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J' 
 
 The 
 
 Place oE Shakspeare in 
 Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 .. By 
 
 .iV 
 
 E. H. C OLiPHANT. 
 
 Beini the Annual Lecture delivered under 
 the auspices of the Melbourne Shakspeare ( . 
 Society. July, 1914. i.' 
 
 .r 
 
VARLEYS PTY. LTD., 
 Prinien, 
 
 3)6 Flinder* C«ne, Melbpume, 
 
The Place of Shakspeafe in 
 Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 1 hold Shakspeare to be the greatest dramatist of all who 
 have used the English tongue; I have no doubt whatever that 
 he was the greatest of his time; and I believe him to be the 
 greatest in all literature. You will doubtless think that that is 
 not a very daring thing to say, that my view is not absolutely 
 striking in its originality. Yet my words have been very carefully 
 chosen ; and it may be that, if you were to take the trouble to 
 analyse them, you would find that they indicated a profound 
 difference between my point of view and that of many of those 
 whom I have here before me, at my mercy — for the time being. 
 The daring of the remark lies, in its lack of daring. Probably 
 but few of you have been so unfortunate as to have a journalistic 
 education. If you had, you would know that in every political 
 address, in every theatrical or literary or artistic criticism, there 
 is as much note to be taken of what is not said by the orator or 
 the critic as of what is said. I remember once a friend whom 
 I met in a morning train, where he was, according to the habit 
 of most of us, imbibing views he would later put forth as his 
 own, remarking to me that some particular theatrical entertainment 
 which liad just commenced its local career must be remarkably 
 fine. "I don't think it's worth going to see," I replied. With 
 an air of knocking me out beyond hope of recovery, he retorted, 
 "I'm going by what the paper says"; to which I answered, "So am 
 I." But my reply was not strictly correct: 1 was not going on 
 what it said, but on what it did not say: I W'as reading between 
 the lines, with a knowledge of journalistic ways and local journ- 
 alistic conditions. So, when I say "I hold S'hakspeare to 'be the 
 greatest dramatist of all who have used the English tongue," it 
 may perhaps be well for you to note that I do not describe him 
 as our only dramatist; when I speak of him as the greatest 
 dramatist of his time, I speak of him as a dramatist and nothing 
 more; when I express ray belief that he is the greatest dramatist 
 the literature of the world has to offer us, I do not claim for 
 him the mightiest intellect over vouchsafed to man. The attitude 
 of Shakspearian Societies in. general is that Shakspeare was so 
 immeasurably superior to his fellovf dramatists that he may be 
 held to sum up in himself all the merits of the drama of his time; 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drartld. 
 
 that he comprised in himself all accomplishments as well as 
 universal genius; that he was, if not quite a god, at least something 
 more than man. Perhaps that is not the view held by memhers 
 of this Society. If not, I hope you will bo- kind enough not to 
 say so at; ^e pre^jt ; juncture ; "iior, if' y oil' doif^you will bring 
 my address to a summary conclusion. 
 
 Before I proceedr, let me say that I hope the title I have 
 chosen may not seem to you either an impertinence or a hetise — 
 a betinc because all know Shakspeare's place in the Elizabethan 
 drama (is it not a plac^ well above everybody else's?); an im- 
 pertinence because to speak on such a subject .before. a Society 
 devoted to the study of Shakspeare must savour somewhat of 
 carrying dates to Hajar or coals to Newcastle, or, to change the 
 metaphor, of gilding refined gold, or, to change it yet again, of 
 teaching one's grandmother to suck eggs. Yet, after all, may I be 
 jiardoned for asking whether you ever really do consider the 
 subject on which I propose to speak, or whether you do not 
 take it entirely for gi-anted. It is not enough to say that Shaks- 
 peare tops the poll. You need to be able to say by how many 
 votes, he beat his rivals, and on what grounds he obtained the 
 support of a majority of the voters. It is no great credential 
 for a racehorse to win the Melbourne Cup : before you can express 
 an opinion on his performance you need to know the character 
 of the opposition he had to meet, how mudh he won by, what 
 were the conditions under which the race was run, and how the 
 Weights were allotted. So Shakspeare-l'overs may prattle as they 
 like of the supi-emacy of iShakspeare; but if they have no ac- 
 quaintance with his fellow playmakers, if they have no, conception 
 of the exact influence of every one of those men (including Shaks- 
 peare himself) upon the drama of his day, if they are incapable 
 of saying why Shakspekre stands first, their prattle is all idle and 
 meaningless and valueless. That is why I have had the effrontery 
 to choose a subject whicih should be the very first to be considered 
 by any Shakspeare Society that is hopeful of doing really valii- 
 a'ble work In Shakspearian study. 
 
 Although my chief object to-night is to consider the place 
 of Shaksipeare in Elizabethan drama, I wish, hefore » doing so, 
 to consider two other questions — firstly, the place of Shakspeare 
 in the intellectual history of the world; and, secondly, his sup- 
 posed universal attainment. I do this because I take it that the 
 popular misconception that he stands absolutely alone in our 
 dramatic history is an outcome or a corollary of the idea that 
 he is to' he regarded as a species of demigod, or, I suppose I 
 must say in the ISTietzschian phrase of to-day, superman. So long 
 as the idea of his divinity is held, it is impossible to obtain any 
 rational consideration for' the question of his relation to his 
 contemporaries. When a man is described, as Shakspeare has so 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 often been described, as possessing the mightiest intellect ever 
 besto-'wed on any son of man, it is natural to regard his rivals as 
 so far beneath him that they are not to be noticed at all so long 
 as his giant personality is in the way. There is always a tendency 
 to personify a period in the person of its greatest human product ; 
 always a tendency to add to the stature of the tallest man, and sub- 
 tract from the stature of his rivals. I have often had foreigners 
 tell me that Shakspeare was our only poet. We, knowing our 
 Chaucer, our Milton, our Shelley, or at least knowing of them., know 
 that that view is ridiculous ; ; but it is not more ridiculous, or not 
 much more ridiculous, than the view common among ourselves that 
 Shakspeare is our only dramatist. That view is as absurd as it 
 would be to take Mt. Everest as the one mountain peak of the Hima- 
 layas or Aconcagua as ruling the Cordillera in solitary grandeur. 
 In point of fact you can only determine the supremacy of either 
 by actual measurement; and so it is with the supremacy of Shak- 
 speare. When you get a solitary peak like Mt. Wellington, a 
 glance will tell you that it stands well above the level of the foot- 
 hills that surround it; but were it encircled by other peaks you 
 would find the eye very misleading in judging their relative heights. 
 Much would depend upon your own position and the consequent 
 angle from which you regarded them. Shakspeare is not a Mt. 
 Wellington, standing in lonely grandeur ; he is a Mt. Everest, sur- 
 rounded by other mountain peaks whose height would be considered 
 phenomenal if he were left out of consideration. For the realisa- 
 tion of that fact, it seems to me to be necessary that the idea of 
 his superhumanity should first be destroyed. 
 
