet to the periods of a declaimer,' he laid his finger 
 on that quality of blank verse which is certainly a gain 
 to the Drama, whatever may be thought about its 
 value for the epic. The true and only way of appre- 
 ciating the melody of good blank verse is to declaim 
 it, observing how the changes in the rhythm obey the 
 poet's meaning, and enforce the rhetoric he had in 
 view. Blank verse is, in fact, the nearest of all poetical 
 measures to prose ; yet it does not sacrifice the specific 
 note of verse, which is the maintenance of one selected 
 rhythm, satisfying the ear by repetition, and charming 
 it by variety within the compass of its formal 
 limitations. 
 
 Marlowe, with the instinct of genius, observed 
 these advantages of the unrhymed heroic measure, and 
 with the faculty of a great artist he solved the problem 
 of rendering it the supreme instrument of tragic poetry. 
 Instead of the improver he may almost be called the 
 
6o2 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 creator of blank verse ; for the mere omission of rhyme 
 in the metre of his predecessors did not suffice to con- 
 stitute what we now understand by blank verse. He 
 found the heroic line monotonous, monosyllabic, divided 
 into five feet of tolerably regular alternate shorts and 
 longs. He left it various in form and structure, 
 sometimes redundant by a syllable, sometimes deficient, 
 and animated by unexpected emphases and changes in 
 the pause. He found it a clumsy and mistaken imita- 
 tion of the classical iambic ; he restored it to its birth- 
 right as a native English rhythm. He found no 
 sequence of concatenated lines or attempt at periods^ 
 one verse followed another in isolation, and all were 
 made after the same insipid model. He grouped his 
 lines according to the sense, allowing the thought con- 
 tained in his words to dominate their form, and carrying 
 the melody through several verses linked together by 
 rhetorical modulations. His metre did not preserve 
 one unalterable type, but assumed diversity of cadences, 
 the beauty of which depended on their adaptation to 
 the current of his ideas. By these means he produced 
 the double effect of unity and contrast ; maintained the 
 fixed march of his chosen rhythm ; and yet, by altera- 
 tion in the pauses, speed, and grouping of the syllables, 
 by changes in emphasis and' accent, he made one 
 measure represent a thousand. His blank verse might 
 be compared to music, which demands regular rhythm, 
 but, by the employment of phrase, induces a higher 
 kind of melody to rise above the common and despotic 
 beat of time. Bad writers of blank verse, like Marlowe's 
 predecessors, or like those who in all periods have been 
 deficient in plastic energy and power of harmonious 
 
MARLOWE'S TRAGIC METRE. 603 
 
 adaptation, sacrifice the poetry of expression, the force 
 of rhetoric, to the mechanism of their art.^ Metre 
 with them becomes a mere frameworic, ceases to be the 
 organic body of a vivifying thought. And bad critics 
 praise them for the very faults of tameness and 
 monotony, which they miscall regularity of numbers. 
 These faults, annoying enough to a good ear in stanzas 
 and rhymed couplets, are absolutely insufferable in 
 blank verse, which relies for melodious effect upon its 
 elasticity and pliability of cadence, and which is only 
 saved from insipidity by licences interpretative of the 
 poet's sense and demanded by his rhetoric.^ 
 
 IV. 
 
 The creation of our tragic metre was not Marlowe's 
 only benefit conferred upon the stage. This was 
 indeed but the form corresponding to the new dramatic 
 method which he also introduced. He first taught 
 the art of designing tragedies on a grand scale, dis- 
 playing unity of action, unity of character, and unity 
 of interest. Before his day plays had been pageants 
 or versified tales, arranged in scenes, and enlivened 
 with ' such conceits as clownage keeps in pay.' He 
 first produced dramas worthy of that august title. 
 
 ' In the progress of Shakspere's versification through three broadly 
 marked stages, nothing is more noticeable than the changes whereby he 
 makes metre more and more obey the purposes of rhetoric, starting with 
 lines in which the sense is closed, advancing to lines in which the sense 
 is prolonged through periods, until at last the metre, though never 
 sacrificed, is nowhere forced upon our ear. 
 
 "^ Sufficient examples of Marlowe's versification will be given in 
 quotations below. I may refer my readers to three essays on Blank 
 Verse published in an appendix to my Sketches and Studies in Italy. 
 
6o4 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Before his day it might have been reckoned doubtful 
 whether the rules and precedents of the Latin theatre 
 would not determine the style of tragic composition in 
 England as in Italy. After the appearance of ' Tam- 
 burlaine,' it was impossible for a dramatist to attract 
 the public by any play which had not in it some por- 
 tion of the spirit and the pith of that decisive work. 
 How overwhelming was the influence of Marlowe can 
 be estimated by counting the few plays which survive 
 from the period before his revolution was effected. 
 From that great body of popular and courtly^rubbish, 
 scornfully criticised or faintly praised by Sidney, we 
 possess two passable comedies, two stiff and anti- 
 quated tragedies, a rambling romance, a fustian historic 
 drama in doggerel rhyme, some delicate and graceful 
 masques in studied prose, a pleasant pastoral, and an 
 insufferable tale of chivalry in rhyming couplets of 
 fourteen syllables. I allude, of course, to ' Roister 
 Doister,' ' Gammer Gurton's Needle,' ' Gorboduc,' 
 ' The Misfortunes of Arthur,' ' Cambyses,' Lyly's ' Cam- 
 paspe ' and other pieces, ' The Arraignment of Paris,' 
 and 'Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes.' ^ 'The iniquity 
 of oblivion,' in this case not ' blindly scattering her 
 poppies,' has covered up and sealed from sight un- 
 reckoned multitudes of raw, imperfect essays — the 
 delight of a rude age— the nebulous and seething mass 
 from which the planetary system of Shaksperian Drama 
 was to issue. Of only a very few can it be said with 
 any certainty that they emerged into the light of 
 publicity before Marlowe shook the stage. What re- 
 mains of Greene's, Peek's, Lodge's, and Nash's work, 
 
 ' I cannot find valid reasons for assigning this last piece with 
 absolute certainty to Peele. 
 
MARLOWE'S CONCEPTION OF TRAGEDY. 605 
 
 with the exception of ' The Arraignment of Paris,' is 
 posterior to Marlowe. The same may be asserted, 
 though perhaps with diffidence, of Kyd's two tragedies. 
 Thus even over the inferior productions of the six- 
 teenth century upon its close, had passed the swift 
 transforming spirit of the master. It was the central 
 fire of Marlowe's genius which hardened that dull and 
 shapeless matrix of English dramatic poetry, and ren- 
 dered it capable of crystallising flawless and light - 
 darting gems. When we remember that Marlowe, 
 born in the same year as Shakspere, died at the early 
 age of twenty-nine, while Shakspere 's genius was 
 still, so far as the public was concerned, almost a poten- 
 tiality ; when we reflect upon the life which Marlowe 
 had to lead among companions of debauch in London, 
 and further estimate the degradation of the art he 
 raised so high, we are forced to place him among the 
 most original creative poets of the world. His actual 
 achievement may be judged imperfect, unequal, im- 
 mature, and limited. Yet nothing lower than the 
 highest rank can be claimed for one who did so much, 
 in a space of time so short, and under conditions so 
 unfavourable. What Shakspere would have been 
 without Marlowe, how his far more puissant hand and 
 wonder-working brain would have moulded English 
 Drama without Marlowe, cannot even be surmised. 
 What alone is obvious to every student is that Shak- 
 spere deigned from the first to tread in Marlowe's 
 footsteps, that Shakspere at the last completed and 
 developed to the utmost that national embryo of art 
 which Marlowe drew fortli from the womb of darkaess, 
 anarchy, and incoherence. 
 
6o6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 V. 
 
 About Marlowe there is nothing small or trivial. 
 His verse is mighty ; his passion is intense ; the out- 
 lines of his plots are large ; his characters are Titanic ; 
 his fancy is extravagant in richness, insolence, and 
 pomp. Marlowe could rough-hew like a Cyclops, 
 though he was far from being able to finish with the 
 subtlety and smoothness of a Praxiteles. We may 
 compare his noblest studies of character with marbles 
 blocked out by Michel Angelo, not with the polished 
 perfection of 'La Notte' in San Lorenzo. Speaking of 
 ' Dr. Faustus,' Goethe said with admiration : 'How 
 greatly it is all planned ! ' Greatly planned, and 
 executed with a free, decisive touch, that never hesi- 
 tates and takes no heed of modulations. It is this 
 vastness of design and scale, this simplicity and cer~ 
 tainty of purpose, which strikes us first in Marlowe. 
 He is the sculptor-poet of Colossi, aiming at such effects 
 alone as are attainable in figures of a superhuman size, 
 and careless of fine distinctions or delicate gradations 
 in their execution. His characters are not so much 
 human beings, with the complexity of human attributes 
 combined in living personality, as types of humanity, 
 the animated moulds of human lusts and passions 
 which include, each one of them, the possibility of 
 many individuals. They ' are the embodiments or the 
 exponents of single qualities and simple forces.' ^ This 
 
 1 So Mr. Swinburne has condensed the truth of this matter in his 
 Study of Shakespeare. Professor Dowden has written to like effect in an 
 essay on Marlowe, pubhshed in the Fortnightly Review, Jaiuary 1873. 
 
COLOSSAL SCALE OF HLS ART. 607 
 
 tendency to dramatise ideal conceptions, to vitalise 
 character with one dominant and tyrannous motive, is 
 very strong in Marlowe. Were it not for his own 
 fiery sympathy with the passions thus idealised, and 
 for the fervour of his conceptive faculty, these colossal 
 ,personifications might have been insipid or frigid. As 
 it is, they are far from deserving such epithets. They 
 are redeemed from the coldness of symbolic art, from 
 the tiresomeness of tragic humours, by their author's 
 intensity of conviction. Marlowe is in deadly earnest 
 while creating them, believes in their reality, and in- 
 fuses the blood of his own untamable heart into their 
 veins. We feel them to be day-dreams of their maker's 
 deep desires ; projected from his subjectivity, not 
 studied from the men around him ; and rendered 
 credible by sheer imaginative insight into the dark 
 mysteries of nature. A poet with a lively sense of 
 humour might, perhaps, have found it impossible to 
 conceive and sustain passions on so exorbitant a scale 
 with so little relief, so entire an absence of mitigating 
 qualities. But it was precisely on the side of humour 
 that Marlowe showed his chief inferiority to Shak- 
 spere. That saving grace of the dramatic poet he 
 lacked altogether. And it may also be parenthentically 
 noticed as significant in this respect that Marlowe 
 never drew a woman's character. His Abigail is a 
 mere puppet. Isabella, in his 'Edward II.,' changes 
 suddenly from almost abject fawning on her husband 
 to no less abject dependence on an ambitious paramour. 
 His Dido owes such power as the sketch undoubtedly 
 possesses to the poetry of the Fourth ^neid. 
 
6o8 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 It is no function of sound criticism to decoct a 
 poet's work into its final and residual essence, deducing 
 one motive from the complex efforts and the casual 
 essays of a mind placed higher ex hypothesi in the 
 creative order than the critic's own ; or inventing a 
 catch-word whereby some incommensurable series of 
 achievements may be ticketed. And yet, such is the 
 nature of Marlowe's work, that it imperatively indicates 
 a leading motive, irresistibly suggests a catch-word. 
 This leading motive which pervades his poetry may 
 be defined as L' Amour de V Impossible — the love or 
 lust of unattainable things ; beyond the reach of phy- 
 sical force, of sensual faculty, of mastering will ; but 
 not beyond the scope of man's inordinate desire, 
 man's infinite capacity for happiness, man's ever-craving 
 thirst for beauty, power, and knowledge. This catch- 
 word of the Impossible Amour is thrust by Marlowe 
 himself, in the pride of his youthful insolence and law- 
 lessness of spiritual lusts, upon the most diffident and 
 sober of his critics. Desire for the impossible — im- 
 possible not because it transcends human appetite or 
 capacity, but because it exhausts human faculties in the 
 infinite pursuit — this is the region of Marlowe's sway 
 as poet. To this impossible, because unlimited, object 
 of desire he adds another factor, suggested by his soul's 
 revolt against the given order of the world. He and 
 the Titanic characters into whom he has infused his 
 spirit— even as a workman through the glass-pipe 
 blows life-breath into a bubble, permanent so lono- as 
 
LOVE OF IMPOSSIBLE THINGS. 609 
 
 the fine vitreous form endures — he and all the creatures 
 of his fancy thirst for things beyond man's grasp, not 
 merely because these things exhaust man's faculties in 
 the pursuit, but also because the full fruition of them 
 has been interdicted. Thus Marlowe's lust for the 
 impossible, the lust he has injected like a molten fluid 
 into all his eminent dramatic personalities, is a desire 
 for joys conceived by the imagination, floating within 
 the boundaries of will and sense at some fixed moment, 
 but transcending these firm limitations, luring the 
 spirit onward, exhausting the corporeal faculties, en- 
 gaging the soul itself in a strife with God. This lust 
 assumes the shape of thirst for power, of thirst for 
 beauty, of thirst for knowledge. It is chiefly thirst for 
 power which animates this poet and his brood. When 
 knowledge, as in Faustus, seems to be the bait, that 
 knowledge will conduce to power. But there is a 
 carnal element in the desire itself, a sensuality which 
 lends a grip to Belial on the heart-strings of the lust. 
 This sometimes soars aloft in aspirations, exhales itself 
 in longings after Helen, the world's queen of loveliness, 
 evoked from Hades ; sometimes it sinks to avaricious, 
 solitary, gluttonous delight in gems. It resolves itself 
 again into the thirst for power when we find that the 
 jewels of Barabas are hugged and gloated over for their 
 potency of buying states, corrupting kingdoms ; when 
 we see that the wraith of Helen has been dragged from 
 Lethe to flatter a magician's vision of omnipotence. 
 
