My heart forth from my breast to go, And mix with her's already wanting, Now beat, now trembled to and fro, With eager fondness leaping, panting. Just as a boy, whose nourice woos him, Folding his young limbs in her bosom, Heeds not caresses from another, But turns his eyes still to his mother, When she may once regard him watches, And forth his little fond arms stretches. Just as a bird within the nest That cannot fly, yet constant trying, Then cease to weep; use is there none DRAMATISTS. Notwithstanding the greatness of the name of Spenser, it is not in general versification that the poetical strength of the age is found to be chiefly manifested. Towards the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, the dramatic form of composition and representation, coinciding with that love of splendour, chivalrous feeling, and romantic adventures, which animated the court, rose with sudden and wonderful brilliancy, and attracted nearly all the poetical genius of England. It would appear that, at the dawn of modern civilisation, most countries of Christian Europe possessed a rude kind of theatrical entertainment, consisting, not in those exhibitions of natural character and incident which constituted the plays of ancient Greece and Rome, but in representations of the principal supernatural events of the Old and New Testaments, and of the history of the saints, whence they were denominated Miracles, or Miracle Plays. Originally, they appear to have been acted by, and under the immediate management of, the clergy, who are understood to have deemed them favourable to the diffusion of religious feeling; though, from the traces of them which remain, they seem to have been profane and indecorous in the highest degree. A miracle play, upon the story of St Katherine, and in the French language, was acted at Dunstable in 1119, and how long such entertainments may have previously existed in England is not known. From the year 1268 to 1577, they were performed almost every year in Chester; and there were few large cities which were not then regaled in a similar manner; even in Scotland they were not unknown. The most sacred persons, not excluding the Deity, were introduced into them. About the reign of Henry VI., persons representing sentiments and abstract ideas, such as Mercy, Justice, Truth, began to be introduced into the miracle plays, and led to the composition of an improved kind of drama, entirely or chiefly composed of such characters, and termed Moral Plays. These were certainly a great advance upon the miracles, in as far as they endeavoured to convey sound moral lessons, and at the same time gave occasion to some poetical and dramatic ingenuity, in imaging forth the characters, and assigning appropriate speeches to each. The only scriptural character retained in them was the devil, who, being represented in grotesque habiliments, and perpetually beaten bv an attendant character, called the Vice, served to enliven what must have been at the best a sober, though well-meant entertainment. The Cradle of Security, Hit the Nail on the Head, Impatient Poverty, and the Marriage of Wisdom and Wit, are the names of moral plays which enjoyed popularity in the reign of Henry VIII. It was about that time that acting first became a distinct profession; both miracles and moral plays had previously been represented by clergymen, schoolboys, or the members of trading incorporations, and were only brought forward occasionally, as part of some public or private festivity. As the introduction of allegorical characters had been an improvement upon those plays which consisted of scriptural persons only, so was the introduction of historical and actual characters an improvement upon those which employed only a set of impersonated ideas. It was soon found that a real human being, with a human name, was better calculated to awaken the sympathies, and keep alive the attention of an audience, and not less so to impress them with moral truths, than a being who only represented a notion of the mind. The substitution of these for the symbolical characters, gradually took place during the earlier part of the sixteenth century; and thus, with some aid from Greek dramatic literature, which now began to be studied, and from the improved theatres of Italy and Spain, the genuine English drama took its rise. As specimens of something between the moral plays and the modern drama, the Interludes of JOHN HEYWOOD may be mentioned. Heywood was supported at the court of Henry VIII. partly as a musician, partly as a professed wit, and partly as a writer of plays. His dramatic compositions, part of which were produced before 1521, generally represented some ludicrous familiar incident, in a style of the broadest and coarsest farce, but yet with no small skill and talent. One, called the Four P.'s, turns upon a dispute between a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Poticary, and a Pedlar (who are the only characters), as to which shall tell the grossest falsehood: an accidental assertion of the Palmer, that he never saw a woman out of patience in his life, takes the rest off their guard, all of whom declare it to be the greatest lie they ever heard, and the settlement of the question is thus brought about amidst much drollery. One of Heywood's chief objects seems to have been to satirise the manners of the clergy, and aid in the cause of the Reformers. There were some less distinguished writers of interludes, and Sir David