 For those who think him the greatest-brained, the most divinely 
 gifted man that ever lived, I shall not institute any comparison with 
 a 'man of action like Caesar, or with philosopher-scientists like 
 Aristotle or N'ewton or Descartes. Rather let me compare him with 
 one who was, like himself, a creative genius in the region of the 
 fine arts. Let me take Leonardo da Vinci, who came into the 
 world about a century earlier. Let me say Shakspeare was the 
 greatest poet and the greatest dramatist the -world has ever seen; 
 Leonardo is not quite pre-eminent in painting, though Pierre 
 Prud'hon, the one artist who flourished under Napoleon Whom 
 inconsiderate Time has not robbed of iis glory, called him "the 
 inimitable, the father, the prince, the first of all painters" ; but he 
 is admittedly one of the world's six or eight greatest, and he 
 showed the way to all the others — a fact which gives him, let us 
 say, approximately such importance in painting as Shakspeare has 
 in drama. Against Shakspeare's poetic gift let us set these artistic 
 qualifications of Leonardo : he was the f oxmder of the Italian pro- 
 cess of painting in oil, and author of a famous treatise on the 
 art; an unsurpassed draughtsman; the first to base art on nature 
 and to recognise the artistic value of light and shade; a skilful 
 modeller in clay; a great sculptor; a mig'hty statuary in bronze; 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama 
 
 an architect of extraordinary breadth of conception; a musician 
 with a truly remarkable gift of improvisation; a noteworthy poet; 
 and an excellent m^anager of shows and pageants. 
 
 So much for the artistic side. What else was Shakspeare? A 
 philosopher? So was Leonardo; and, more, he was an original 
 thinker, which Shakspeare can scarcely claim to have been. But 
 I have already exhausted the tale of Shakspeare's creative gifts and 
 scarcely begun those of Leonardo. To the scientific side of this 
 universal genius Shakspeare offers no analogy. Consider what the 
 great Florentine was and what he did. He was an engineer of the 
 highest order, as he showed in his irrigation works and in his plans 
 for the construction of tunnels and canals for the furtherance of 
 trade (for, amongst other things, he was a political economist far 
 in advance of his time). He drew up specifications for a steam 
 cannon, a breach-loading cannon, and many other engines of war, 
 discerned the possibility of propelling sea-craft by steam, con- 
 structed a flying machine (of which, unfortunately, no details are 
 known), and invented the camera obscura, a rope-making machine, 
 and a saw that oven a few years ago was still in use in the marble 
 quarries of Carrara. But these were only, as it were, the recrea- 
 tions of his fertile and active brain ; he has far greater claims to the 
 respect of mankind than' these. A pioneer in modem astronomy, 
 in the study of anatomy, and in embryology, and founder 
 of the modern science of hydraulics, of every branch of science he 
 touched he grasped the fundamental principles. A great mathe- 
 matician, he anticipated many discoveries in geometry; a great 
 physicist, he ascertained the laws of friction and made tremendous 
 advances in optics. He mastered the laws of aerial perspective, anti- 
 cipated the modern undulatory theory of light, and divined the laws 
 of grayitation, the rotation of the earth, the molecular composition 
 of water, and the laws governing the movements of the waves of 
 the sea. In short, there was no branch of mathematics or physics 
 he did not touch, and none he touched which he did not adorn. A 
 pioneer in geology, he anticipated the truth as to the elevation of 
 continents ; founder of the science of palaeontology, he was the first 
 to ascertain the true nature of fossils. In hiology and physiology 
 his eminence is no less remarkable. He seems to have understood 
 the circulation of the blood, and the laws of respiration and com- 
 bustion; and he was the first to expound the principles of the 
 structural classification of plants. Add to all this his profound 
 philosophical and critical faculties and the worldly wisdom he has 
 embodied in certain of his writings, and I am surely justified in 
 asking how, in face of his wonderful achievements and almost more 
 wonderful capacities, anyone can claim for Skakspeare the first 
 place among the world's intellects. And this wonderful man, un- 
 questionably, to my thinking, the most extraordinarily gifted being 
 the sun has ever shone upon, was the illegitimate offspring of a 
 Tuscan peasant-woman ! Beside this marvellous advertisement for 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 illegitimacy Shakspeare was but a pygmy, a mere Gulliver in 
 Brobdingnag. You may set bis creative genius by the side of Leo- 
 nardo's — even, if you choose, above it — but intellectually he was not 
 fit to eat from the same dish. 
 
 So much for the demigodhead of Shakspeare. What then of 
 his wonderful all-round attainment? Have we not had books 
 written to prove him su:btle in the law, a profound student of the 
 Bible, a man equipped with a thorough understanding of nature, 
 one versed in the medical science of his day, and so on, and so 
 on, and so on, and so on ? After all, it amounts to little. It was 
 characteristic of the Eenaissance, which, it is to be borne in mind, 
 burst upon England only after it had long spent itself in Italy, 
 that its children aimed at a universality of knowledge. Leonardo, 
 though the most extraordinary product of the time, did not stand 
 alone. Al'berti, Orcagna, Michelangelo — all these were not only 
 versatile, but original and creative in their versatility. Shakspeare 
 was not: he created nothing in any of the fields of knowledge 
 with the mastery of which he is credited. If he possessed the 
 knowledge, it was merely knowledge acquired by study, the know- 
 ledge of others. But let us take it at that: let us consider him 
 merely as a m^an of all-round attainment instead of as a man of 
 all-round genius, where does he stand ? I am hampered in dealing 
 with this question by my own ignorance. All I know of law is 
 that it is framed to afford adequate protection— for the swindler; 
 all I know about theology is that it is designed for the filling of 
 Heaven — with highly undesirable people; all I know of medicine 
 is that it enables some very worthy persons to make a living. But, 
 though you will see from this that I have a very thorough under- 
 standing of the general principles of each of these great profes- 
 sions, I cannot claim to be a master of the details of any of them, 
 and so can only speak of them in very general terms. So speaking, 
 I can "but say that of every one of these branches of knowledge 
 Shakspeare's grip seems to me very slender. He makes a good 
 show, and that is all. His knowledge is purely superficial, and is 
 no whit more remarkahle than that shown by a dozen of his con- 
 temporaries. If I proceeded to illustrate the fact, it might be in- 
 teresting to any lawyers or parsons or doctors who chance to be 
 among my auditory, but I fear it would be terribly 'boresome to 
 the honest people who, after all, are in- the majority among you. 
 Sufiice it to say that in knowledge of scripture or in knowledge 
 of medicine or in knowledge of law one might safely set a single 
 play of Ben Jonson's against the entire volume of Shakspeare's 
 works. 
 
 The strongest claim has heen made for his thorough acquaint- 
 ance with law. He is not held to have 'been a physician or to 
 have taken holy orders or to have been a professional botanist ; but 
 he is held by many people to have shown such a profound know- 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 ledge of the law that he must have been at one tinae at least a 
 lawyer's clerk. Those who argue thus do not know the Elizahethan 
 drama or Elizabethan England. Just as you may find many of 
 his fellow playoraftsmen with as great a knowledge and love of 
 flowers, as great a knowledge of medicine, and a far greater know- 
 ledge of the Bible, so you will find in Lyly, Greene, ITashe, Chap- 
 man, Heywood, Dekker, Middleton, Webster, Massinger — to name 
 but a few — no less knowledge of the law than Shakspeare shows. 
 What are the proofs of his wonderful attainment in this field? 
 Let me instance two or three that have been seriously advanced : 
 from "Measure for Measure," "Good counsellors lack no clients." 
 Wonderful ! In "As you like it" he speaks of lawyers as "sleeping 
 between term and term." What knowledge ! "Merry Wives" gives 
 us "Like a fair house built upon another man's ground, so that 
 I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place where I erected it." 
 Can it be possible that even a lawyer's clerk could have known 
 so much? But, over and against these extraordinary proofs, and 
 others which consist of the use of legal phraseology, we may set 
 the ignorance of legal procedure shown in the "Merchant of 
 Venice." Shakspeare's law was the law of the man in the street 
 and the man in the tavern at a time when legal terms were in 
 general use to a much greater extent than they are to-day. De- 
 veomon says of Webster's "Devil's Law-oase" that it contains 
 "more legal expressions, some of them highly technical and all 
 correctly used, than are to be found in any single one of Shak- 
 speare's works." And Webster was not a lawyer — ^not even a law- 
 yer's clerk. 
 