 Let us fix the nature of this leading motive by some 
 salient passages from Marlowe's dramas. I take the 
 rudest and the crudest first, in the ' Massacre at 
 Paris ' the Duke of Guise should not properlj^ have 
 
 R R 
 
6io SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 been displayed as more than what world-history reveals 
 to us— a formidable rival of the House of Valois on the 
 throne, a bloody and unscrupulous foe of the Huguenot 
 faction. But the spirit of Marlowe entering into the 
 unwieldy carcass he has framed for this great schemer, 
 breathes these words : 
 
 Oft have I levelled, and at last have learned 
 That peril is the chiefest way to happiness. 
 And resolution honour's fairest aim. 
 What glory is there in a common good, 
 That hangs for every peasant to achieve ? 
 That like I best, that flies beyond my reach. 
 
 The central passion which inspires Marlowe and all 
 the characters of Marlowe's coinage finds utterance 
 here. The Guise seeks happiness through peril ; finds 
 honour only in a fierce resolve ; flings common felicity 
 to the winds ; strains at the flying object of desire 
 beyond his grasp. Then he turns to the definite point 
 of his ambition : 
 
 Set me to scale the high pyramides, 
 And thereon set the diadem of France ; 
 I '11 either rend it with my nails to nought. 
 Or mount the top with my aspiring wings. 
 Although my downfall be the deepest hell. 
 
 Before his imagination hangs the desired thing ; it is 
 the crown of France. It is placed upon a pyramid 
 beyond his reach ; but he can soar to it on wings of 
 will and desperate endeavour. Wings are needed for 
 the adventure ; no scaling steps will serve his turn. 
 Whether he shatter the crown to atoms in the assault, 
 or beat his pinions round about it in the gust of victory, 
 concerns not the present mood of his desire. Nor does 
 it signify whether he seize and wear it, or tumble head- 
 
LUST OF EMPIRE. 6ii 
 
 long into the abyss of ruin. The thirst, the lust of 
 the impossible allures his soul. 
 
 This, as I have said, is the barest, nakedest exhibi- 
 tion of Marlowe's leading motive. He framed one 
 character in which the desire of absolute power is para- 
 mount ; this is Tamburlaine. When the shepherd- 
 hero is confronted with the vanquished king of Persia 
 he pours himself forth in a monologue which voices 
 Marlowe through the puppet's lips : 
 
 The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crown. 
 That caused the eldest son of heavenly Ops 
 To thrust his doting father from his chair, 
 And place himself in the empyreal heaven, 
 Mov'd me to manage arms against thy state. 
 What better precedent than mighty Jove ? 
 Nature, that fram'd us of four elements 
 Warring within our breasts for regiment. 
 Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds : 
 Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend 
 The wondrous architecture of the world. 
 And measure every wandering planet's course. 
 Still climbing after knowledge infinite. 
 And always moving as the restless spheres, 
 WiU us to wear ourselves, and never rest, 
 Until we reach the ripest fruit of all. 
 That perfect bliss and sole felicity, 
 The sweet fruition of an earthly crown. 
 
 It is Nature herself, says Tamburlaine, who placed a 
 warfare of the elements within the frame of man ; she 
 spurs him onward by an inborn need toward empire. It 
 is our souls, uncircumscribed by cosmic circumstances, 
 free to weigh planets in their courses and embrace the 
 universe with thought, that compel men to stake their 
 all on the most perilous of fortune's hazards. In this 
 speech the poet, who framed Tamburlaine, identifies 
 himself with his creation, forgets the person he has 
 
 R R 2 
 
6i2 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 made, and utters through his mouth the poetry of his 
 desire for the illimitable. 
 
 There was a side-blow aimed at knowledge in this 
 diatribe of Tamburlaine on power. See now how 
 Faustus answers, abyss calling to abyss from the same 
 abysmal depth of the creator's mind : 
 
 Divinity, adieu ! 
 These metaphysics of magicians, 
 And necromantic books are heavenly ; 
 Lines, circles, scenes, letters, and characters ; 
 Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires. 
 O, what a world of profit and delight. 
 Of power, of honour, and omnipotence. 
 Is promis'd to the studious artisan ! 
 All things that move between the quiet poles 
 Shall be at my command : emperors and kings 
 Are but obeyed in their several provinces ; 
 But his dominion that exceeds in this, 
 Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man ; 
 A sound magician is a demigod : 
 Here tire, my brains, to gain a deity. 
 
 On the ordinary paths of learning, logic, philosophy, 
 physic, law, divinity, Faustus finds himself cramped, tied 
 to dry rules, confined within the circle of diurnal occu- 
 pations. These things may be done for service of 
 man's common needs ; but there lies — or he divines 
 there lies- — beyond the reach of all such vulgar and 
 trivial ways a far more hazardous path, a path which by 
 assiduous study and emperilment of self shall lead to 
 empire. He knows that the soul's welfare is engaged 
 in the endeavour ; but the conqueror will sway through- 
 out his lifetime a kingdom commensurate with the 
 mind of man. To gain this knowledge, to possess the 
 power that it confers, becomes the passion of his 
 nature. He therefore also yields, and yields with open 
 
DESIRE OF BEAUTY. 613 
 
 eyes, to the allurements of impossible desire. When he 
 has sold his soul, the price appears a little thing : 
 
 Had I as many souls as there be stars, 
 I 'd give them all for Mephistophilis. 
 
 Descending from the high imaginative region in which 
 Faustus moves, travelling back from the dim realms 
 of Ind, wheije Tamburlaine defies the Fates, reaching 
 England under the reign of our second Edward, we 
 find the same chord touched in Marlowe's Mortimer. 
 Upon the point of death, checkmated and flung like 
 the Guise 'to deepest hell,' he still maintains the old 
 indomitable note, the key-note of the leading motive : 
 
 Base Fortune, now I see that in thy wheel 
 There is a point, to which when men aspire 
 They tumble headlong down : that point I touch'd, 
 And, seeing there was no place to mount up higher. 
 Why should I grieve at my declining fall ? — 
 Farewell, fair queen : weep not for Mortimer, 
 That scorns the world, and, as a traveller, 
 Goes to discover countries yet unknown. 
 
 I have pursued the leading motive, applied the 
 catch-word, through many examples bearing on the 
 theme of power. It remains to select one passage in 
 which the same lust for the impossible shall be ex- 
 hibited when Marlowe turns his thought to beauty. 
 Xenocrate, the love of Tamburlaine, is absent and 
 unhappy. The Tartar chief is left alone to vent his 
 passion in soliloquy. At first he dwells upon the causes 
 of her sorrow, with such ' lyrical interbreathings ' as 
 this, evoked from the recollection of her — 
 
 Shining face. 
 Where Beauty, mother to the Muses, sits 
 And comments volumes with her ivory pen, 
 
6i4 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Gradually he passes into that vein of meditation, 
 which allows the poet's inspiration to transpire. Then 
 Marlowe speaks, and shows in memorable lines that 
 beauty has, no less than power, her own impossible, 
 for which he thirsted : 
 
 What is beauty, sayeth my sufferings, then ? 
 If all the pens that ever poets held 
 Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts. 
 And every sweetness that inspired their hearts. 
 Their minds and muses on admirfed themes ; 
 If all the heavenly quintessence they still 
 From their immortal flowers of poesy. 
 Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive 
 The highest reaches of a human wit ; 
 If these had made one poem's period. 
 And all combined in beauty's worthiness. 
 Yet should there hover in their restless heads 
 One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least. 
 Which into words no virtue can digest. 
 
 The impossible beauty, on which Tamburlaine here 
 meditates, is beauty eluding the poet and the artist in 
 their highest flight ; that apple topmost on the topmost 
 bough, which the gatherers have not overlooked, but 
 leave perforce, because they strove in vain to reach it. 
 It is always this beauty, inflaming the artist's rather 
 than the lover's soul, which Marlowe celebrates. He 
 has written no drama of love ; and even in ' Hero and 
 Leander,' that divinest dithyramb in praise of sensual 
 beauty, the poet moves in a hyperuranian region, from 
 which he contemplates with eyes of equal adoration 
 all the species of terrestrial loveliness. The tender 
 emotions and the sentiment of love were alien to Mar- 
 lowe's temper. It may even be doubted whether 
 sexual pleasures had any very powerful attraction for 
 
SUPERSENSUAL BEAUTY. 615 
 
 his nature. To such, we think, he gave his cruder, 
 poetry-exhausted moments. When he evoked the 
 thought of women to tempt Doctor Faustus, he touched 
 this bass-chord of carnal desire with the hand of a 
 poet-painter rather than a sensualist : 
 
 Sometimes like women, or unwedded maids. 
 Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows 
 Than have the white breasts of the queen of love. 
 
 Yet it was in no Platonic mood that he set those 
 mighty sails of his imagination to the breeze upon the 
 sea of Beauty. That thirst for the impossible, when 
 once applied to things of sense and loveliness, is a lust 
 and longing after the abstraction of all beauties, the 
 self of sense, the quintessence of pleasures. This is, 
 of course, the meaning of Faustus' address to Helen, 
 summoned from the ghosts as the last tangible reality 
 of beauty, to give comfort to his conscience-laden soul : 
 
 Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, 
 
 And burnt the topless towers of Ilium ? — 
 
 Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. — {Kisses her. 
 
 Her lips suck forth my soul : see, where it flies ! — 
 
 Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. 
 
 Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips. 
 
 And all is dross that is not Helena. 
 
 O, thou art fairer than the evening air, 
 Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars ; 
 Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter 
 When he appear'd to hapless Semele ; 
 More lovely than the monarch of the sky 
 In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms ; 
 And none but thou shalt be my paramour ! 
 
 The same triumphant sense of having conquered the 
 unconquerable, and enjoyed the final gust of pleasure 
 
6i6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 in things deemed impossible for men, emerges in 
 another speech of Faustus : 
 
 Have I not made blind Homer sing to me 
 Of Alexander's love and (Enon's death ? 
 And hath not he, that built the walls of Thebes 
 With ravishing sound of his melodious harp, 
 Made music with my Mephistophilis ? 
 
 When Xenocrate is dying Tamburlaine pours forth a 
 monody, which, however misplaced on his lips, gives 
 Marlowe scope to sing the nuptial hymn of beauty 
 unapproachable, withdrawn from ' loathsome earth,' 
 returning to her native station in the heavens. There, 
 and there only, says the poet, shall the spirit mate 
 with loveliness and be at peace in her embrace : 
 
 Now walk the angels on the walls of heaven, 
 
 As sentinels to warn the immortal souls 
 
 To entertain divine Xenocrate . . . 
 
 The cherubins and holy seraphins. 
 
 That sing and play before the King of kings. 
 
 Use all their voices and their instruments 
 
 To entertain divine Xenocrate ; 
 
 And in this sweet and curious harmony, 
 
 The god that tunes this music to our souls 
 
 Holds out his hand in highest majesty 
 
 To entertain divine Xenocrate. 
 
 Then let some holy trance convey my thoughts 
 
 Up-to the palace of the empyreal heaven, 
 
 That this my life may be as short to me 
 
 As are the days of sweet Xenocrate. 
 
 In this rapturous and spiritual marriage-song, which 
 celebrates the assumption or apotheosis of pure beauty, 
 the master bends his mighty line to uses of lyric 
 poetry, as though a theme so far above the reach of 
 words demanded singing. 
 
 Dwelling upon these passages, we are led to 
 
MARLOWE AND TANNHAUSER. 617 
 
 wonder what a drama Marlowe would have written if 
 the story of Tannhaiiser had been known to him. As 
 in the Faust-legend the thirst for illimitable power, so 
 in the Tannhauser-legend the thirst for illimitable 
 pleasure leads a human soul to self-abandonment. 
 The imaginative region of each legend is equally 
 vast ; the lust in either case is equally transcendent ; 
 the sacrifice accomplished by both heroes to an infinite 
 desire is equally complete. In his first dramatic 
 creation, Tamburlaine, Marlowe interwove the double 
 strings of this Impossible Amour. In his second, 
 Faustus, he developed the theme of knowledge de- 
 sired for power's sake upon earth. In Tannhauser, if 
 that had been his third creation, he might have 
 painted what he knew so well and felt so deeply, 
 the poet's thirst for beauty's self, his purchase at the 
 soul's price of unmeasured rapture in a goddess' arms. 
 He would assuredly not have suffered this high mystic 
 theme to degenerate into any mere vulgarities of a 
 sensual Venus-berg. Rather may we imagine that 
 Marlowe would have shown how the desire for beauty 
 beyond human reach is a form of the soul's desire for 
 power — no trivial thirst for pleasure, but a longing to 
 achieve the unattainable, and hold in human grasp the 
 bliss reserved for gods. But such speculations, if not 
 wholly idle, only serve to cast a side-light on that con- 
 ception of Marlowe's leading motive which I have 
 endeavoured to develop. As it was, his third creation, 
 Barabas, incarnated a lower form of the same insatiable 
 longing. Ambition, the desire of empire, the adora- 
 tion of beauty, the control of power by means of 
 superhuman knowledge, yield place here to avarice. But 
 
6i8 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 the avarice of the Jew of Malta is so cojossal, so tem- 
 pered with a sensuous love of rarity and beauty in 
 the priceless gems he hoards, so delirious in its rap- 
 tures, so subservient to ungovernable hatred and 
 vindictive exercise of power conferred by wealth upon 
 its owner, that we dare not call even this baser exhibi- 
 tion of the Impossible Amour ignoble. Swinburne, 
 who cannot assuredly be arraigned for want of sym- 
 pathy with Marlowe, has styled Barabas ' a mere 
 mouthpiece for the utterance of poetry as magnificent 
 as any but the best of Shakespeare's.' With this 
 verdict we must unwillingly concur. Considering the 
 rapid and continual descent from bathos unto bathos 
 after the splendid first and second acts, so large in 
 outline, so vigorous in handling, so rich in verse, 
 through the mad abominations and hysterical melo- 
 drama of the last three acts ; no sane critic will maintain 
 that the 'Jew of Malta ' was a love-child of its maker's 
 genius. One only hypothesis saves Marlowe's fame, 
 and explains the patent inequalities of his third tragedy 
 — beginning, as it does, with the face and torso of a 
 Centaur, ending in the impotent and flabby coils of a 
 poisonous reptile. It is that stage-necessities and 
 press of time compelled the poet to complete in haste 
 as task-work what he had conceived with love, and 
 blocked out at his leisure. Brief indeed, we fancy, 
 must have been the otia dia of this poet. 
 
 But I must return to my main argument, and show 
 with what a majestic robe of imperial purple Marlowe's 
 imagination has draped the poor and squalid skeleton 
 of avarice. This he has done by drawing that ' least 
 erected ' vice within the sphere of his illimitable lust. 
 
TRANSFIGURED AVARICE. 619 
 
 The opening soliloquy, when Barabas is ' discovered 
 in his counting-house, with heaps of gold before him,' 
 amply suffices to prove the point : 
 
 So that of thus much that return was made ; 
 
 And of the third part of the Persian ships 
 
 There was the venture summ'd and satisfied. 
 
 As for those Samnites and the men of Uz, 
 
 That brought my Spanish oils and wines of Greece, 
 
 Here have I purs'd their paltry silverlings. 
 
 Fie, what a trouble 't is to count this trash ! 
 
 Well fare the Arabians, who so richly pay 
 
 The things they traffic for with wedge of gold, 
 
 Whereof a man may easily in a day 
 
 Tell that which may maintain him all his life. 
 
 The needy groom, that never finger'd groat. 
 
 Would make a miracle of thus much coin ; 
 
 But he whose steel-barr'd coffers are cramm'd full. 
 
 And all his life-time hath been tirbd. 
 
 Wearying his fingers' ends with telhng it, 
 
 Would in his age be loath to labour so, 
 
 And for a pound to sweat himself to death. 
 
 Give me the merchants of the Indian mines. 
 
 That trade in metal of the purest mould ; 
 
 The wealthy Moor, that in the eastern rocks 
 
 Without control can pick his riches up. 
 
 And in his house heap pearl like pebble-stones. 
 
 Receive them free, and sell them by the weight ; 
 
 Bags of fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts, 
 
 Jacynths, hard topaz, grass-green emeralds. 
 
 Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds. 
 
 And seld-seen costly stones of so great price. 
 
 As one of them indifferently rated. 
 
 And of a carat of this quantity. 
 
 May serve, in peril of calamity, 
 
 To ransom great kings from captivity. 
 
 This is the ware wherein consists my wealth ; 
 
 And thus methinks should men of judgment frame 
 
 Their means of traffic from the vulgar trade. 
 
 And, as their wealth increaseth, so inclose 
 
 Infinite riches in a little room. 
 
 In the course of the tragedy, Barabas is despoiled by 
 
620 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Christians of the bulk of his wealth. His house 
 has been turned into a nunnery ; and there, in an 
 upper chamber, lies secreted a hoard of gems and 
 gold, known only to himself. In order to obtain pos- 
 session of this treasure he makes his daughter Abigail 
 assume the veil, using her feigned conversion, as he 
 also uses her fictitious love-caresses, to defeat his foes. 
 The situation in which Abigail is thus placed by her 
 father bears a strong resemblance to that of the girl 
 in Tourguenieff's tale ' Le Juif What Marlowe 
 reached upon the path of powerful imagination — a 
 depth below all depths conceivable of cynicism — the 
 Russian novelist revealed as proper to the nature of a 
 Polish Jew. Outcast from society, degraded by the 
 lust of gain, a Jew will seem to sell his daughter, 
 relying all the while upon that purity, protected by 
 the hatred for an alien race, which makes a Christian's 
 love as little moving to her woman's instinct as the 
 passion of a hound or horse might be. This, it may 
 be parenthetically said, is one of the strongest extant 
 instances of idealistic art corroborated and verified by 
 realism. 
 
 While Barabas is skulking below his daughter's 
 window in uncertainty and darkness, awaiting the 
 moment when Abigail shall disinter his money-bags, 
 Marlowe seizes the occasion for heightening his avarice 
 to passion : 
 
 Thus, like the sad-presaging raven, that tolls 
 The sick man's passport in her hollow beak, 
 And in the shadow of the silent night 
 Doth shake contagion from her sable wings, 
 Vex'd and tormented runs poor Barabas 
 With fatal curses towards these Christians. 
 
barabas and Abigail. 621 
 
 The incertain pleasures of swift-footed time 
 Have ta'en their flight, and left me in despair ; 
 And of my former riches rests no more 
 But bare remembrance ; like a soldier's scar, 
 That has no further comfort for his maim. — 
 O Thou, that with a fiery pillar ledd'st 
 The sons of Israel through the dismal shades. 
 Light Abraham's offspring ; and direct the hand 
 Of Abigail this night ! or let the day 
 Turn to eternal darkness after this ! — 
 No sleep can fasten on my watchful eyes, 
 Nor quiet enter my distemper'd thoughts 
 Till I have answer of my Abigail. 
 
 Abigail now appears upon the upper platform of the 
 theatre. The spectators see her at work, searching 
 for the hidden store. Her father is still unaware of 
 her presence. Hovering disquieted and sick with 
 fear, he seems to his own fancy like the ghosts which 
 haunt old treasuries and guard the hoards of buried 
 
 men : 
 
 Now I remember those old women's words. 
 Who in my wealth would tell me winter's tales. 
 And speak of spirits and ghosts that glide by night 
 About the place where treasure hath been hid : 
 And now methinks that I am one of those ; 
 For, whilst I live, here lives my soul's sole hope, 
 And, when I die, here shall my spirit walk. 
 
 When at length she flings him down the bags, it is 
 as though the sun had risen on the darkness of his 
 soul : 
 
 O my girl. 
 My gold, my fortune, my felicity, 
 Strength to my soul, death to mine enemy ; 
 Welcome the first beginner of my bliss ! 
 O Abigail, Abigail, that I had thee here too ! 
 Then my desires were fully satisfied : 
 But I will practise thy enlargement thence : 
 O girl ! O gold ! O beauty ! O my bliss ! [Hugs the bags. 
 
622 shakspere's predecessors. 
 
 He abandons himself to the transport of the moment 
 so wildly, that Abigail has to remind him of the 
 peril of discovery. Lifted into poetry by passion, 
 Barabas wafts his daughter a parting kiss, and calls 
 upon the day to rise, the lark to soar into the heavens, 
 while his uplifted spirit floats and sings above his 
 gems, as the swift bird above her younglings in the 
 
 nest : 
 
 Farewell, my joy, and by my fingers take 
 A kiss from him that sends it from his soul. — 
 Now, Phoebus, ope the eye-lids of the day. 
 And, for the raven, wake the morning lark. 
 That I may hover with her in the air, 
 Singing o'er these, as she does o'er her young. 
 Hermoso placer de los dineros ! 
 
 The passage in this short scene from midnight gloom 
 and meditations upon wandering ghosts to day-spring, 
 joy, and plans for future vengeance — from the black 
 raven to the morning lark — is so swift and so poetically 
 true, that Mammon for one moment walks before us 
 clothed in light ; not sullen with the sultry splendours 
 and material grossness of the ' Alchemist ' (though 
 these are passionate in their own cumbrous style), but 
 airy and ethereal, a spiritual thing, a bright ' unbodied 
 joy.' 
 
 VII. 
 
 In dealing with Marlowe, it is impossible to sepa- 
 rate the poet from the dramatist, the man from his 
 creations. His personality does not retire, like Shak- 
 spere's, behind the work of art into impenetrable 
 mystery. Rather, like Byron, but with a truer faculty 
 for dramatic presentation than Byron possessed, he 
 
PORTRAIT OP TAMBVRLAJNE. 623 
 
 inspires the principal characters of his tragedies with 
 the ardour, the ambition, the audacity of his own 
 restless genius. Tamburlaine, who defies heaven, 
 and harnesses kings and princes of the East to his 
 chariot, who ascends his throne upon the necks of 
 prostrate emperors, and burns a city for his consort's 
 funeral pyre, embodies the insolence of his creator's 
 spirit. At the same time, in this haughty and aspiring 
 shepherd the historic Tartar chief is firmly rendered 
 visible. Through' Tamburlaine's wild will and im- 
 perturbable reliance upon destiny, the brute instincts 
 of savage tribes yearning after change, pursuing con- 
 quest and spreading desolation with the irresistible 
 impulse of a herd of bisons marching to their fields 
 of salt, emerge into self-consciousness. Marlowe has 
 traced the portrait with a bold hand, filling its details 
 in with broad and liberal touches : 
 
 Of stature tall, and straightly fashioned. 
 Like his desires, lift upward and divine ; 
 So large of limbs, his joints so strongly knit. 
 Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear 
 
 Old Atlas's burden 
 
 Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion, 
 Thirsting with sovereignty and love of arms ; 
 His lofty brows in folds do figure death, 
 And in their smoothness amity and life ; 
 About them hangs a knot of amber hair, 
 Wrapped in curls, as fierce Achilles' was. 
 On which the breath of heaven delights to play, 
 Making it dance in wanton majesty ; 
 His arms and fingers, long and sinewy, 
 Betokening valour and excess of strength ; 
 In every part proportioned like the man 
 Should make the world subdued to Tamburlaine. 
 
 This is the picture drawn of him at the beginning of 
 
624 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 his fortunes by a generous enemy. There is a mag- 
 netism in the presence of the man. A Persian cap- 
 tain, commissioned to overawe and trample down his 
 pride, no sooner sees Tamburlaine than he falls a 
 victim to his influence : 
 
 His looks do menace heaven and dare the gods ; 
 
 His fiery eyes are fixed upon the earth, 
 
 As if he now desired some stratagem, 
 
 Or meant to pierce Avernus' darksome vaults. 
 
 To pull the triple-headed dog from hell. 
 
 Tamburlaine, on his side, favours the manly bearing 
 of his foe, and bids him welcome with such words as 
 bind the captain to his cause : 
 
 Forsake thy king, and do but join with me, 
 And we will triumph over all the world ; 
 I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains, 
 And with my hand turn Fortune's wheel about ; 
 And sooner shall the sun fall from his sphere 
 Than Tamburlaine be slain or overcome. 
 
 Such confidence is contagious, imposing, as Napoleon's 
 belief in his star imposed, and working out its own 
 accomplishment. His most powerful opponents recog- 
 nise the spell, and are cowed by it : 
 
 Some powers divine, or else infernal, mixed 
 Their angry seeds at his conception ; 
 For he was never sprung of human race. 
 Since with the spirit of his fearful pride 
 He dares so doubtlessly resolve of rule, 
 And by profession be ambitious. 
 
 With the unresisted advance of his arms, and the 
 tumbling down of empires at his approach, the con- 
 viction of his destiny grows on Tamburlaine : 
 
 Where'er I come the fatal Sisters sweat. 
 And grisly Death, by running to and fro, 
 
THE SCOURGE OF GOD. 625 
 
 To do their ceaseless homage to my sword. 
 
 Millions of souls sit on the banks of Styx, 
 Waiting the back return of Charon's boat ; 
 Hell and Elysium swarm with ghosts of men, 
 That I have sent from sundry foughten fields 
 To spread my fame through hell and up to heaven. 
 
 The lust for sovereignty passes Into blind, bewildering 
 
 lust for blood and overthrow ; from the midst of which 
 
 emerges a belief in his commission from God to scourge 
 
 the nations : 
 
 I will, with engines never exercised, 
 Conquer, sack, and utterly consume 
 Your cities and your golden palaces ; 
 And, till by vision or by speech I hear 
 Immortal Jove say, Cease, my Tamburlaine ! 
 I will persist a terror to the world. 
 Making the meteors (that, like armbd men. 
 Are seen to march upon the towers of heaven) 
 Run tilting round about the firmament, 
 And break their burning lances in the air, 
 For honour of my wondrous victories. 
 
 Filled now with the notion that he is Flagellum Dei, 
 he bears a scourge aloft among his ensigns and his 
 ' coal-black colours ' : 
 
 There is a God, full of revenging wrath, 
 
 From whom the thunder and the lightning breaks, 
 
 Whose scourge I am, and him will I obey. 
 
 If Tamburlaine were asked what God he follows, he 
 could hardly give that God a name. It is his own 
 Genius, the Genius of tyranny, destruction, slaughter. 
 Yet this hyperbolical monster moves admiration rather 
 than loathing. Marlowe has succeeded in saving his 
 hero, amid all his ' lunes ' from caricature, by the in- 
 breathed spirituality with which he sustains his madness 
 
 s s 
 
626 SiiAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 at its height. The last scene he wrote for Tambur- 
 laine is impressive in its dignity ; torrid with the heat 
 of Asia's sun descending to the caves of night through 
 brazen heavens. There are no more kingdoms left 
 for Tamburlaine to conquer, and the Titanic marauder 
 feels his strength ebbing : 
 
 What daring god torments my body thus, 
 And seeks to conquer mighty Tamburlaine ? 
 Shall sickness prove me now to be a man. 
 That have been termed the terror of the world ? 
 Techelles and the rest, come, take your swords, 
 And threaten him whose hand afflicts my soul ! 
 Come, let us march against the powers of heaven, 
 And set black streamers in the firmament. 
 To signify the slaughter of the gods. 
 
 Alas ! these are but idle vaunts, and Tamburlaine is 
 
 now aware of it. Even for would-be deicides death 
 
 waits. 
 
 Ah, friends, what shall I do ? I cannot stand. 
 
 This is the one solitary cry of weakness wrung from 
 the death-smitten tiger. Pain racks him. His cap- 
 tains comfort him by saying that such pain as this 
 must pass ; it is too violent. Then he bursts into the 
 most magnificent of all his declamations, pointing to 
 the bony skeleton who followed like a hound upon his 
 heels across so many battle-fields, and who, all-terrified, 
 is lurking now to paralyse the hand which surfeited 
 his jaws with slaughter : 
 
 Not last, Techelles ? No ! for I shall die. 
 See where my slave, the ugly monster Death, 
 Shaking and quivering, pale and wan for fear. 
 Stands aiming at me with his murdering dart. 
 Who flies away at every glance I give, 
 And when I look away, comes stealing on. 
 