 The idea, then, that Shakspeare was a man of quite an extra- 
 ordinary degree of knowledge is almost as far from the truth 
 as the idea that in intellect he stands above all the great men who 
 have a place in history, and m'ay be cast aside just as uncere- 
 moniously. And let me add that it is well it should be, for there 
 is nothing that has helped more in the spread of the pestilent and 
 preposterous Baconian theory than the habit of Shakspearians of 
 claiming for their divinity every perfection, every gift, every at- 
 tainment, the comprehension of all human knowledge. 
 
 Having (at least, to my own satisfaction) disposed of iShak- 
 speare's claims to be more than man,, and, as a man, to be niore 
 than poet and dramatist, the way is clear at last for me to consider 
 his place in the Elizabethan drama. It is only when we strip 
 these idolatrous accretions of time from him that we can see him 
 as he was, only when we recognise that he was but a poet and a 
 dramatist and to some extent a philosopher that we can compare 
 him with other poets and dramatists who were also, in their several 
 ways, philosophers. "He was a psychologist too," will you say? 
 Agreed ; but that is only part of his equipment as a great dramatist, 
 as it was part, too, of the equipment of others. If we consider 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 him as dramatist, the psychology is included ; if we consider him 
 as poet, the thought is included. To compare him with his 
 contemporaries as poet and as dramatist is everything. 
 
 Let us note first that he did not try every class of drama 
 known to the writers of his period. The burlesque, the satire, 
 the allegor/ he left untouched. Putting aside the ill-defined group 
 to which, in a paper for an English magazine on the subject I 
 accorded the distinctive, but not very satisfactory title of "drama" 
 (using the word as it is used "behind the scenes" to-day), we may 
 divide his plays into five classes — histories, tragedies, tragi-comedies 
 (such as the "Merchant of Venice" and "CymJbeline"), serio-come- 
 dies (such as "All's Well" and "The Tempest"), and comedies (such 
 as "Love's Labour's Lost" and "The Merry Wives"). In tragedy, in 
 serio-comedy, and in comedy, he is unquestionably supreme : in the 
 chronicle play he is challenged only by Marlowe ; in tragi-comedy, 
 only by Beaumont and Fletcher. But it is possiible to accomplish 
 the greatest work in any art form without being the greatest 
 natural genius in it, because it is easier — infinitely easier — to be 
 an im.itator than to be an originator, to 'be an improver than to be 
 a creator. So there is more to consider than mere achievem.ent. 
 Kightly or wrongly, I find his most unquestionable originality in 
 comedy. There were, of course, comedies before Shakspeare ; but, 
 if my judgment be correct, there was no great- comedy. In the 
 chronicle play he showed no such originality ; he was not only not 
 the writer of the first great play in that species (that must go 
 to the credit of Marlowe), but he was content always to follow 
 along the lines laid down by Marlowe and his other predecessors, 
 his only originality consisting in a leavening of some of his later 
 plays in this genre with very broad comedy and even farce. Wor 
 can he be said to have given us the first great tragedy. IN'ot only 
 Marlowe's "Edward II." (to which I have already referred) and 
 his "Faustus" preceded any tragedy of Shakspeare's, 'but so also 
 did the anonymous "Arden of Faversham," the authorship of 
 which Mr. Charles Crawford has given to Kyd, but in which 
 I (working in ignorance of his 'finding) came to the conclusion 
 that Marlowe, as well as Kyd, had a hand. Yet in tragedy he is 
 undoubtedly original, 'because neither "Faustus" nor "Arden" led 
 him on his way to the glories of "Hamlet" or "Othello." - In serio- 
 comedy he had no great predecessors; and "The Merchant of 
 Venice" may 'be held to have been the first really great tragi- 
 comedy; but in his later plays of this class he was unquestionably 
 greatly influenced by those "twin stars" of our drama, Beaumont 
 and Fletcher. 
 
 His debt to his predecessors is enormous, notably to Lyly, 
 to Kyd, and to Marlowe. He is a follower of Lyly in "Love's 
 Labour's Lost," of Marlowe in "Richard II.," and of Kyd in more 
 than one play. ("Richard III." and "Titus" seem to me, indeed, to 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 be partly Kyd's, as the original "Hamlet" almost certainly was). 
 I am not goins: to claim that the predecessors of Shakspeare were 
 really great men, with the exception o£ Marlowe, and perhaps Kyd ; 
 but if, with one exception, they cannot compare with those who 
 came after them, they must at least he given credit for the creation 
 of our drama. Lyly and Greene and Kyd, if they gave us no great 
 play, at least rendered it possible for their successors to do so ; 
 and Kyd, if he 'be rightly credited with "Arden of Faversham," 
 did even more than that. I have said that Shakspeare was the 
 pioneer in no dramatic genre, though in more than one he was 
 the first to attain greatness. Also he was, as everyone knows, or 
 should know, the reverse of original in his plots. Most of the 
 Elizabethans "lifted" their themes, but 'Shakspeare did more than 
 that : he not only took stories from anywhere and dramatised 
 them: he took old plays and re-wrote them, to an extent which 
 cannot be predicated in the case of any other of the masters of 
 our dramatic literature. Shakspeare was indeed as predatory as 
 any English Chancellor of the Exchequer who makes it his busi- 
 ness to rob henroosts, and, to use a very polite and inoffensive 
 word, as broad-m^inded. His pickings were not confined to sub- 
 jects : they extended to phrase and to the thought that was the 
 groundwork of the phrase. The Elizabethans, as a body, looking 
 on plagiarism not as a crime, but as a compliment, were such 
 colossal and divine thieves, as indeed all great poets have been 
 from Virgil and from before Virgil to Tennyson and to beyond 
 Tennyson, that I should not have thought it necessary to refer to 
 this habit of Shakspeare's, had it not been for the fact that, when 
 recently I read a paper to the members of the Repertory Club on 
 a play of Webster's, my friend, Mr. Stevens (whom I am very glad 
 to see among my audience this evening, the more so because he 
 is sure to disapprove of most of what I am. saying) — Mr. Stevens, 
 I say, who is one of your vice-presidents, took much exception to 
 Webster on the ground that he had purloined many of his ideas 
 from Sidney's "Arcadia." JSTow, that was fair criticism as re- 
 gards Webster (indeed, I had already referred in my paper to his 
 borrowings from that source) ; but it is not fair, as, in replying to 
 Mr. Stevens, Mr. Strong (your president) pointed out, to take 
 such exception to Webster and no such exceiDtion to Shakspeare. 
 Shaksneare's pilferings from Holinshed's history, from Daniel's ~ 
 poems, from Lyly's novels are such that it behoves no thorough- 
 going Shakspearian to cast the first stone. Time prevents me from 
 giving examples; but it may interest some of you to compare 
 Polonius' famous advice to his son, with Euphues' advice to 
 Philautus in Lyly's "Euphues and his England." But, even if it 
 be admitted that Shakspeare's thefts are legion, it will be urged 
 that where he stole— or, to be more polite, borrowed — ^he bettered. 
 But what of that? Did not all, or at least the great majority of 
 Elizabethans, do that in the majority of oases? To take and use 
 