EXTRAVAGANCES OF ' TAMBURLAINE? 627 
 
 Villain, away, and hie thee to the field ! 
 I and mine armies come to load thy back 
 With souls of thousand mangled carcasses. 
 Look, where he goes ! but see, he comes again, 
 Because I stay ! Techelles, let us march. 
 And weary Death with bearing souls to hell. 
 
 After this, the scene proceeds upon a graver and more 
 tranquil note of resignation, abdication, and departure. 
 Tamburlaine retains his stout heart and high stomach 
 to the end, but he bows to the inevitable and divides 
 his power among his sons. His body, the soul's sub- 
 ject, though it break beneath the stress of those fierce 
 passions, shall survive and be his children's heritage : 
 
 But, sons, this subject, not of force enough 
 To hold the fiery spirit it contains. 
 Must part, imparting his impressions 
 By equal portions into both your breasts. 
 My flesh, divided in your precious shapes. 
 Shall still retain my spirit, though I die. 
 And live in all your seeds immortally. 
 
 There is surely enough of absurdity and extrava- 
 gance in the two parts of ' Tamburlaine.' Relays of cap- 
 tive monarchs, fattened on raw meat and ' pails of musca- 
 del,' draw the hero's chariot. A king and queen dash 
 out their brains against the cage in which they are 
 confined. Virgins are ravished and mangled, king- 
 doms overrun, and cities burned to satisfy a whim. 
 Tamburlaine kills one of his three sons because he is 
 a coward, and rips up the flesh of his own left arm to 
 teach his other sons endurance. Blood flows in rivers. 
 Shrieks and groans and curses mingle with heaven- 
 defying menaces and ranting vaunts. The action is 
 one tissue of violence and horror. The language is 
 truculent bombast, tempered with such bursts of poetry 
 
 s s 2 
 
628 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 as I have prudently selected in my specimens.^ Yet 
 in spite of preposterousness, more than enough in 
 volume and monotonous variety to justify Mine 
 Ancient's huffing vein of parody, the vast and power- 
 ful conception of the Tartar conqueror redeems ' Tam- 
 burlaine ' from that worst bathos, the bathos of involun- 
 tary caricature. Marlowe knew well what he was after. 
 He produced a dramatic poem which intoxicated the 
 audience of the London play-houses with indescribable 
 delight, and which inaugurated a new epoch. Through 
 the cloud-world of extravagance which made ' Tambur- 
 laine ' a byword, he shot one ray of light, clear still, 
 and excellent in the undaunted spirit of the hero. 
 
 VIII, 
 
 Not long before the composition of Marlowe's 
 ' Doctor Faustus,' a prose version of the life, adven- 
 tures, and dreadful death of the famous magician had 
 appeared in Germany, It was printed in 1587 by 
 John Sp^ at Frankfort, A reprint of this edition 
 issued from the press in 1588 ; and in 1589 the same, 
 with some considerable alterations and additions, was 
 repeated. Before 1593 the tale of Faust had acquired 
 such popularity that a continuation, entitled the ' Wag- 
 nerbuch,' was produced ; and again, in 1599, another 
 
 ' In the passage proverbial for bombast which begins : 
 
 Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia ! 
 What can ye draw but twenty miles a day, 
 
 our imagination is still recreated by such lines as these : 
 
 The horse that guide the golden eye of heaven , 
 And blow the morning from their nostrils, 
 Making their fiery gait above Ihe clouds. 
 
THE FAUST LEGEND. 
 
 629 
 
 version of the story, inferior to that of Speig, was pub- 
 lished by Moller at Hamburgh. Thus liTthe space of 
 eleven years five several editions of the legend of 
 Faust were needed to satisfy the curiosity of the 
 German public. It may be noticed that all these 
 works had a distinctly Protestant tendency. They 
 were soon translated into other languages. The Eng- 
 lish received a version of the Franybrt issue of 1588 
 from the press of Thomas Orwin — probably in the same^ 
 year. A revised edition was published in 1592 ; and, 
 as early as the year 1588, a ballad on the ' Life and 
 Death of Doctor Faustus ' had been licensed by 
 Aylmer, Bishop of London. The ' Wagnerbuch,' 
 adapted and altered for English readers, saw the light 
 in 1594; and thus the English were placed in full 
 possession of the German Faustiad. Meanwhile 
 Marlowe's tragedy, which may have been exhibited 
 in 1589, had made the larger outlines of the legend 
 popular upon the stage. 
 
 This legend has been rightly called a Faustiad. 
 No epic of the Middle Ages condenses within shorter 
 compass the spirit, sentiment, and science of that 
 .period, then drawing to its close, upon the eve of the 
 great modern revolution. It depicts the fears and 
 passions of the times which preluded the Renaissance ; 
 epitomises medieval knowledge ; expresses the mingled 
 reverence for learning and dread of occult lore which 
 distinguished an age intellectually impotent, but plagued 
 with the longing after mysteries beyond the grasp of 
 men ; traces in hard, grim outlines the sinister religious 
 superstition, the constitutional melancholy, the despe- 
 rate revolt against intolerable mental bondage, the 
 
630 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 grotesque hysterical amusements as of some para- 
 lytic but gig-antic infant, and the inordinate desire to 
 penetrate forbidden secrets, out of which emerged the 
 belief in magic and the ghastly realities of witchcraft, 
 no less than the exuberant forces of the modern world. 
 This epic is strictly Northern and Teutonic. There is 
 no conceivable period of Italian literature in which it 
 could have been created. The cold, remorseless reve- 
 lation of Hell, accepted in its recognised eternity of 
 torments by a soul made reckless with the ennui and 
 stagnation of a present life too empty and too pleasure- 
 less to be endured, breathes the stoical courage, the 
 scornful imagination of Beowulf's posterity. The 
 purchase of knowledge, power, and . enjoyment by a 
 human spirit, conscious of its infinite capacity for all 
 these things, but ' cabined, cribbed, confined ' within the 
 dungeon of insuperable limitations — this purchase at 
 the price of infinite agony and never-ending remorse, 
 is a tragedy of aspiration, insubordination, and ultimate 
 acceptance of inevitable doom, which has for its dim 
 background the sublimely sombre religion of the Eddas. 
 
 While the Germans were writing down their Faustiad 
 
 no casual biography of a conjuror, but the allegory of 
 a whole past epoch of intellectual somnambulism, 
 visited with fiery dreams — the Italians had already 
 wrought by art, by humanism, by the energies of a 
 diversified and highly coloured social life, deliverance 
 for Europe. It was not their mission to enact or to 
 compose the Faustiad— for this they had not then the 
 requisite gifts of courage or imagination, of mental grasp 
 upon the dreadfulness of existence or of passionate in- 
 surgence against its stern fatalities— but to contrive 
 
MARLOWE'S 'DOCTOR FAUSTUS: 631 
 
 the conditions of thought and culture under which 
 Faustus might wed the real Helen of resuscitated arts 
 and letters, might deliver his soul from hell, and satisfy 
 his thirst for power and knowledge by science. 
 
 The Faustiad precedes the Renaissance, and be- 
 longs to a superseded past. Yet, like the legends of 
 Don Juan and Tannhauser, it became the property of 
 succeeding ages, because it expressed with mythic 
 largeness a real experience of humanity. The tragic 
 conflicts of the soul set forth in these three legends 
 lend themselves to modern interpretation, to the art of 
 Goethe, Mozart, and Wagner. Marlowe, acting the 
 part which poets have so often played in preserving 
 the very form and pressure of the times in which they 
 lived, invested one sombre and grotesque product of the 
 Middle Ages with the imaginative splendour of the 
 Renaissance. At first sight it might appear that he 
 was satisfied with arranging the German text-book in 
 scenes ; so closely has he adhered to his original, so 
 carelessly has he dramatised the uncouth drolleries 
 and childish diableries with which it is enlivened. His 
 tragedy is without a plot, without a female character. 
 It is not even divided into acts ; and the scenes, with 
 the exception of the first three and the last two, might 
 be transposed without material injury to the plan. Yet 
 the closer we inspect it, and the more we study it, the 
 better shall we learn that he has given a great and 
 tragic unity to his drama, that he has succeeded in 
 drawing a modern work of art from the chaotic 
 medieval matter. This unity is Faustus in his pro- 
 tracted vacillation between right and wrong, his con- 
 flict between curiosity and conscience. ' Doctor 
 
632 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Faustus ' is more nearly allied in form to the dramatic 
 poems of our own days, which present a psychological 
 study of character to the reader, than any other work 
 of our old theatre. Marlowe concentrated his energies 
 on the delineation of the proud life and terrible death 
 of a man in revolt against the eternal laws of his own 
 nature and the world, defiant and desperate, plagued 
 with remorse, alternating between the gratification of 
 his appetites and the dread of a God whom he rejects 
 without denying. It is this tragic figure which he 
 drew forth from the substance of the German tale, and 
 endowed with the breath and blood of real existence. 
 He traced the outline with a breadth and dignity beyond 
 the scope of the prose legend. He filled it in with the 
 power of a great poet, with the intensity of life belong- 
 ing to himself and to the age of adolescent vigour. 
 He left us a picture of the medieval rebel, true in its 
 minutest details to that bygone age, but animated with 
 his own audacious spirit, no longer mythical, but 
 vivified, a living personality. By the side of Faustus 
 he placed the sinister and melancholy Mephistophilis, 
 a spirit who wins souls for hell by the allurements of 
 despair, playing with open cards and hiding no iota of 
 the dreadfulness of damnation. He introduced good 
 and bad angels, hovering in the air, and whispering 
 alternately their words of warning and enticement in 
 the ears of Faustus. The professional magicians who 
 lend their books to the hero, the old man who entreats 
 him to repent, the scholars who assuage his last hours 
 with their sympathy, make up the minor persons of 
 the drama. But each and all of these subordinate cha- 
 racters are dedicated to the one main purpose of express- 
 
SOMBRE TONE OF THIS PLAY. 633 
 
 ing the psychological condition of Faustus from various 
 points of view : — the perplexities of his divided spirit, 
 his waverings of anguish and remorse, the flickerings 
 of hope extinguished in the smoke of self-abandon- 
 ment to fear, the pungent pricks of conscience soothed 
 by tranaent visions of delight, the prying curiosity 
 which lllls his torment at one moment, the soul's 
 defiance Wielding to despair, and from despair re- 
 covering fresh strength to sin and suffer. To this 
 vivisection of a ruined man, all details in the gloomy 
 scene contribute. Even the pitiful distractions — 
 pitiful in their leaden dulness and blunt edge of 
 drollery — with which Faustus amuses his worse than 
 Promethean leisure until the last hour of his contract 
 sound, heighten the infernal effect. The stage swarms 
 continually with devils, running at one time at their 
 master's bidding on the sorriest errands, evoking at 
 another the most dismal shows from hell. We are 
 entertained with processions of the Seven Deadly Sins, 
 and with masques of the damned ' in that vast perpetual 
 torture-house' below. In the absence of the hero, 
 Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Mephistophilis commune to- 
 gether with gross irony. The whole theatre is sul- 
 phurous with fumes of the bottomless pit. Through 
 the smoke and stench thereof there flashes once a 
 
 Woman-Devil — 
 
 Beautiful 
 As was bright Lucifer before his fall ; 
 
 a 
 
 but her kisses are hot as ' sops of flaming fire : ' and 
 once again there glides the fair ghost of Helen in a 
 vision ; ineffectual as feasts of Tantalus. 
 
 Marlowe's Faustus is a Teutonic and a medieval 
 
634 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 sceptic. There is nothing light or Latin in his atti- 
 tude ; no carelessness or banter, no irony, no willing- 
 ness to sneer away the ruin of his soul in epigrams. 
 He personifies disbelief as disbelief then was ; con- 
 vinced of a supernatural environment of spiritual 
 realities ; surrounded by the terrors of a ghostly world. 
 The Florentine indifference of Machiavelli, absorbed in 
 actualities of human life ; the Venetian indifference 
 of Aretino, besotted with Greek wine and wanton 
 cynicism ; the modern indifference of free-thinkers, 
 who have divested their minds of God and devil, 
 heaven and hell ; were all alike alien to his nature. 
 Faustus doubts, indeed, whether there be a hell — 
 confounds this in his bolder moments with Elysium. 
 Yet he sells himself, soul and body, by a formal 
 bond, signed with the blood of his own veins, to 
 Lucifer ; and the first questions he addresses to his 
 familiar, concern the state of fallen spirits. His 
 atheism has a background of terror thinly veiled by 
 the mind's inquisitiveness. He is the sceptic of an 
 age of nightmares ; and though these only come at 
 intervals, they recur with fearful and accelerated force 
 as time advances. Faustus risks the future for the 
 sake of novel experience and present power. Discon- 
 tented with the known results of former speculations, 
 wearied with the stale sic probo of the schools, he 
 flings himself into the devil's arms. This fatigue of 
 current knowledge, this attempt to transcend its tedious 
 limitations by a compact with the fiend, was only 
 possible in a theological, unscientific age. Modern 
 scepticism is both more subtle and less passionate. 
 The Faustus of our moment doubts all things ; but be- 
 
FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE. 635 
 
 lieves that if there be a God, He will be merciful. 
 Irritated perhaps by the slow advance of science, he is 
 yet aware that power and knowledge cannot be acquired 
 by magic. If there is no God, there is no devil to help 
 him out of his inaction. He is flung back on a tide- 
 less sea of stagnation, listlessness, and trivial pleasures. 
 The case was far different with the men of Mar- 
 lowe's age. The world-old identification of man's 
 thirst for power and knowledge with rebellion still 
 oppressed their spirits. The forbidden tree of Paradise 
 still stretched its ominous branches across their heaven. 
 The story of Faustus is, in this light, another version 
 of the Fall. How the belief that knowledge was pro- 
 hibited by God to man first became a part and parcel 
 of the human conscience, defeats investigation. This 
 belief is one of the direst evils with which religion has 
 tormented the blind, groping spirit of our race. Man, 
 surrounded by insoluble mysteries, seeks to fathom 
 them. Possessed with the idea that inquiry is impious, 
 he pursues it with unholy ardour. The height and 
 depth, the strength and weakness of his being inter- 
 penetrate : conscious of finite power and infinite 
 capacity, he mistakes the limitations of the present 
 for eternal laws. Hence spring the figments of jealous 
 deities, of secrets which it is a crime to fathom. 
 Prometheus is chained on Caucasus for bringing fire 
 from heaven ; Ulysses roasts in hell because he set his 
 sails beyond the Pillars of Hercules ; Roger Bacon is 
 consigned to perdition for studying chemistry. The 
 first astronomers, the first navigators, the first anato- 
 mists, are shunned and imprisoned like maniacs, if 
 they escape burning as atheists. 
 
636 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Faustus is the hero and the martyr of forbidden 
 knowledge. The knowledge he sought was by hypo- 
 thesis unholy, and the means he took to acquire it 
 were unlawful. It was not science, as we understand 
 it, or as the world even then understood it, that he 
 pursued, but thaumaturgy, after which a mind, wearied 
 with scepticism, is wont to hanker. Having exhausted 
 the learning of his age, impotent to carry it any 
 further, fatigued with the reiteration of its formulas, he 
 loses hold on life and on the truth. Logic, physic, 
 law, theology, each presents him with a crazy doubt. 
 He has turned each to poison by refusing to exercise 
 them within the sphere of practice. What remains ? 
 Nothing but the vast external void, which his own 
 doubts and questions fill like fiends and phantoms. 
 Nothing but the spirit-shaking, all-absorbing appetite 
 for that which lies behind the veil. ' Where the Gods 
 are not, ghosts abound.' This saying is true of the 
 distempered, ennui-haunted soul. In this region 
 Faustus wanders, half misdoubting, half creating the 
 spectres which throng round him, but gradually waking 
 to discover that they have awful counterparts in the 
 real world. 
 
 It seemed, no doubt, right to the men of that cen- 
 tury, ready as they were to burn each other for points 
 of doctrine, that Lucifer should exact his bond and 
 Faustus be damned. At the same time, their own 
 strong passions responded to his arrogant intrepidity. 
 Face to face with hell, convinced of its reality by the 
 fiend whom he evoked, Faustus plunged into the abyss, 
 partly from curiosity, partly from the lust of power 
 and pleasure, partly blinded by the fate which over- 
 
NOBILITY OF FAUSTUS SIN. 637 
 
 takes aspirants against God. This was a picture to 
 fascinate men passing from the torpor of the past into 
 the activity of the Renaissance, remembering those 
 nightmares, but feeling in their veins the blood of a 
 new epoch. They hailed Faustus as a hero, but they 
 acquiesced in his doom ; they had as yet no thought 
 of sneering away God and hell. They would as soon 
 have cared to rescue a pirate from the gallows as to 
 waste pity upon Faustus. Yet Faustus had in him 
 the passion of that spirit which discovered America, 
 which circumnavigated the globe, which revealed the 
 planetary system, which overthrew the tyranny of 
 Rome. What makes Faustus a tragic personage is 
 that the passion of this noble spirit in him was per- 
 verted. What constitutes the claim of Marlowe to 
 the fame of a great tragic poet in this creation, is the 
 firmness with which he has traced the indelible and 
 everlasting signs of a damned conscience in this not 
 ignoble character. Sin and the symptoms of sin, the 
 soul's sin against the Holy Ghost, its agony and its 
 ruin, are depicted for us with a force wh ich preachers 
 and divines might envy. 
 
 At the opening of the play Faustus is discovered 
 in his study, taking stock of his acquirements, and 
 reflecting on the course he should adopt in future. 
 The very first words he speaks reveal a rebellious 
 
 spirit : 
 
 Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin 
 
 To sound the depth of that thou wilt profess : 
 
 Having commenced, be a divine in show, 
 
 Yet level at the end of every art, 
 
 And live and die in Aristotle's works. 
 
 Shall he addict himself, then, wholly to philosophy ? 
 
638 shAkspere'S predecessors. 
 
 What is the end of logic ? ' To dispute well — bene 
 disserere \ ' That will not suffice. Pass physic in 
 review. He has exhausted the wisdom of Galen and 
 applied it to such good purpose that the world rings 
 with the report of his cures : 
 
 Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man. 
 
 The secret of his sin is peeping out. Faustus, 
 'glutted with learning's golden gifts,' would fain be 
 more than man. He now takes up Justinian, and 
 turns the leaves : 
 
 This study fits a mercenary drudge, 
 Who aims at nothing but external trash ; 
 Too servile and illiteral for me. 
 
 Theology remains. He pulls the Vulgate from the 
 shelf and opens it. Stipendium peccati mors est. Si 
 peccasse negamus, fallimur. ' The reward of sin is 
 death. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive 
 ourselves : ' 
 
 Ay, we must die an everlasting death ! 
 What doctrine call you this, CAe sard, sard, 
 What will be, shall be ? ' ~ 
 
 Divinity drives him into fatalism, for he forgets the 
 sacrifice of Christ. All this while his fingers have been 
 itching for the books of magic, which remain upon the 
 shelf; and now he clasps them with something of the 
 miser's clutch on gold : 
 
 These metaphysics of magicians 
 
 And necromantic books are heavenly ! . . . 
 
 Oh, what a world of profit and delight. 
 
 Of power, of -honour, and omnipotence, 
 
 Is promised to the studious artisan ! 
 
 All things that move between the quiet poles 
 
MEPHtsTOPHiLis Appears. 639 
 
 Shall be at my command ; emperors and kings 
 Are but obeybd in their several provinces ; 
 But his dominion that exceeds in this, 
 Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man. 
 
 The die is cast. Power, limitless as the mind, raising 
 man to godhood, is the lure to which the soul of Faustus 
 stoops. He sends for Valdes and Cornelius, professed 
 magicians, to aid him in his studies ; and, while he waits 
 for them, the good and bad angels, who dramatically 
 objectify the double impulses of appetite and conscience, 
 whisper in his ear, the one dissuading, the other en- 
 couraging his resolution. 
 
 Valdes and Cornelius inflame Faustus' fancy fur- 
 ther with the splendid pictures of material pomp and 
 sensual delights they paint ; and having lent him 
 books and instruments of the black art, instruct him 
 how to use them at the proper moment. When nigh t 
 comes he seeks a solitary wood, and raises Mephis - 
 tophilis, who first appears under the form of a mon- 
 strous dragon : 
 
 I charge thee to return, and change thy shape ! 
 Thou art too ugly to attend on me. 
 Go, and return an old Franciscan friar ; 
 That holy shape becomes a devil best. 
 
 The ready compliance of this black seraph inflates the 
 vanity of Faustus, and confirms him in his resolution. 
 When the diabolical friar enters, there begins that 
 darkest colloquy, whereby Marlowe seems bent on 
 proving that the powers of evil need no Jesuitry to 
 entice a blinded soul. The magician haughtily com- 
 mands the service of his vassal. The fiend answers 
 he is ' servant to great Lucifer.' Faustus submits that 
 
640 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 his conjuring had brought him hither ; Mephistophilis 
 
 replies : 
 
 That was the cause, but yet per accidens ; 
 For when we hear one rack the name of God, 
 Abjure the Scriptures and his Saviour Christ, 
 We fly in hope to get his glorious soul ; 
 Nor will we come, unless he use such means 
 Whereby he is in danger to be damn'd. 
 Therefore the shortest cut for conjuring 
 Is stoutly to abj ure all godliness, 
 And pray devoutly to the prince of hell. 
 
 Enough surely to make Faustus shrink upon the verge 
 of perdition ! But he is so ravished with his own 
 conceit, that he cries : 
 
 This word damnation terrifies not me ; 
 
 For I confound hell in Elysium ; 
 
 My ghost be with the old philosophers ! 
 
 Then, as though to give his soul another chance, but 
 
 really in order to satisfy a craving curiosity, he asks 
 
 again : 
 
 But, leaving these vain trifles of men's souls, 
 Tell me what is that Lucifer thy lord ? 
 
 The dialogue which follows must be transcribed at 
 
 length, not only for its own impressive dignity and 
 
 beauty, but also for the light it casts on Marlowe's 
 
 dramatic conception of a sin-blind soul, gazing on the 
 
 anguish of the damned, and yet persisting in its own 
 
 desire : 
 
 Faust. Tell me what is that Lucifer thy lord ? 
 Meph. Arch-regent and Commander of all spirits. 
 Faust. Was not that Lucifer an angel once ? 
 Meph. Yes, Faustus, and most dearly lov'd of God. 
 Faust. How comes it, then, that he is prince of devils ? 
 Meph. O, by aspiring pride and insolence ; 
 For which God threw him from the face of heaven. 
 Faust. And what are you that live with Lucifer ? 
 
FAUSTUS SELLS HIS SOUL. 64 1 
 
 Meph. Unhappy spirits that fell with Lucifer, 
 Conspir'd against our God with Lucifer, 
 And are for ever damn'd with Lucifer. 
 
 Faust. Where are you damn'd ? 
 
 Meph. In hell. 
 
 Faust. How comes it, then, that thou art out of hell ? 
 
 Meph. Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it ; 
 Think'st thou that I, that saw the face of God, 
 And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, 
 Am not tormented with ten thousand hells 
 In being depriv'd of everlasting bhss ? 
 O, Faustus, leave these frivolous demands, 
 Which strike a terror to my fainting soul ! 
 
 The fiend's visible torment only draws this taunt from 
 
 Faustus : 
 
 What, is great Mephistophilis so passionate 
 For being deprived of the joys' of heaven ? 
 Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude. 
 And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess. 
 
 Then he bids him bear a message back to Lucifer, 
 stipulating for the purchase of his soul, already damned 
 by traffic in forbidden things : 
 
 So he will spare him four and twenty years, 
 Letting him live in all voluptuousness. 
 
 He bargains for the unconditional service of Mephis- 
 tophilis through this space of time ; and having sent 
 the devil on his errand, sighs his heart's wish out in 
 two imperishable lines : 
 
 Had I as many souls as there be stars, 
 I 'd give them all for Mephistophilis. 
 
 Upon cold reflection, conscience resumes her sway for 
 a moment. Faustus soliloquises in his study : ^ 
 
 ' Choosing between the texts of quartos 1604 and 161 6, I should like 
 
 to emend the opening sentence thus ; 
 
 Now, Faustus, 
 Must thou, needs be, be damned, canst not be saved. 
 
 T T 
 
642 SHAKSPERE^S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Now, Faustus, must 
 Thou needs be damned, and canst thou not be saved. 
 What boots it, then, to think on God or heaven ? 
 Away with such vain fancies, and despair ; 
 Despair in God, and trust in Belzebub. 
 Now go not back, Faustus ; be resolute ! 
 Why waverest thou ? O, something soundeth in mine ear, 
 ' Abjure this magic, turn to God again ! ' 
 Why he loves thee not ; 
 The god thou serv'st is thine own appetite, 
 Wherein is fixed the love of Belzebub. 
 
 The two voices of the good and evil angels whisper 
 once more in his ears ; and while he is arguing with 
 the one and leaning to the other, Mephistophilis re- 
 enters, the bond is written with the blood of Faustus, 
 and the compact is accomplished. The first question 
 Faustus asks, after he has sold himself to Lucifer, 
 concei-ns the state of hell. Where, to begin with, is 
 the place of torment ? 
 
 Meph. Within the bowels of these elements. 
 Where we are tortur'd and remain for ever : 
 Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd 
 In one self-place ; but where we are is hell. 
 And where hell is, there must we ever be ; 
 And, to be short, when all the world dissolves. 
 And every creature shall be purified, 
 All places shall be hell that are not heaven. 
 
 Faust. I think hell's a fable. 
 
 Meph. Ay, think so still, till experience change thy mind. 
 
 Faust. Why dost thou think that Faustus shall be damn'd ? 
 
 Meph. Ay, of necessity, for here 's the scroll 
 In which thou hast given thy soul to Lucifer. 
 
 Faust. Ay, and body too ; and what of that ? 
 Think'st thou that Faustus is so fond to imagine 
 That after this life, there is any pain ? 
 No, these are trifles, and mere old wives' tales. 
 
 Meph. But I am an instance to prove the contrary, 
 For I tell thee I am damn'd and now in hell. 
 
 Faust. Nay, an this be hell, I'll willingly be damn'd : 
 What ! sleeping, eating, walking and disputing ! 
 
THE DEBATE ON HELL. 643 
 
 Only one scene known to me in modern poetry offers 
 
 any parallel to these weird dialogues between the fiend 
 
 and Faustus. That is, the conversation which Mala- 
 
 gigi holds with Astarotte in ' The Morgante Maggiore.' 
 
 But Pulci is not, like Marlowe, in earnest. The 
 
 Italian magician has not compromised his soul ; and 
 
 the discourse glides gracefully from painful topics into 
 
 a strain of courteous persiflage. Far more captivating 
 
 to the imagination than Astarotte is this melancholy 
 
 figure of Mephistophilis, the fallen angel, the servant 
 
 of the Lord of Hell, standing at midnight in the doctor's 
 
 study, dressed like a brown Capuchin, and resolving 
 
 doleful problems of damnation with sinister sincerity. 
 
 Marlowe's dramatic instinct drew advantage from the 
 
 fiend's uncompromising candour. He used it to 
 
 heighten the intrepidity of Faustus, to deepen the 
 
 picture of the doomed man's spiritual arrogance. 
 