 10 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 the thoughts and expressions of another man without improving 
 them is barely excusahle; to take them and spoil them is unfor- 
 givable — as unpardonable as it is for "Punch," after its fashion — 
 I mean, London "Punch" — ^to retail an old and venerable joke and 
 spoil it in the telling. And let it be remarked (sotto voce, of 
 course) that even Shakspeare did not always improve what he 
 lifted. When he turned those magnificent lines of Marlowe's — 
 
 "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships 
 And burnt the topless towers of Ilion?" 
 
 into 
 
 "She's a pearl 
 Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships. 
 And turn'd crowned kings to merchants," 
 
 it is only a man blind with prejudice or deaf to the music of the 
 very noblest blank verse, or utterly without feeling for the differ- 
 ence between the first-rate and the second-rate in imaginative 
 work, who will consider that Marlowe's idea was improved when 
 it was annexed. 
 
 But this matter of verbal borrowing, or even the appropria,- 
 tion of ideas imaginative or gnomic or jjsychological, is, after all, 
 only a minor one, into which I have permitted myself to be side- 
 tracked. It is of little consequence, because, if you take away the 
 whole of his annexations, Shakspeare remains a great and original 
 student of hum.an nature, a great imaginative poet, a great sage, 
 a great master of phrase ; but, let it be borne in mind, that is alio 
 the case with Webster. 
 
 Before, however, I quit this question of originality, I have 
 one other thing to say : Shaksrpeare is not original in his plots ; he 
 is not original in his dramatic technique; but he is, generally, 
 original in his characters. Because he is, and because you will all 
 recognise the fact, there is no need for me to labor the point. But 
 what of his versification ? Is that original ? That is the question 
 which I have to answer before quitting this branch of my subject. 
 
 I suppose I shall be deemed a hopeless person if I say there 
 
 was very little originality about Shakspeare's versification. Yet 
 such is the case. Let me pass in review the most famous men of 
 the golden age from 1578 to 1643. If we divide that age into 
 four equal periods, we may say of the first group of draniatists 
 that Lyly, Kyd, Peele, and Greene wrote on the one pattern, some- 
 thing better than the old stifiF pedantic verse in use before their 
 time, but still verse terribly shackled and hampered; that Mar- 
 lowe freed blank verse from its -chains and createxi a new means 
 of poetic expression of tremendous scope and mighty sweep; and 
 that Shakspeare followed in his footsteps. Of the second group, 
 
 11 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 Chapman, Jonson, Webster, and Beaumont took Marlowe's verse 
 and impressed on it eacli his own individuality; Marston applied 
 to it a fustian of his own, and thereby transfigured it ; Dekker and 
 Heywood were of an older school, and display a marked tendency 
 to drop into rhyme; and Fletcher, Middleton, and the author of 
 "The Revenger's Tragedy" were the only genuine innovators. Of 
 the third group, Forde continued the best Marlovian tradition; 
 while Massinger made significant, and Shirley carried still further, 
 the emasculation of blank verse which Shakspeare, I grieve to 
 say, had inaugurated in his latest plays. In the final period we 
 have Milton, who, in his celebrated masque, took the Marlovian 
 verse and made a new thing of it. Let me, taking only the most 
 famous names, sum up the position as it appears to me. The 
 verse which Marlowe fashioned and Milton brought to perfection 
 was developed by Jonson, Webster, Chapman, Beaumont, and 
 Forde, and by Shakspeare too, and also by Dekker, when he chose 
 to keep to blank verse, each in his own way, but without any 
 very marked variation from the Marlovian tradition; while 
 Fletcher, Middleton, and the author of "The Revenger's Tragedy," 
 were genuine innovators, genuine experimenters in verse, as the 
 others were not. If I characterise Marlowe and Fletcher as the 
 two absolutely original geniuses in the mechanism of blank verse, 
 Milton and Middleton and the author of "The Revenger's Tragedy" 
 as great creative improvers, and the more important of the others, 
 including Shakspeare, as mere perfecters, each according to his 
 individual bent, I ought perhaps to illustrate my contention, as, 
 without doing so, I can scarcely hope to carry conviction ; but I fear 
 it might be somewhat technical and would certainly take too long. 
 But, before abandoning this branch of my subject, let me remark 
 that it is no answer to say that Shakspeare's verse is better than 
 Marlowe's. If I grant that it is, I concede nothing; for I still 
 say that,, however superior it may be, it is still essentially 
 Marlovian. 
 
 I suppose that by this time those among you who have paid 
 me the compliment of remaining awake under great provocation 
 will have come to the conclusion that my views are entirely aibsurd, 
 and utterly sacrilegious, and that I am quite incapable of com- 
 prehending the greatness of Shakspeare. That is as it may be; 
 but, if anyone stigmatise me as a contemner of Shakspeare, or as 
 his bitter enemy, I shall, in the words of the French gentleman 
 who was asked during a^ Channel crossing if he had breakfasted, say 
 "Au toontraire, monsieur." Like Jonson, I "do honour his memory 
 on this side idolatry as much as any" ; but I certainly like to stay 
 on "this side idolatry." Indeed, it is against that senseless 
 idolatry that I am raising my little squeak of protest. If my 
 views offend, you must try to pardon me, on the score that I am 
 suffering from nausea caused by the reek of the inoense that 
 reaches me from the high altar. And, in the hope that you will 
 
 12 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 be charitable, and will duly pardon me, I sball proceed, if I may, 
 to give you some more cause to exercise "tbe quality of mercy." 
 
 I have yet to compare Shakspeare with his greatest contem- 
 poraries. 'So far, I have compared him (so very slightly that I 
 am ashamed to speak of it as a comparison) only with his pre- 
 decessors, only Tvith those with whom the comparison has to be 
 made on the sole score of originality. T^ow I wish to compare him 
 '^d*^ others on the score of actual achievement. There can be no 
 doubt whatever that on this score he stands first of all our 
 iraifiatists — not only of his own time, but of all time ; but anyone 
 who imagines that he is at the very top of the tree, alone and un- 
 approachable, in every single one of the many qualities that go 
 to the make-up of the great dramatic poet, is making, in my 
 opinion, a very serious mistake. I must crave your indulgence 
 while I seek to show you that that is so. First, let me read you, 
 from one of Marlowe's greatest plays, one of the supremest ex- 
 positions of mental agony in all literature, the last moments of 
 Faustus, which Lamib fitly calls "indeed an agony and bloody 
 sweat." And here let me remark that both the illustrations I shall 
 give are from Lamb's "Specimens," not because I could not find 
 outside of his selections other magnificent passages illustrative of 
 my contentions, but for the entirely prosaic and matter-of-fact 
 reason that I am thus enabled to carry both my quotes in one handy 
 little volume. Here then is my first illustration. Faustus, knowing 
 that Mephistopheles will come for him at midnight, hears the 
 clock strike 11. 
 
 "O Faustus, 
 
 Now hast thou but one bare hour to live. 
 
 And then thou must be damn'd perpetually. 
 