 Faustus makes ample use of his dearly purchased 
 power. He surfeits his sense with carnal pleasure, and 
 gluts his appetite for knowledge. Homer sings and 
 Amphion plays to him. He forces Mephistophilis to 
 answer questions in astronomy and cosmography ; flies 
 in a chariot drawn by dragons round about the world ; 
 pries upon the planets, and surveys the kingdoms of 
 the earth. Yet, when he is left alone, the snakes of 
 conscience wake, and the two voices keep buzzing in 
 his ear. The good angel grows faint ; the evil threatens. 
 He has reached a critical point, where he begins to 
 regret the past : the hours of agony are frequent, and 
 he groans aloud : 
 
 My heart is hardened ; I cannot repent ; 
 Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven : 
 TT 2 
 
644 SHAKSPERM'S predecessors. 
 
 SwOTds, poisons, halters, and envenomed steel, 
 Are laid before me to despatch myself ; 
 And long ere this should I have done the deed. 
 Had not sweet pleasure conquered deep despair. 
 
 Even his familiar mocks him, bidding him muse on 
 Hell, since he is damned. He listens for one moment 
 to the better voice. Alone upon the silent stage, in 
 the darkness, he thrice invokes the holy name : 
 
 O Christ, my Saviour, my Saviour ! 
 Help to save distressed Faustus' soul ! 
 
 Then suddenly emerges Lucifer with all his train : 
 
 Christ cannot save thy soul ; for He is just : 
 There 's none but I have interest in the same. 
 
 Thus a devil speaks the naked truth to Faustus, who 
 perforce must cringe before him, slinking back into 
 obedience. Immediately afterwards he is fantastically 
 soothed with nothing more attractive than a masque of 
 the Seven Deadly Sins. The doomed man's only 
 thought now is to spend the rest of his short years in 
 a variety of fresh enjoyments. He travels far and 
 wide ; performs apish tricks in the Vatican, raises 
 ghosts before the Emperor, plays practical jokes on 
 clowns. In this wild whirligig of change the horror of 
 damnation seizes him : 
 
 What art thou, Faustus, but a man condemned to die ? 
 Thy fatal time draws to a final end. 
 
 It is this ever-recurring cry of the damned, growing 
 more acute as the end approaches, which makes even 
 the buffooneries of Doctor Faustus terrible. As the 
 years move on this horror of the end increases. In a 
 scene of very great, because sober, tragic power, 
 
HORROR OF DAMNATION. 645 
 
 Marlowe gives the victim one last chance. An old 
 man enters, and reminds Faustus that there is still 
 room for repentance : 
 
 Yet, yet, thou hast an amiable soul, 
 If sin by custom grow not into nature. 
 
 Hope seems ready to leap up in the withered heart ; 
 but Mephistophilis is at his victim's elbow, with a 
 dagger, the symbol of despair : 
 
 Thou traitor, Faustus, I arrest thy soul 
 For disobedience to my sovereign lord ; 
 Revolt, or I '11 in piecemeal tear thy flesh. 
 
 Faustus knows too well that the obsequious fiend, his 
 servant, is a tyrannous master ; for verily 
 
 The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices 
 Make instruments to plague us. 
 
 It only remains to plunge again into forbidden bliss, 
 and, as a crowning pleasure, Faustus demands Helen 
 for his paramour. 
 
 The last scene is introduced by a dialogue of calm 
 simplicity and quiet dignity between Faustus and his 
 former pupils. The tender solicitude of these scholars, 
 their love for their old master, their respect for his attain- 
 ments, the sympathy with which they strive in vain to 
 stanch the wound of his spirit at this final hour, shed a 
 soft gleam of natural light upon the otherwise unmiti- 
 gated gloom of the tragedy. One of them would fain 
 abide the issue of the night in company with Faustus. 
 ' God will strengthen me,' he says ; ' I will stay with 
 Faustus.' But the wretched man, divining what must 
 happen, cannot permit this sacrifice ; and the scholars 
 retire into the adjoining room to pray for him. Faustus 
 
646 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 is now alone, alone with spiritual beings — with jeering 
 and exultant Mephistophilis, and with the angels ; the 
 good angel, who shows the celestial throne on which 
 he might have sat and ' triumphed over Hell ; ' the bad 
 angel, who reveals the ' ever-burning chair ' on which 
 ' o'er-tortured souls ' may rest. As throughout the 
 play, these angels are but Faustus' own thoughts ob- 
 jectified ; and the contrasted thrones they now display 
 are things of his imagination, rendered visible to the 
 spectators. 
 
 The last hour of the hero's life unrolls itself slowly 
 in one powerful soliloquy. The minutes are counted 
 by sand-grains of his agony : 
 
 O Faustus, 
 Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, 
 And then thou must be damned perpetually ! 
 
 Starting from this contemplation, he calls upon the 
 ' ever-moving spheres of heaven ' to stand, or for the 
 sun to rise ' and make perpetual day ; ' or for this hour 
 
 to be 
 
 A year, a month, a week, a natural day. 
 That Faustus may repent and save his soul. 
 
 Then, by an exquisite touch of nature — the brain 
 involuntarily summoning words employed for other 
 purposes in happier hours — he cries aloud the line 
 which Ovid whispered in Corinna's arms : 
 
 O lente, lente currite, noctis equi ! 
 
 But the heavens in their cycles will not be stopped to 
 save one sinner's soul : 
 
 The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike. 
 The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned. 
 
LAST HOURS OF FAUSTUS. bi,7 
 
 We seem to see him at his study window, with the 
 night of stars above, and not a voice or footstep in 
 the streets of Wittenberg respondent to his agony. As 
 he leans forth to the darkness, cannot wings be given 
 to his spirit's wish ? — 
 
 O, I '11 leap up to heaven ! — who pulls me down ? — 
 See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament ! 
 One drop of blood will save me ; O my Christ ! — 
 Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ ; 
 Yet will I call on him ; O, spare me, Lucifer ! 
 
 The heated eye of his despair beholds the galaxy itself 
 turned into a river of red flowing blood, far, far beyond 
 his reach ; and though we do not see the devil, we feel 
 him wrestling with his soul, forbidding, mastering him. 
 Horrid visions of ' a threatening arm, an angry brow,' 
 distract his mind. He calls upon the mountains and 
 the hills to fall on him. Earth ' will not harbour him.' 
 The ' stars that reigned at his nativity ' are deaf to his 
 entreaty. While he is thus struggling in the toils of 
 vain desire, the half-hour strikes. This rouses a new 
 train of thought : 
 
 O, if my soul must suffer for my sin, 
 Impose some end to my incessant pain ; 
 Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years, 
 A hundred thousand, and at last be saved ! 
 
 But, no, the soul is everlasting, and damnation has no 
 
 limit : 
 
 Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul? 
 
 This reminds him of Pythagorean metempsychosis, and 
 he falls to envying the revolutions of imbruted spirits. 
 There is something maddening in the pressure of the 
 thought of immortality upon a soul, whose endless 
 
648 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 plagues not even suicide can lighten. Nothing is left 
 but curses. Cursing his parents, his birth, himself, and 
 Lucifer, the clock strikes twelve, the devils rush with 
 thunder on the stage, and Faustus is dragged down to 
 hell. 
 
 Marlowe, it will be seen, spared his audience no 
 iota either of the spiritual or the physical torment of 
 his hero. Would it not have been more magnificent, 
 we are inclined to wonder, if he could have shown us 
 Faustus in revolt against the devil also at the end — 
 like Dante's Farinata, holding hell in great disdain — 
 or like Mozart's Don Juan, who, while the marble 
 grasp of the Commendatore stiffens round his fingers, 
 answers to the oft-repeated Pentiti a stubborn No ? 
 This indeed he might have done, and done with terrible 
 effect, if the conscience of the public and the age would 
 have permitted it. So far as we know anything at all 
 about Marlowe, we have some right to assume that he 
 had himself adopted the rebellious attitude of Faustus. 
 In depicting his end thus, with force so penetrative of 
 imagination, did he mean to paint the terrors of his 
 own remorseful soul ; or, with an artist's irony, did he 
 sacrifice the finest point of the situation to conventions 
 and the exigencies of accepted beliefs ? This we 
 cannot now decide. But the whole handling by 
 Marlowe of the Faust-legend inclines one rather to 
 believe that, if it is in any true sense autobiographical, 
 the poet was but an ill-contented and heart-sick 
 atheist. 
 
 The Epilogue spoken by the Chorus points the 
 moral of the tragedy in noble lines, three of which 
 supply an epitaph for Marlowe's grave : 
 
'THE JEW OF. MALTA: 649 
 
 Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, 
 
 And burnfed is Apollo's laurel-bough, 
 
 That sometime grew within this learned man. 
 
 Faustus is gone :— regard his hellish fall, 
 
 Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise. 
 
 Only to wonder at unlawful things. 
 
 Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits 
 
 To practise more than heavenly power permits. 
 
 Possibly Marlowe reckoned that, not having dabbled 
 in black arts, nor having signed a compact with his 
 blood, he would escape damnation. Possibly he was 
 an atheist so complete, and an artist so consummate, 
 as to be able to smile at the Acheron he luridly made 
 visible to mortal eyes. 
 
 IX. 
 
 I have said much already about the character of 
 Barabas, in 'The Jew of Malta.' It is clear that 
 Marlowe yielded to the traditions of the Miracles 
 when he put this Jew upon the stage, out-Heroding 
 Herod in his fury. But it is also clear that he sketched 
 the prototype of Shylock. Barabas, down-trodden, 
 kicked into corners, and despoiled by the Christians, 
 retains the Hebrew pride of race : 
 
 In spite ot these swine-eating Christians — 
 
 Unchosen nation, never circumcised, 
 
 Poor villains, such as were ne'er thought upon. 
 
 Till Titus and Vespasian conquered us— 
 
 Am I become as wealthy as I was. 
 
 I am not of the tribe of Levi, I, 
 
 That can so soon forget an injury. 
 
 We Jews can fawn like spaniels when we please ; 
 
 And when we grin we bite ; yet are our looks 
 
 As innocent and harmless as a lamb's. 
 
650 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 I learn'd in Florence how to kiss my hand, 
 Heave up my shoulders when they call me dog, 
 And duck as low as any barefoot friar ; 
 Hoping to see them starve upon a stall, 
 Or else be gather'd for in our synagogue. 
 That, when the offering basin comes to me. 
 Even for charity I may spit into 't. 
 
 A Christian, the lover of his daughter, greets him in 
 the street with : ' Whither walk'st thou, Barabas ? ' 
 He answers : 
 
 No further : 't is a custom held with us. 
 That when we speak with Gentiles like to you, 
 We turn into the air to purge ourselves ; 
 For unto us the promise doth belong. 
 
 This arrogance of race and religion is fortified by 
 the comparison between his people and the Christian 
 hypocrites who persecute them : 
 
 Thus trolls our fortune in by land and sea. 
 And thus are we on every side enrich'd : 
 These are the blessings promised to the Jews, 
 And herein was old Abraham's happiness : 
 What more may heaven do for earthly man 
 Than thus to pour out plenty in their laps. 
 Ripping the bowels of the earth for them, 
 Making the seas their servants, and the winds 
 To drive their substance with successful blasts ? 
 Who hateth me but for my happiness ? 
 Or who is honoured now but for his wealth ? 
 Rather had I, a Jew, be hated thus 
 Than pitied in a Christian poverty ; 
 For I can see no fruits in all their faith. 
 But malice, falsehood, and excessive pride. 
 Which, methinks, fits not their profession. 
 Haply some hapless man hath conscience. 
 And for his conscience lives in beggary. 
 They say we are a scatter'd nation ; 
 I cannot tell ; but we have scrambled up 
 More wealth by far than those that brag of faith. 
 
B ARAB AS AND SHY LOCK. 651 
 
 There's Kirriah Jairim, the great Jew of Greece, 
 Obed in Bairseth, Nones in Portugal, 
 Myself in Malta, some in Italy, 
 Many in France, and wealthy every one ; 
 Ay, wealthier far than any Christian. 
 
 Up to this point Barabas is not unworthy of Shy- 
 lock. But it would be a waste of labour to prolong 
 the comparison of two pictures so differently executed. 
 The one is a powerful but rough draft. The other is 
 a finely finished portrait. Shylock disappears together 
 with the storm and passion he has stirred. And round 
 him Shakspere grouped some of our dearest friends — 
 noble Bassanio, devoted Antonio, witty Gratiano, the 
 dignity of Portia, the tenderness of Jessica, the merri- 
 ment of Nerissa. These remain ; and over them, at 
 last, is shed an atmosphere of peace and music in that 
 moonlight act, the loveliest Shakspere ever wrote. Its 
 beauty never dies. Jessica still sits upon the bank, 
 and Lorenzo whispers to her of ' the young-eyed 
 cherubin.' We hear the voices of Portia and Nerissa 
 coming through the twilight of the garden. The 
 music, sweeter by night than day, still lingers in our 
 ears. The lovers' quarrel, so artfully contrived and 
 so delightfully concluded, still enchants our sympathy. 
 How different is the impression left by Marlowe's 
 play ! Round the wolf-fanged figure of Barabas 
 gathers a rout of grasping tyrants and vindictive 
 pariahs, hypocritical friars and cut-throat slaves, the 
 rapacious Bellamira, the hideous Ithamore, the ruffian 
 Pilia Borza. It is as though Marlowe, in pure wan- 
 tonness of cynicism, had planned the vilest scheme of 
 villany, debauchery, greed, treason, homicide, con- 
 cupiscence, infernal cruelty; raking the dregs and 
 
652 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 ransacking the dunghills of humanity to justify the 
 melodrama of his hero's cursing end. 
 