 Stand still, you ever-amoving spheres of heaven, 
 
 That time my cease and midnight never come. 
 
 Fair l^ature's eye, rise, rise again, and make 
 
 Perpetual day ; or let this hour be but 
 
 A year, a month, a week, a natural day, 
 
 That Faustus may repent and save his soul. 
 
 lente, lente eurrite, n&ctis equi! 
 
 The stars move still, time runs, the clook will strike. 
 The devil will come — and Faustus must be damn'd^ 
 
 O, I'll leap up to Heaven. Who pulls me down? 
 ■See where Christ's hlood streams in the firmament : 
 One drop of blood will save me : Oh, my Christ ! 
 Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ; 
 Yet will I call on him : Oh, spare me, Lucifer. 
 Where is it now? 'tis gone! 
 And, see, a threat'ning arm, an angry brow. 
 Mountains and hills come, come, and fall on me, 
 And hide me from the heavy wrath of heaven. 
 
 13 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 No? then I will headlong run into the earth. 
 Gape, earth ! O no, it will not harbour me. 
 Yoi; stars that reign'd at my nativity, 
 Whose influence hath allotted death and hell, 
 Ifow draw up Faustus like a foggy mist 
 Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud. 
 That, when you vomit forth into the air, 
 My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths, 
 But let my soul mount, and ascend to heaven. 
 
 The clock strikes. 
 
 0, half the hour is past ! 'twill all be past anon. 
 0, 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. 
 ISTo end is limited to damned souls. 
 Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul? 
 Or why is this immortal that thou hast? 
 Oh, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true. 
 This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd 
 ^Into some brutish beast. 'All 'beasts are happy ; 
 For, when they die. 
 
 Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements ; 
 But mine must live still to be plagued in hell. 
 Cursed be the parents that engender'd me ! 
 No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer, 
 That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven. 
 
 The clock strikes twelve. 
 
 It strikes, it strikes ! Now, body, turn to air. 
 Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell. 
 0, soul, be chang'd into small water drops. 
 And fall into the ocean ; ne'er be found. 
 
 Thunder J and enter the Devils. 
 
 mercy, heaven ! look not so fierce on me. 
 Adders and serpents, let me breathe awhile. 
 Ugly hell, gape not. Come not, Lucifer : 
 I'll burn my books. O, Mephistophilis !" 
 
 I am not going to say that Marlowe was as great a dramatic poet 
 as Shakspeare ; but I do say that nowhere in Shakspeare is there 
 shown so wonderful a mastery of im'aginative soul-terror as that. 
 If I have not made you feel it, it is because I have made no 
 attempt to act it, and because I am not an elocutionist ;. but cry 
 to imagine the effect of it acted by a first-class actor (if you can 
 stretch your imaginations so far) or recited by a first-class elocu- 
 tionist. In such circumstances, you would realise that tiere was 
 reason for Lamb's description of it as "indeed an 'agony and bloody 
 
 U 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 sweat"; but I hope that, even in the imperfect way in which I gave 
 it, it was not, as my typist wishes me to believe Lamb said, "indeed 
 an agony and bloody smart." I hope you will agree with me in 
 preferring the traditional reading. I may be conservative in these 
 matters, for I also prefer the accepted version of Shakspeare's 
 famous line — 
 
 "'Tis true; 'tis pity; pity 'tis 'tis true," 
 
 to that for which a leader-writer and a compositor of the "New 
 York Tribune" were jointly responsible on a memorable occasion: 
 
 ""Tis five; 'tis fifty; fifty 'tis; 'tis five." 
 
 Every one, or almost every one, of the greatest dramatists of 
 the age was supreme in some one quality ; but for various reasons 
 I cannot illustrate the fact in every case. Fletcher is supreme 
 both in his wonderful vivacity as a scene^spinner and in his mar- 
 vellous creation of a verse that remains entirely rhythmical while 
 flowing from the lips as freely and as easily as prose — as supreme 
 in that as Milton is in verse of stately and statesque grandeur. 
 Jonson is the supreme master of plot and of the creation of broadly 
 humorous incident, the pre-eminent master, too, of the satiric 
 spirit. Beaumont is the master of the burlesque vein, and in the 
 realm of pathos may vie with Shakspeare and Marlowe, with 
 "Webster and Dekker. Chapman is the most dignified, the most 
 epical, and one of the most ethical of all. Marlowe has, as I 
 hope I have shown, the mastery of terror. Forde is the exponent 
 of the most subtle verbal music evolved by any of them. Webster 
 is the greatest melodramatic genius that any stage has ever pos- 
 sessed, but more also — infinitely more — than that. Middleton, a 
 creator of tragic character second only to Shakspeare, a writer 
 second only to Fletcher in fluency, inventor of a scarcely surpassed 
 medium for the expression of his dramatic ideas, proved himself 
 by far the greatest master of dramatic symbolism. Dekker was 
 the most lovable, the most realistic, the most homely of all of 
 them — homely alike in his stories, his characters, and his language ; 
 but it is a homeliness shot through and through with the deepest 
 and sincerest and tenderest poetry. Who but Dekker could have hit 
 upon that wonderful simile "Fierce as wild bulls, untameable as 
 flies" ? Who 'but he could have conceived an Orlando Frescobaldo, 
 one of the most lovable figures in all dramatic literature? Who 
 but he can steep us so in the very life of his day? Who but he 
 could have penned the lines : — 
 
 "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." 
 
 15 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 I hope yottr attitude will not be tiat of a friend of mine who 
 objected to the application of the term "gentleman" to the founder 
 of the Christian religion. He appeared to think it lacking in 
 reverence. His view point seemed to me very much that of the 
 washlady who objects strenuously to being termed a "woman," or 
 that of an Australian daily, which shall be nameless, which rigidly 
 taboos, or used to taboo, the use of the word "female," because, 
 with a wonderful instinct for the unpleasant, it sniffed something 
 objectionable in it. Or, again, it reminds one of the distinction 
 drawn between "vice-regal" and "personal." To me Dekker's 
 words are full of the deepest reverence — 'a reverence such as those 
 who ^object to the word "woman," or even the word "female," can 
 have no conception of. 
 
 Of the qualities in which Shakspeare is supreme I may Tier- 
 haps speak later; but now I wish to refer to one who has never 
 been surpassed by any dramatist in 'any age in the expression of a 
 passionate intensity of bitterness, and the music of whose verse 
 rings in the ear — in my ear, at least — as does no other. This one 
 is the author of "The Revenger's Tragedy." You may note that 
 I do not give him his name. It is because I do not know it. The 
 play is ascribed to Tourneur, but seems to me utterly unlike the 
 work of that very mediocre writer. The author is a sort of 
 dramatic I7th century Beardsley or Baudelaire, with the ma,rvelloU8 
 colour-sense of a Monticelli, the harmonic originality of a Dar- 
 gomijsky, and the satiric force and biting rage of a Swift or a 
 Heine, super-imposed upon a stern moral sense and that love of 
 the disgusting which is so often the hall-mark of your moralist. 
 Let me read you the address by the hero of the play to the skull 
 of his dead lady, and ask you to note the terrible irony of the 
 opening sentence: — 
 
 "Here's an eye, 
 Able to tempt a great man — to serve God; 
 A pretty hanging lip, that has forgot now to dissemble. 
 Me thinks this mouth should make a swearer tremble, 
 A drunkard clasp his teeth, and not undo' 'em, 
 To suffer wet damnation to run thro' 'em. - 
 Here's a cheek keeps her colour, let the wind go whistle. 
 Spout, rain, we fear thee not : be hot or cold, 
 All's one with us; and is not he absurd, 
 Whose fortunes are upon their faces set 
 That fear no other God but wind and wet ? . . . . 
 Does the silk-worm expend her yellow labours 
 For thee? for thee does she undo herself? 
 Are lordships sold to maintain ladyships. 
 For the poor benefit of a bewildering minute? 
 Why does yon fellow falsify highways, 
 And put his life between the judge's lips, 
 
 16 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 To refine such a thing? keep's horse and men, 
 
 To beat their valors for her? Surely we're all 
 
 Mad people ; and they whom we think are are not .... 
 
 Does every proud and self-affecting dame 
 
 Camphire her face for this, and grieve her maker 
 
 In sinful haths of milk, when many an infant starves 
 
 For her superfluous out-side, for all this? 
 
 Who now bids twenty pound a night ; prepares 
 
 Music, perfumes, and sweetmeats? all are hush'd. 
 
 Thou may'st lie chaste now ! It were fine, methinks, 
 
 To have thee seen at revels, forgetful feasts, 
 
 And unclean brothels : sure, 'twould fright the sinner^ 
 
 And make him a good coward, put a reveller 
 
 Out of his antick amble, 
 
 And cloy an epicure with empty dishes. , 
 
 Here might a scornful and ambitious woman 
 
 Look through and through herself." 
 
 After reading that passage I need not recommend any ladies pre- 
 sent to read the play ; and, indeed, it is a sufficiently horrible thing ; 
 but that fact n^d not, must not, blind us to the truth that in the 
 application of a unique harmony to a terrible intensity of angry 
 bitterness, almost unmatched in any literature, we get soonething 
 which finds no parellel in Shakspeare — ^not even in "Lear." You 
 may, of course, say that you are glad Shakspeare did not write 
 it, but anyone who takes that view must wish that Shakspeare had 
 refrained from writing very much that he did write, and might 
 echo the words of Jonson when he was told that Shakspeare had 
 "never blotted out a line," "Would he had blotted a thousand!"' 
 This, Jonson tells us, the players thought "a malevolent speech." I 
 hope your attitude towards me will be more charitable than was 
 that of the players to the free-spoken, and, on the wliole, true- 
 spoken Jonson. 
 
 Time will not permit of my seeking to make good my state- 
 ments with regard to the other writers I have named ; for to do 
 so would necessitate much longer and more numerous extracts than 
 those I have given. So far I have only striven to show you that 
 there are certain qualities that may go to the making of a first- 
 class tragedy wherein Shakspeare is at least equalled. But I 
 would point out one thing which may afford a 'convenient handle 
 for those to come after me who may wish to attack my point of 
 view; the extracts I have read appeal to the emotions, whereas 
 Shakspeare appeals to the intellect. Shakspearians may agree 
 triumphantly with this statement; but have they any reason? Is 
 not the theatre essentially a place for the exercise of the emotions ? 
 Is it not rather to the emotions than to the intellect that the good 
 acting play makes its appeal? When you oome away from the 
 theatre when a Shakspeare play has been performed, do you find 
 
 17 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 yourselves thinking of the dramatist's philosophy or of the way 
 he has played upon your emotions ? His philosophy, in fact, is lost 
 on the stage, and is only found in reading. Yet Shakspeare wrote 
 for the stage, and not for the study; so that he may be held to 
 be on that score, to some extent, a failure. 
 
 It is not in the elements of tragedy alone that iShakspeare is 
 equalled in some one or more respects; in comedy, too, he cannot 
 claim to be on top in every quality. Here the comparison must 
 naturally he with Jonson ; and let me say at once that in the struc- 
 ture of comedy, in the conception and carrying-out of a plot suit- 
 able for sc play of that character, and in the subordination of 
 all else to an underlying comic or satiric idea, Jonson is as much 
 the superior of Shakspeare as Shakspeare is the superior of 
 Jonson in the lifelikeness of his individual creations. One need 
 not go so far as to say, as no less a person than Coleridge said, 
 that the plot of Jonson's "Alchemist" is one of the three finest 
 ever devised by the mind of man (the others being "Tom Jones" 
 and "CEdipus Tyrannus") ; but, assuredly, I may claim that there 
 is nothing in Shakspeare's works that even approaches it in ingenuity 
 or in humorous intention ; nor is there any play of Shakspeare's that 
 is so truly a play of ideas as is "Volpone." As "The Alchemist" 
 is a satire on human credulity and greed, so is "Volpone" a satire 
 on human greed and credulity. Amongst comedies of ideas, come- 
 dies of serious intention, comedies satirising the foibles -of humanity, 
 it is indeed hard to find their equals. But, of course, I shall be 
 faced with that stale old wheeze that Jonson wrote but for an 
 age, while Shakspeare wrote for all time. Did he? Did Shaks- 
 peare write for all time? Is not the true answer to the question 
 to be found in the fact that his plays do not draw as plays, but 
 only as spectacles. If we be honest, if we be trave enough to free 
 ourselves from the cant of our Shakspeare worship, we must 
 acknowledge that his plays, though for reading as fine as ever they 
 have been, are no longer particularly 'suited to the stage. E"or is 
 it just to say that this is due entirely to the incapacity of the 
 actors : it is due primarily to faults inherent in the plays themselves. 
 Other things help, of course. For one thing, there is the fact that 
 no one in these days knows how to speak blank verse ; for another, 
 when a Shakspearian play is produced, it is produced not for the 
 sake of the play or of Shakspeare, but to enable the actor-manager 
 to make a display of himself, with the inevitable result that, as I 
 need hardly tell a Melbourne audience, the play (if I may be par- 
 doned for saying so) is made an "asch" of. But still, though I, for 
 one, refrain from attending Shakspearian productions (here, at 
 least), it is only partly because I am a lover of Shakspeare; it 
 is still more because, even if they were well done, they would yet 
 read better than they act. If such plays were written now, they 
 would not be accepted by any theatrical manager. Hating regard 
 to the intellectual level attained by the average theatrical manager, 
 
 18 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 the statement of that fact constitutes no disparagement to the 
 plays; but, in point of fact, the manager would be quite justified, 
 for in reality they have become, in consequence of the change in 
 stage techuicjue, plays for the study rather than for the theatre. 
 But, if you say that Shakspeare wrote for all time because he is 
 still read, and Jonson only for an age because he is no longer read, 
 then I will say you are only judging by the result and arguing 
 thai the judgment of the many-headed is infallible — a judgment 
 based, by the way, on knowledge of the one dramatist and ignorance 
 of the other. Why, then, did readers of dramatic literature con- 
 tinue to read Shakspeare and cease to read Jonson ? Not because 
 Shakspeare wrote for all time and Jonson only for his own age, 
 but because Jonson wrote of (not for) his own age, and Shakspeare 
 of any time. • The fact should be put to Jonson's 
 credit, not to his discredit. He is harder to read to-day than 
 Shakapearp is because he was far more observant of what went on 
 around him and because for a full appreciation of his best plays 
 a knowledire of the life of his period is essential, Whereas one 
 can appr«ciate .Shakspeare without any knowledge whatever of 
 Elizabpthan England. But it is often said that Jonson's characters 
 are only the products of his own age, whereas Shakspeare's are not 
 peculiar to any age. This is the silliest sort of cant, repeated by 
 one writer after another, put forward without hesitation, and 
 accepted without question. If we only stop to consider, we must 
 know that human nature does not vary much through the centuries, 
 except in externals. If any man draw the men of his age truly 
 and well, he draws the men of any age. The men and women of 
 Fielding and of Balzac and of Cervantes have existed so long as 
 civilisation has lasted, as truly as have those of Shakspeare. If so 
 much is not to be said of Jonson, it is not because he wrote only 
 of the men of his own age, but 'because he showed their habits and 
 their manners rather than their hearts, just as Sheridan did a 
 couple of hundred years later ; because he caricatured them by dwell- 
 ing on some one or two characteristics to the prejudice of all the 
 others, as Dickens did ; or because he presents us vdth types rather 
 than human beings-, as does Marlowe. As a matter of fact, it was 
 not Jonson, but Shakspeare, who wrote only for his own age: 
 it was not Shakspeare, but Jonson, who wrote for all time; but 
 Shakspeare, aiming at the lesser, achieved the greater, while 
 Jonson, aiming at the greater, achieved only the lesser. 
 