 The unrelieved cruelty of this play encourages a 
 belief that Marlowe dramatised it from some Spanish 
 novel ; and there is one scene which, in its unconscious 
 humour, grotesque and ghastly, forcibly reminds us 
 of Spanish art. Barabas has been detected in one of 
 his rogueries by two friars belonging to different re- 
 ligious bodies. In order to extricate himself and to 
 involve them both in ruin, he determines to work 
 upon their common avarice and mutual jealousy. He 
 begins by pretending repentance, and dazzling their 
 imaginations with a picture of his wealth : 
 
 Bara. O holy friars, the burden of my sins 
 Lies heavy on my soul ! then, pray you, tell me, 
 Is 't not too late now to turn Christian ? 
 I have been zealous in the Jewish faith, 
 Hard-hearted to the poor, a covetous wretch. 
 That would for lucre's sake have sold my soul ; 
 A hundred for a hundred I have ta'en ; 
 And now for store of wealth may I compare 
 With all the Jews in Malta ; but what is wealth ? 
 I am a Jew, and therefore am I lost. 
 Would penance serve [to atone] for this my sin, 
 I could afford to whip myself to death. 
 
 Itha. And so could I ; but penance will not serve. 
 
 Bara. To fast, to pray, and wear a shirt of hair, 
 And on my knees creep to Jerusalem. 
 Cellars of wine, and soUars full of wheat. 
 Warehouses stufPd with spices and with drugs. 
 Whole chests of gold in bullion and in coin. 
 Besides, I know not how much weight in pearl, 
 Orient and round, have I within my house ; 
 At Alexandria merchandise untold ; 
 But yesterday two ships went from this town. 
 Their voyage will be worth ten thousand crowns ; 
 In Florence, Venice, Antwerp, London, Seville, 
 Frankfort, Lubeck, Moscow, and where not, 
 
BARABAS AND THE FRIARS. 653 
 
 Have I debts owing ; and, in most of these, 
 Great sums of money lying in the banco ; 
 All this I '11 give to some religious house. 
 So I may be baptis'd, and live therein. 
 
 Friar Jacopo and Friar Barnardine immediately fall 
 
 to bidding one against the other for this desirable 
 
 penitent. Each in turn depreciates his rival's order, 
 
 and exalts the merits of his own. Barabas stimulates 
 
 their several cupidities. At last the friars come to 
 
 blows. He then assumes the character of peacemaker, 
 
 cajoling Friar Barnardine to stay in his own house, 
 
 and making an appointment with Friar Jacopo for the 
 
 following night. Barnardine, as might have been 
 
 expected, is strangled in the meanwhile by the Jew 
 
 and his accomplice Ithamore. They prop him up 
 
 upon his staff in a doorway, through which the other 
 
 friar will have to pass. 'So, let him lean upon his 
 
 staff,' grins Ithamore ; ' excellent ! he stands as if he 
 
 were begging of bacon.' Jacopo, in haste to keep his 
 
 appointment with the wealthy convert, soon appears, 
 
 and by the dim light of the moon detects his rival in 
 
 the archway. At first he speaks him fair ; then, 
 
 getting no answer and spying the staff, he thinks an 
 
 ambush has been laid for him, and knocks the body 
 
 down. Barabas rushes from the house, lifts the corpse, 
 
 and accuses Jacopo of the murder. There lies dead 
 
 Barnardine, and over him is stretched the tell-tale staff. 
 
 Barabas, with brutal sarcasm, exclaims : 
 
 For this example I '11 remain a Jew : 
 
 Heaven bless me ! What, a friar, a murderer ! 
 
 When shall you see a Jew commit the like ? 
 
 Then he drags Jacopo off to justice, with Ithamore for 
 witness and the staff for evidence. 
 
654 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 It is not easy to calculate the acting capabilities of 
 plays. Tamburlaine in his ' copper-laced coat and 
 crimson velvet breeches,' and Barabas with his huge 
 red nose, were no less popular upon the stage than 
 Faustus in his 'cloak and jerkin.' The great actor, 
 Edward Alleyn, gained applause, we know, in all these 
 characters, ' and won the attribute of peerless.' Richard 
 Perkins, who sustained the weight of Webster's Bra- 
 chiano, was also famous for his personation of the Jew. 
 To students the distance between Faustus and Barabas, 
 considered from the point of view of psychological 
 analysis, is immense. But it is conceivable that the 
 bustle, bloodshed, and continual business of ' The Jew 
 of Malta ' may have made this drama more attractive 
 than the other. Heywood, in a prologue written for 
 the Court about the year 1633, describes it as : 
 
 Writ many years agone, 
 And in that age thought second unto none. 
 
 X. 
 
 Modern criticism will place ' The Jew of Malta' below 
 the fourth of Marlowe's tragedies. This is the ' Chronicle 
 of Edward II.,' upon which Shakspere modelled his 
 Richard II., and which, in my opinion, offers points of 
 superiority to the first of the Shaksperian history-plays. 
 That species of dramatic skill which consists in pro- 
 tracting a tragic situation by fixing attention on the 
 gradual consummation of a fate involved in the folly of 
 the protagonist, by harassing our feelings with renewed 
 demands upon their sympathy, and by showing the 
 victim of his own insolence more noble in misfortune 
 
'EDWARD Ii: 65s 
 
 than when he sunned his wilfulness in noonday pride, 
 has been brilliantly displayed by Marlowe in Edward II. 
 Putting Shakspere's studies from the English chronicles 
 out of account, this is certainly the finest historical 
 drama in our language, as it also is the first deserving 
 of that title. 
 
 In the three tragedies by Marlowe which have been 
 hitherto examined one personage predominates ; the 
 rest are mainly accessory to the action. ' Tamburlaine,' 
 ' Doctor Faustus,' and ' The Jew of Malta' exist for and 
 in their eponymous heroes. ' Edward 1 1,' exhibits three 
 characters of almost equal power in conflict and con- 
 trast ; these are Edward, Gaveston, and Mortimer — 
 the king, besotted by his doting fondness for a minion ; 
 the favourite, ckitching at power and place, using his 
 base influence for a realm's ruin ; the ambitious subject 
 climbing to a crown by trading on the general hatred for 
 this upstart, no less than on the queen's wounded sense 
 of self-respect. Round these leading personages are 
 grouped temporal and spiritual barons of a feudal 
 epoch, bound to the throne by allegiance, but conscious of 
 their power as vassals of the Crown or representatives 
 of Rome — stung to rebellion by the foolishness of an 
 unkingly king. The dialogue, in its brief, hot vehe- 
 mence, suits these turbulent passions. For the first 
 time in a play of this description steel grates on steel 
 and blow responds to blow, in the quick, tense speech 
 of natural anger. The king and his minion, the 
 insulted queen, the haughty bishop, the wrathful lords, 
 the bold ambitious paramour, and the hii'ed assassin 
 clash together through successive scenes of strife and 
 intrigue, in which a kingdom is twice lost and won, 
 
6s6 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 and lost again. How largely it is all planned ! not 
 deftly plotted, but traced upon the lines of history in 
 bold and vivid characters. 
 
 The openings of Marlowe's plays are always fine, 
 and this of 'Edward II.' is no exception. Gaveston 
 appears upon the scene ; and after some preliminary 
 dialogue, which serves to accentuate the minion's cha- 
 racter, he breaks into this soliloquy : 
 
 These are not men for me. 
 I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits. 
 Musicians, that with touching of a string 
 May draw the pliant king which way I please. 
 Music and poetry is his delight. 
 Therefore I'll have Italian masks by night, 
 Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows ; 
 And in the day, when he shall walk abroad. 
 Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad, 
 My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns , 
 Shall with their goat-feet dance the antic hay ; 
 Sometimes a lovely boy in Dian's shape, 
 With hair that gilds the water as it glides, 
 Crownets of pearls about his naked arms. 
 And in his sportful hands an olive tree. 
 Shall bathe him in a spring ; and there, hard by. 
 One like Actseon, peeping through the grove, 
 Shall by the angry goddess be transformed. 
 And running in the likeness of an hart. 
 By yelping hounds pulled down, shall seem to die : 
 Such things as these best please his majesty. 
 
 This monologue of Gaveston's, underlined as it is by 
 the last verse, indicates, as in a frontispiece, the motive 
 of the drama. Afterwards it remains to see how 
 Edward flings away wife, crown, and people's love for 
 the idle pleasures promised him by Gaveston, 
 
 There are two passages in ' Edward II,' where 
 Marlowe rises to sublime poetic pitch. The one deals 
 
EDWARD IN THE ABBEY. 657 
 
 "with what Lamb called ' the reluctant pangs of abdi- 
 cating royalty ; ' the other is that death scene, which, 
 in the words of the same critic, ' moves pity and terror 
 beyond any scene, ancient or modern, with which I am 
 acquainted.' The poet undertook no facile task when 
 he essayed to show the light, lascivious Edward digni- 
 fied in suffering. Yet this he has accomplished by the 
 passionate rhetoric and thrilling verse with which he 
 has enforced the tragic pathos of royalty eclipsed, 
 exposed to outrage, menaced with murder. For awhile, 
 before his fall, Edward, in the company of his friends 
 Spencer and Baldock, takes refuge with the monks of 
 Neath. The abbot receives the disguised fugitives : 
 
 Abbot. Have you no doubt, my lord ; have you no fear : 
 As silent and as careful we will be 
 To keep your royal person safe with us, 
 Free from suspect, and fell invasion 
 Of such as have your majesty in chase, 
 Yourself, and those your chosen company, 
 As danger of this stormy time requires. 
 
 K. Edw. Father, thy face should harbour no deceit. 
 0, hadst thou ever been a king, thy heart, 
 Pierc'd deeply with sense of my distress, 
 Could not but take compassion of my state ! 
 "Stately and proud in riches and in train, 
 Whilom I was, powerful and full of pomp ; 
 But what is he whom rule and empery 
 Have not in life or death made miserable ? 
 
 Then the king turns to his companions : 
 
 Come, Spenser— come, Baldock— come, sit down by me 
 
 Make trial now of that philosophy 
 
 That in our famous nurseries of arts 
 
 Thou suck'dst from Plato and from Aristotle. 
 
 Father, this life contemplative is heaven ; 
 
 O, that I might this life in quiet lead ! 
 
 U U 
 
658 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 One of them lets fall the name of Mortimer : 
 
 Mortimer ! who talks of Mortimer ? 
 
 Who wounds me with the name of Mortimer, 
 
 That bloody man? — Good father, on thy lap 
 
 Lay I this head, laden with mickle care. 
 
 O might I never ope these eyes again, 
 
 Never again lift up this drooping head, 
 
 O, never more lift up this dying heart ! 
 
 This scene serves as prelude to the abdication scene at 
 Killingworth. The Earl of Leicester and the Bishop 
 of Winchester are in attendance, the one soothing the 
 king's anguish with kind words ; the other stubbornly- 
 insisting on his resignation of the crown. Edward 
 opens the debate in a speech of harmony so rich and 
 varied, that in this I recognise the master's perfected 
 command of his own mighty line : 
 
 Leicester, if gentle words might comfort me, 
 Thy speeches long ago had eas'd my sorrow. 
 For kind and loving hast thou always been. 
 The griefs of private men are soon allay'd ; 
 But not of kings. The forest deer, being struck, 
 Runs to an herb that closeth up the wounds ; 
 But when the imperial Uon's flesh is gor'd, 
 He rends and tears it with his wrathful paw, 
 [And], highly scorning that the lowly earth 
 Should drink his blood, mounts up to the air ; 
 And so it fares with me, whose dauntless mind 
 Th' ambitious Mortimer would seek to curb. 
 And that unnatural queen, false Isabel, 
 That thus hath pent and mew'd me in a prison ; 
 For such outrageous passions clog my soul, 
 As with the wings of rancour and disdain 
 Full oft[en] am I soaring up to heaven. 
 To plain me to the gods against them both. 
 But when I call to mind I am a king, 
 Methinks I should revenge me of my wrongs 
 That Mortimer and Isabel have done. 
 But what are kings, when regiment is gone. 
 
EDWARD AT KILLINGWORTH. 659 
 
 But perfect shadows in a sunshine day ? 
 My nobles rule ; I bear the name of king ; 
 I wear the crown ; but am controlled by them, 
 By Mortimer, and my unconstant queen. 
 Who spots my nuptial bed with infamy ; 
 Whilst I am lodg'd within this cave of care, 
 Where Sorrow at my elbow still attends. 
 To company my heart with sad laments, 
 That bleeds within me for this strange exchange. 
 
 The Bishop submits that Edward will resign his 
 
 crown to his own son, and not to Mortimer. ' No,' he 
 
 replies : 
 
 No, 't is for Mortimer, not Edward's head ; 
 For he 's a lamb, encompassed by wolves. 
 Which in a moment will abridge his life. 
 But if proud Mortimer do wear this crown. 
 Heaven turn it to a blaze of quenchless fire ! 
 Or, like the snaky wreath of Tisiphon, 
 Engirt the temples of his hateful head ; 
 So shall not England's vine be perished, 
 But Edward's name survive though Edward dies. 
 
 Both Leicester and the Bishop urge. Edward vacil- 
 lates between necessity and shame. At one moment 
 he takes the crown from his head ; at the next he 
 replaces it : 
 
 Here, take my crown ; the life of Edward too : 
 
 [ Taking off the crown. 
 Two kings in England cannot reign at once. 
 But stay a while ; let me be king till night. 
 That I may gaze upon this glittering crown ; 
 So shall my eyes receive their last content. 
 My head, the latest honour due to it, 
 And jointly both yield up their wished right. 
 Continue ever, thou celestial sun ; 
 Let never silent night possess this clime ; 
 Stand still, you watches of the element ; 
 All times and seasons, rest you at a stay, 
 That Edward may be still fair England's king ! 
 u u 2 
 
66o SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Yet an answer must be given to the lords, and the 
 inevitable cannot be avoided : 
 
 Heavens and earth conspire 
 
 To make me miserable. Here, receive my crown. 
 
 Receive it ? no, these innocent hands of mine 
 
 Shall not be guilty of so foul a crime ; 
 
 He of you all that most desires my blood. 
 
 And will be call'd the murderer of a king, 
 
 Take it. What, are you mov'd ? pity you me ? 
 
 Then send for unrelenting Mortimer, 
 
 And Isabel, whose eyes being turn'd to steel. 
 
 Will sooner sparkle fire than shed a tear. 
 