 But, if I wished to compare Shakspeare with any one man it 
 would not be with Jonson, nor yet would it be with Webster, 
 but with Marlowe. It is only ignorance or prejudice or sheer 
 incapacity of appreciation that can suppress the name of Mar- 
 lowe when English drama is under ^consideration, for without him 
 there would perhaps have been no English drama worthy of the 
 name, and Shakspeare would perchance be forgotten. Shakspeare 
 was doubtless much the more versatile, the more universal genius, 
 
 19 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 capa/ble of aocomiplishing a very much truer and stronger mastery 
 of life, but Marlowe was mucli the more original. He had grave 
 flaws in his outfit. For one thing, he had no humour— a very 
 serious drawback. For another, some of his plays contain a 
 tremendous lot of bombast ; but I ask you what play you will find 
 freer from it than "Edward II.," which was probably his latest? 
 And, unless "Arden" is to be considered partly his, he showed no 
 power of characterisation. But I would ask you to hear in mind 
 that, born the same year as Shakspeare, he had run his career 
 by 1593. Let us suppose that Shakspeare also had died at the 
 age of 29, what claim would he have on our consideration ? Against 
 Marlowe's really great achievements, he had to his credit, when 
 that writer met his death, only a share in the Henry VI. plays, 
 early versions of "Twelfth Mght," "Much Ado," "Merry Wives," 
 "Love's Labour's Lost," and perhaps as many more— and how stiff 
 and feeble and unpromising that early work was we can see from 
 the remains of it in the extant (revised) versions — and there was 
 yet one other thing to his credit, the existing version of "The 
 Oomedy of Errors," hased on work 'by an earlier writer. We 
 should then have to regard him as having reached his greatest height 
 in "The Comedy of Errors," that capital farce which I saw so 
 excellently given only last night hy the students of Queen's. If 
 that were the case, would anyone think of setting him a'bove 
 — or even heside — ^nay, let me say within measurable distance of — 
 Marlowe ? He had certainly shown himself the greater in comedy ; 
 but in tragedy he was not to be mentioned in the same breath. I 
 have said that MarloTve showed no marked power, of charac- 
 terisation; hut what of Shakspeare? What had he shown in 
 those early plays? l^Tothing more — absolutely nothing more. It 
 is easy to say that 'Shakspeare's was the mind of far greater 
 capacity, if of much slower development; but that is only ^guess- 
 work. That Marlowe was developing enormously is obvious by 
 a comparison of "Edward II." with the "Tamburlaine" plays, 
 History affords us too many examples of children of wonderful 
 precocity developing into the foremost men of their age for us 
 to be justified in assuming that Marlowe had shot his bolt ; indeed, 
 there is not the slightest sign that he had; and I see no reason 
 to doubt that, had he lived, he would have developed, as Shaks- 
 peare did, a power of creating living characters, a power that, be 
 it noted, Shakspeare never acquired till long after his tale of years 
 had far exceeded the number allotted to th unfortunate Marlowe. 
 To illustrate my contention that Marlowe at 28 or 29 had reached 
 a point which Shakspeare had scarcely passed at 32 or thereabouts, 
 T had intended to read you the death-scene from "Edward II.," and 
 ask you to compare it with the death-scene in "Richard II.," in 
 which Shakspeare was content to be only an imitator of his great 
 exemplar; but time will not permit. 
 
 20 
 
ths'^lace of Shakspeare in Elizabethan dpamS. 
 
 It is perhaps time for me to say again that I regard Shaks- 
 peare as the greatest of all dramatists ; and if I do so I hope you 
 will not fancy yott hear Marc Antony describing Brutus as an 
 honourable man. If you do, you will be mistaken. My attitude 
 has been, to some extent, that of a preacher (and I feel I have 
 been doing a deal of preaching tjais evening) . , A preacher does 
 not, if he be worth his salt, tell his congregation what jolly fine 
 fellows they are, but points out to them their faults : so I have not 
 bothered to. dwell on the great excellences of Shakspeare, which you 
 all of you know so well, but have made much of his deficiencies, 
 w'hich you are so apt to ignore. Yet, perhaps, after all I have 
 said, it will be well for me to make clear why 1 consider Shakspeare 
 better than any of the others who illumined his era. Let us grant 
 the author of "The Kevenger's Tragedy" a superiority in pas- 
 sionate intensity, Dekker a superiority in tenderness' and humanity, 
 Jonson in plot and oomic spirit and satiric force, Webster in 
 powei* to "move a horror skilfiiUy," Marlowe in glowing ijnagiha- 
 tion, Fletcher in "\?ivacity, Beaumont in keenness of, appreciation of 
 the ri'dieulous, some other in this, some other in that, what' quality 
 is there in which Shakspeare does not at feast make a bold bid 
 for supremacy? And then there are the qualities in which he in 
 his turn is suprieme-^scope of knowledge of huihan' natiire, sanity 
 of imiagination, sense of proportion, depth (if not breadth) of 
 IiUmour. But it is in reality his combination of great qualities 
 that makes him stand above his fellows, not his superiority to 
 thfem in any single quality. 
 
 But still remember-^and this is the burden of niy address 
 to you---that he does not stand alone, that he is toerely primus inter 
 pares.. Strangely enough, in addressing another audience only two 
 nights ago, on the subject of "The Irish Theatre,". I was making; 
 the quite contrary assertion that, in order to comprehend the 
 greatness of that theatre, it was not necessary to study any plays 
 but the, plays of Synge, and now here I am urging you to (believe 
 that you cannot coRiprehend the full greatness of what is called 
 the Elizabethan drama without knowing the best works of many 
 others 'besides Shakspeare. This may seem inconsistent ; 'but it is 
 not so. in realitj, for. iny, point is that Synge was the one solitary 
 gepiusof the one move,in,ent, and that Shakspeare was, as regards 
 either, .the quality pri t,^e cliaEacter of his work, no isolated phe- 
 nomenon in the. other. To recognise this fact is not to detract 
 from the glory -of Shakspeare, .but ' to understand it. I do not 
 wish to abate one jot or tittle of bis :due, but. only to have him 
 viewed in a true perspective among his fellowsi How can his 
 greatness be comprehended otherwise? To spend time glorifying 
 S^^kspeare, .while, . ignoring ■ Mfljlowo, but for whohi 'Shak- 
 speare would never have been vvhat he was, is both foolish 
 and unjust. To raise pseans to Shakspeare alone and ignore a;!! 
 his- fellow-dramatists may be justified on monotheistic principtes; 
 
 21 
 
The Placb of Shak^peahe in Elizabethan Draitia. 
 
 but it, shows, if I may. be pardoned for sayiiig so, a great lack 
 of critical faculty. For a Shakspeare Society to ignore those who 
 worked beside and with Shakspeare is as absurd as it would he 
 for anyone to write a history of England without taking any 
 note of the countries that have come into contact Tvith it. Yet 
 to ignore Shakspeare's contemporaries is not so bad as it is to 
 speak contemiptuously of them without knowing anything what- 
 ever of their work. That is as unpardonable as it is to hear good 
 Christians speaking contemptuously of religions of which they know 
 no more than the names. It is a remarkable mind that has the 
 courage to be contemptuous of that concerning which it is wholly 
 ignorant. .;, 
 
 It seems to me that 95 per cent, of Shakspearians belong to 
 one or other of two schools. The one school holds that everything 
 in "Shakspeare" is Shakspeare's, and that it is therefore a'bove 
 criticism. They are pretty much on the same plane as extreme 
 Biblical inspirationists. The other school admits that much in 
 "Shakspeare" is not Shakspeare's, and awards to other writers any 
 scenes or passages that do not seem up to the mark. The result 
 is the same in either case: Shakspeare remains ,flecklesa,, faultless, 
 It is a terribly easy thing to separate the genuine from the false 
 by making the division coincident with one between the good and 
 the bad, the faultless and the faulty, the strong and the weak, 
 the interesting and the dull, the imaginative and the prosaic, the 
 musical and the unmusical — terribly easy, terribly common, ter- 
 ribly uncritical, and terribly unfair. (Marlowe's admirers have 
 adopted the same easy and silly attitude regarding the clowning 
 scenes in "Faustus" ; and Shakspearians are quite ready to scoff 
 thereat.) And it is not merely the bulk of Shatspeare-lovera who 
 have proceeded on these lines of partial and unscientific endeavour 
 in the effort to distinguish between the Shakspearian and the non- 
 Shakspearian : it is much the same with the critics; they seem 
 to be always hesitating as to which of two undesirable admissions 
 they shall make ; if they admit non-Shakspearian authorship in any 
 play, they must confess that that play is something less than per- 
 fect ; if they do not admit the presence of any one but Shakspeare, 
 they have to admit that the great man had hlemishes. Shakspeare- 
 worshippers cannot have it all ways, though they seem to want 
 to have it all ways. An instance is afforded hy the treatment of 
 what was 'by far the most famous speech in "Henry VIII." till 
 it was proved incontrovertibly to have proceeded from the pen 
 of Fletcher. Ever since then it has been recognised as lacking 
 the true dramatic spirit. 
 
 Not only is the praise of Shakspeare indiscriminate, but often 
 he is praised for the very things his rivals are blamed for. If they 
 thieved, it was from lack of originality; if Shakspeare did, it 
 was for the quite benevolent purpose of beautifying. Their plays 
 
 22 
 
The Place of Shakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 are declared to have lost their place on the stage because they are 
 old>-fashioned, while Shakspeai-e's remain always new; and the 
 entire arti-ficiality of the 'conditions under which Shakspeare is 
 kept alive is ignored. First-rate comedies like the best of Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher and Jonson are treated with condescension, 
 while there is scarcely anything but praise for even a third-rate 
 farce like "The Taming of the Shrew," in which, if it were any 
 other man's, the author would be declared to have altogether -missed 
 the mark he aimed at. In fact, the ordinary discrimination be- 
 tween Shakspeare and his contemporaries is nothing but a gigantic 
 hypocrisy; the worship of the hero consists mainly of sheer un- 
 adulterated cant, based on ignorance, compounded of prejudice, and 
 tinged with intolerance; and surely prejudice and intolerance may. 
 be left to the very religious, the very moral, and the very yoiihg: 
 they are quite out of place in the study of literature. 
 
 Do not let it be imagined that the attempt to separate the 
 genuine from the false in the plays published as Shakspeare's is 
 useless work. There is nothing better calculated to knock the 
 bottom out of the silly Baconian theory. The people who scoff 
 at the possibility of distinguishing between Shakspeare's touch 
 and that of any other man 'pay Shakspeare but a poor compliment, 
 and are perhaps utterly unaware that their accepted canon has 
 been completed practically on internal evidence, since "Pericles" 
 has been added to the 36 plays of the first folio, while "London 
 Prodigal" and "A Yorkshire Tragedy," which, so far as external 
 evidence goes, stand practically on all fours with "Pericles," 
 have been excluded. 
 
 My plea, then, is for an open mind. In one of a series of 
 articles I contributed to an English quarterly review on the sub- 
 ject of Shak&peare, I pleaded for investigation free from all pre- 
 conceptions in the matter of determining questions of authorship, 
 and I ask for it when it comes to a comparison of the merits of 
 Shakspeare and his contemporaries. One cannot understand the 
 place of Shakspeare without a careful study of his rivals; and 
 one cannot study them with smj satisfactory result without aban- 
 doning preconceived notions of their inferiority. One should read 
 them, as one reads Shakspeare, with pletitiful allowances, or read 
 Shakspeare, as one reads them, with none. To adopt one standard 
 for them and another for Shakspeare is both unfair and foolish. 
 
 If anyone says he cannot read these others, are they any the 
 less great on that account? How many read Chaucer or Spenser 
 or Milton with pleasure? Not one in 10,000. Are they any the 
 leas great? Indeed, setting aside cant, how many read Shakspeare 
 with positive pleasure? Very few, I venture to think. 
 
 As I have said, it behoves a Shakspeare Society to give careful 
 study to these men. There is, of course, in their work a pro- 
 
 23 
 
The Place of JSbakspeare in Elizabethan Drama. 
 
 portion of failures that need not occupy, the. .attention of any 
 but real students; but, if the members of this Society and other 
 Siiakspeare So(;ieties elsewhere would read the 'best plays of the. 
 period with intelligence and without prejudice, they would find; 
 plenty to discuss, plenty to admire, plenty worthy of the most 
 serious consideration. 
 
 I may .say, before I close, that I feel I must ask for considera- 
 tion for myself as well as for these contemporaries of Shakspeare. 
 If you be real Sh^kspeare students, what I kave said has ibeen 
 uncalled for;, and you can afford to ignore it; but, if you be only 
 Shakspeare-worshippers, I must apolo^se for the liberty I have 
 taken. Yet I, too; am a worshipper ; but I worship after the fashion 
 of certain poor, ignorant heathen, whose folly we cannot sufficiently 
 deplore because it is so 'different from our own^ — that is to say, 
 I am quite ready to administer castigation to my idol when it fails 
 to come up to my expectations. If there be any sense at all 
 in idol-worship, you have it there. But, after all I have said in 
 reprobation of the habit of grovelling in the dust 'before the graven 
 image of Saint William, I cannot do better than conclude, as I 
 began, with a statement of my credo: "I hold Shakspeare to be 
 the greatest dramatist of all who have used the English tongue ; 
 I have no doubt whatever that he was the greatest of hia time; and 
 T Tjelieve him to be the greatest in all literature." 
 
 24, 
 
Cornell university Library 
 DR 2976.047 
 
 ,otShakspeSl"S£M