 Yet stay ; for, rather than I'll look on thern. 
 
 Here, here ! \_Gives the crown?\ Now, sweet God of heaven. 
 
 Make me despise this transitory pomp. 
 
 And sit for aye enthronisfed in heaven ! 
 
 Come, death, and with thy fingers close my eyes. 
 
 Or, if I live, let me forget myself ! 
 
 The king's last thoughts are for his son : 
 
 Let not that Mortimer protect my son ; 
 More safety is there in a tiger's jaws 
 Than his embracements. Bear this to the queen. 
 Wet with my tears, and dried again with sighs ; 
 If with the sight thereof she be not moved. 
 Return it back, and dip in my blood. 
 Commend me to my son, and bid him rule 
 Better than I. Yet how have I transgressed, 
 Unless it be with too much clemency ? 
 
 Now all is over with Edward. Dragged from place 
 to place, starved, and taunted, we find him next at 
 Berkeley Castle in a dungeon underneath the moat. 
 The aspect of the monarch, wasted with long watch- 
 ing and fasting in his loathsome prison, suggests too 
 much of that Euripidean squalor which high tragedy 
 repudiates. Yet the kingliness with which he calls to 
 mind his majesty of happier days, and bestows his 
 last jewel on the cutthroat sent to murder him, en- 
 
EDWARD AT BERKELEY. 66 1 
 
 nobles the revolting details Marlowe has thought fit 
 to accumulate. Lightborn, the assassin, enters the 
 dungeon with a lamp, and on the threshold recoils dis- 
 gusted by its venomous stench. The dialogue between 
 him and his victim, famous as it is, must be transcribed 
 at length : 
 
 K. Edw. Weep'st thou already ? list a while to me. 
 And then thy heart, were it as Gurney's is, 
 Or as Matrevis', hewn frop the Caucasus, 
 Yet will it melt ere I have done my tale. 
 This dungeon where they keep me, is the sink 
 Wherein the filth of all the castle falls. 
 
 Light. O villains ! 
 
 K. Edw. And there, in mire and puddle, have I stood 
 This ten days' space ; and, lest that I should sleep, 
 One plays continually upon a drum ; 
 They give me bread and water, being a king ; 
 So that for want of sleep and sustenance. 
 My mind 's distempered and my body 's numbed. 
 And whether I have limbs or not I know not. 
 O, would my blood dropped out from every vein. 
 As doth this water, from my tattered robes ! 
 Tell Isabel the queen I looked not thus. 
 When for her sake I ran at tilt in France, 
 And there unhorsed the Duke of Cleremont. 
 
 L. O speak no more, my lord ; this breaks my heart. 
 Lie on this bed and rest yourself a while. 
 
 E. These looks of thine can harbour nought but death : 
 I see my tragedy written in thy brows. 
 Yet, stay a while ; forbear thy bloody hand, 
 And let me see the stroke before it comes ; 
 That even then when I shall lose my life, 
 My soul may be more steadfast on my God. 
 
 L. What means your Highness to mistrust me thus ? 
 
 E. What mean'st thou to dissemble with me thus ? 
 
 L. These hands were never stained with innocent blood, 
 Nor shall they now be tainted with a king's. 
 
 E. Forgive my thought for having such a thought. 
 One jewel have I left ; receive thou this ; 
 Still fear I, and I know not what 's the cause. 
 But every joint shakes as I give it thee. 
 
662 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 ! if thou harbour'st murder in thy heart, 
 
 Let this gift change thy mind, and save thy soul ! 
 Know that I am a king : O, at that name 
 
 1 feel a hell of grief ! Where is my crown ? 
 Gone, gone ! and do I yet remain alive ? 
 
 L. You 're overwatched, my lord ; lie down and rest. 
 
 E. But that grief keeps me waking I should sleep ; 
 For not these ten days have these eyelids closed. 
 Now, as I speak, they fall ; and yet with fear 
 Open again. O, wherefore sitt'st thou here ? 
 
 Z. If you mistrust me, I '11 begone, my lord. 
 
 E. No, no : for if thou mean'st to murder me. 
 Thou wilt return again ; and therefore stay. \_Sleeps. 
 
 L. He sleeps. 
 
 E. O, let me not die yet ! O, stay a while ! 
 
 L. How now, my lord ? 
 
 E. Something still buzzeth in my ears, 
 And tells me, if I sleep, I never wake : 
 This fear it is which makes me tremble thus ; 
 And therefore tell me ; wherefore art thou come ? 
 
 L. To rid thee of thy life. — Matrevis, come ! 
 
 Over what follows it were well to draw the veil ; for 
 Marlowe, with the savagery of his age, shows Edward 
 smothered, sparing only one incident of that unnatural 
 regicide. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The fifth of Marlowe's undoubted tragedies, pro- 
 duced in his own lifetime, is ' The Massacre at Paris.' 
 This play was popular under its second title of ' The 
 Guise,' and, like the majority of the poet's dramatic 
 works, was written apparently to provide one great 
 actor with a telling part. As we possess it, the text 
 bears signs not only of hasty composition but also of 
 negligent printing. It is chiefly interesting for its fierce 
 anti- Papal feeling, inflamed to rabidness by the horrors 
 of S. Bartholomew. Yet,, even from this point of view. 
 
'TRAGEDY OF DIDO.' 663 
 
 its passion falls far short of the concentrated rage 
 expressed by D'Aubignd in ' Les Tragiques.' Nor 
 has Marlowe relieved the forcible feebleness of its 
 chaotic cruelties with any bursts of poetry or ringing 
 declamation. 
 
 ' The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage,' was 
 left unfinished, and produced after Marlowe's death. 
 I have already expressed the opinion that this may 
 have been an early essay. In the main, it consists of 
 translations from the second and fourth books of the 
 ' ^neid,' somewhat resembling the tumid style of the 
 lines declaimed in ' Hamlet ' by the player. Bi^t Mar- 
 lowe introduced one or two original scenes, character- 
 istic of his manner and of the fashion of the day. In 
 one of these Jupiter is ' dallying with Idalian Gany- 
 mede,' petting his cup-bearer back into good humour 
 by the praise of a thousand pretty things. Hermes 
 lies asleep, with folded wings, beside them ; and the 
 picture is one that Correggio might have painted. In 
 another, Venus carries the boy lulus asleep to Ida : 
 
 Now is he fast asleep ; and in this grove, 
 Amongst green brakes, I '11 lay Ascanius, 
 And strew him with sweet-smelling violets, 
 Blushing roses, purple hyacinths ; 
 These milk-white doves shall be his centronels. 
 
 In a third, Cupid, who has assumed the form of 
 Ascanius, bewitches an old nurse, and sets her thinking 
 upon love. To tempt him away from Dido, she 
 invites him thus : 
 
 I have an orchard that hath store of plums, 
 Brown almonds, services, ripe figs, and dates, 
 Dewberries, apples, yellow oranges ; 
 A garden where are beehives full of honey. 
 
664 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Musk-roses, and a thousand sort of flowers ; 
 And in the midst doth run a silver stream, 
 Where thou shalt see the red-gilled fishes leap, 
 White swans, and many lovely water-fowls. 
 
 The hyperbolical splendour of description running over 
 
 into nonsense, which Marlowe seems to have made 
 
 fashionable, and which Greene and Peele but feebly 
 
 imitated, is illustrated in Dido's offers of a fleet to 
 
 .^neas : 
 
 I '11 give thee tackling made of rivelled gold, 
 Wound on the barks of odoriferous trees ; 
 Oars of massy ivory, full of holes, 
 Through which the water shall delight to play ; 
 * Thy anchors shall be hewed from crystal rocks. 
 Which, if thou lose, shall shine above the waves ; 
 The mast whereon thy swelling sails shall hang, 
 Hollow pyramides of silver plate ; 
 The sails of folded lawn, where shall be wrought 
 The wars of Troy, — but not Troy's overthrow. 
 
 This is in the true style of Hero's buskins ; and the 
 blank verse, falling in couplets, seems to cry aloud for 
 rhymes. 
 
 Much might be said about Marlowe's treatment of 
 Virgil's text, and the exaggerated, almost spasmodic, 
 attempt made to heighten the tragic tension of each 
 situation. Take the apparition of Hector's ghost for 
 an example : 
 
 Then buckled I mine armour, drew my sword. 
 
 And thinking to go down, came Hector's ghost, 
 
 With ashy visage, blueish sulphur eyes. 
 
 His arms torn from his shoulders, and his breast 
 
 Furrowed with wounds, and, that which made me weep. 
 
 Thongs at his heels, by which Achilles' horse 
 
 Drew him in triumph through the Greekish camp, 
 
 Burst from the earth, crying, ' ^neas, fly ! 
 
 Troy is a-fire, the Grecians have the town ! ' 
 
MARLOWE AND VIRGIL. 665 
 
 Instead of ' blueish sulphur eyes,' 'arms torn off,' and 
 ' breast furrowed with wounds,' Virgil writes : 
 
 Raptatus bigis ut quondam, aterque cruento 
 Pulvere, perque pedes trajectus lora tumentes. 
 
 Then, as though the vision were too horrible : 
 
 Hei mihi, qualis erat ! quantum mutatus ab illo 
 Hectore ! 
 
 And when he speaks again of those wounds, he tem- 
 pers their disgrace : 
 
 quae circum plurima muros 
 Accepit patrios. 
 
 Nor does Virgil's Hector ' burst from the earth,' but 
 steals upon ^neas like a dream in the first sleep of 
 night. Each of these points the translator misses ; 
 and, instead, presents us with the picture of a mangled 
 corpse, starting from the charnel, and shrieking a 
 shrill message of sudden woe. The neglect of modu- 
 lation and reserve is a main point in Elizabethan 
 tragedy. We may surmise that even Shakspere, 
 had he dealt with Hector's as he did with Hamlet's 
 father's ghost, would have sought to intensify the 
 terror of the apparition at the expense of artistic 
 beauty. 
 
 XII. 
 
 I have reviewed, perhaps at intolerable length, the 
 authentic work of Marlowe as a dramatist. One play, 
 which bears his name upon the title-2Dage, and which 
 passed till recently for his, namely, ' Lust's Dominion,' 
 must be attributed to a feebler though imitative hand. 
 
666 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 Nor do I think we can with certainty assign to Marlowe 
 any definite portions of the Shaksperian Histories. 
 That he had a hand in the first draughts which went 
 to form ' Henry VI.' can be accepted ; and that his 
 influence may be traced in ' Edward HI.' is a tenable 
 theory. But in the absence of external evidence, it 
 would be vain to draw conjecture further, especially 
 when we have seen that the whole manner of that 
 epoch is saturated with the master's style. 
 
 Marlowe was great as a dramatist ; but as a poet 
 he was still greater. Even in his tragedies it is the 
 poet, rather than the playwright, who commands our 
 admiration. His characters are too often the mouth- 
 pieces of their maker's passionate oratory, rather than 
 beings gifted with a complex, independent vitality. 
 At another time I hope to study ' Hero and Leander,' 
 in combination with ' Venus and Adonis,' ' Salmacis 
 and Hermaphroditus,' and a few other narrative poems 
 of this epoch ; works in which our chiefest dramatists 
 expressed their sense of beauty, unimpeded by thea- 
 trical necessities. It will then be seen into how clear 
 and lofty a region of pure poetry Marlowe soared ; 
 and in how true a sense he deserves the name of 
 pioneer and maker. Marlowe's contemporaries hailed 
 in him a morning star of song, and marked him out as 
 the young Apollo of his age. Not the dramatist, but 
 the inspired artist, moved their panegyric when they 
 wrote of him. Let me conclude this essay with 
 some of their testimonies, selecting only those which 
 seem to catch a portion of his spirit. Chapman shall 
 speak first of the dead friend who-= — 
 
POETIC TRIBUTES TO MARLOWE. 667 
 
 Stood 
 Up to the chin in the Pierian flood, 
 And drank to me half this Musaean story, 
 Inscribing it to deathless memory. 
 
 Peele shall follow with his tribute to the poet's grave : 
 
 Unhappy in thine end, 
 Marley, the Muses' darling for thy verse, 
 Fit to write passions for the souls below. 
 If any wretched souls in passion speak. 
 
 Drayton shall tell how — 
 
 Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs. 
 Had in him those brave translunary things 
 That the first poets had ; his raptures were 
 All air and fire, which made his verses clear ; 
 For that fine madness still he did retain, 
 Which rightly should possess a poet's brain. 
 
 Petowe, less renowned, less skilful, but hardly less 
 discriminating, sings of — 
 
 Mario admired, whose honey-flowing vein 
 No English writer can as yet attain. 
 Whose name in Fame's immortal treasury 
 Truth shall record to deathless memory, 
 Mario, late mortal, now framed all divine — 
 
 and hails his entrance into the heaven of poetry ; 
 
 where : 
 
 Mario, still-admirfed Mario 's gone 
 To live with beauty in Elysium — 
 Immortal beauty, who desires to hear 
 His sacred poesies sweet in every ear. 
 
 These laurels, which were showered on Marlowe's 
 hearse, are still evergreen. The most impassioned 
 singer of our own day, Charles Algernon Swinburne, 
 has scattered the ro-ses and lilies of high-sounding 
 
 %- — 
 
668 SHAKSPERE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 verse and luminous prose upon that poet's tomb. One 
 of the noblest, as he is now the eldest of our poets, 
 Richard Home, has digested the romance of his un- 
 timely death into a worthy tragedy. Yet why should 
 we use the language of the grave in speaking about 
 Marlowe ? 
 
 He has outsoared the shadow of our night ; 
 Envy and calumny, and hate and pain, 
 And that unrest which men miscall delight. 
 Can touch him not and torture not again. 
 
 His nightingales, 'the glad dear angels of the spring' 
 of English poetry, survive and fill our ears with music. 
 They are not dead, although — 
 
 Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, 
 
 And burned is Apollo's laurel bough. 
 
 That sometime grew within this learnfed man. 
 
 LONDON" : PRINTED BY 
 
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