Lyndsay's Satire of the Three Estates, acted in Scotland in 1539, was a play of this kind. The regular drama, from its very commencement, was divided into comedy and tragedy, the elements of both being found quite distinct in the rude entertainments above described, not to speak of the pre cedents afforded by Greece and Rome. Of comedy, which was an improvement upon the interludes, and may be more remotely traced in the ludicrous parts of the moral plays, the earliest specimen that can now be found bears the uncouth title of Ralph Royster Doyster, and was the production of NICOLAS UDALL, master of Westminster school. It is supposed to have been written in the reign of Henry VIII., but certainly not later than 1551. The scene is in London, and the characters, thirteen in number, exhibit the manners of the middle orders of the people of that day. It is divided into five acts, and the plot is amusing and well constructed. Mr J. Payne Collier, who has devoted years of anxious study to the history and illustration of dramatic literature, has discovered four acts of a comedy, which he assigns to the year 1560. This play is entitled Mesogonus, and bears to be written by Thomas Rychardes.' The scene is laid in Italy, but the manners are English, and the character of the domestic fool, so important in the old comedy, is fully delineated. The next in point of time is Gammer Gurton's Needle, supposed to have been written about 1565 (or still earlier) by JOHN STILL, Master of Arts, and afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells. This is a piece of low rustic humour, the whole turning upon the loss and recovery of the needle with which Gammer Gurton was mending a piece of attire belonging to her man Hodge. But it is cleverly hit off, and contains a few well-sketched characters. The language of Ralph Royster Doyster, and of Gammer Gurton's Needle, is in long and irregularly measured rhyme, of which a specimen may be given from a speech of Dame Custance in the former play, respecting the difficulty of preserving a good reputation: How necessary it is now a-days, That each body live uprightly in all manner ways; For let never so little a gap be open, And be sure of this, the worst will be spoken ! Tragedy, of later origin than comedy, came directly from the more elevated portions of the moral plays, and from the pure models of Greece and Rome. The earliest known specimen of this kind of composition is the Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, composed by Thomas Sackville, afterwards Earl of Dorset, and by Thomas Norton, and played before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall, by the members of the Inner Temple, in January 1561. It is founded on a fabulous incident in early British history, and is full of slaughter and civil broils. It is written, however, in regular blank verse, consists of five acts, and observes some of the more useful rules of the classic drama of antiquity, to which it bears resemblance in the introduction of a chorus-that is, a group of persons whose sole business it is to intersperse the play with moral observations and inferences, expressed in lyrical stanzas. It may occasion some surprise, that the first English tragedy should contain lines like the following: Acastus. Your grace should now, in these grave years of yours, Have found ere this the price of mortal joys; Of patient sprite to others wrapp'd in woe, Porrex, both tragedies and comedies had become not Not long after the appearance of Ferrex and uncommon. Damon and Pythias, the first English tragedy upon a classical subject, was acted before the queen at Oxford, in 1566; it was the composition of RICHARD EDWARDS, a learned member of the uniVersity, but was inferior to Ferrex and Porrex, in as far as it carried an admixture of vulgar comedy, and was written in rhyme. In the same year, two plays respectively styled the Supposes and Jocasta, the one a comedy adapted from Ariosto, the other a tragedy from Euripides, were acted in Gray's Inn Hall. Various A tragedy, called Tancred and Gismunda, composed by five members of the Inner Temple, and presented there before the queen in 1568, was the first Engdramatic pieces now followed, and between the years lish play taken from an Italian novel. 1568 and 1580, no less than fifty-two dramas were acted at court under the superintendence of the Master of the Revels. Under the date of 1578, we have the play of Promos and Cassandra, by GEORGE WHETSONE, on which Shakspeare founded his Measure for Measure. Historical plays were also produced, and the Troublesome Reign of King John, the Famous Victories of Henry V., and the Chronicle History of Leir, King of England, formed the quarry from which Shakspeare constructed his dramas on the same events. The first regularly licensed theatre in London was opened at Blackfriars in 1576; and in ten years, it is mentioned by Secretary Walsingham, that there were two hundred players in and near the metropolis. This was probably an exaggeration. but it is certain there were five public theatres open about the commencement of Shakspeare's career, and several private or select establishments. Curiosity is naturally excited to learn something of the structure and appearance of the buildings in which his immortal dramas first saw the light, and where he unwillingly made himself a motley to the view,' in his character of actor. The theatres were constructed Globe Theatre. ness of some of the language put into the mouths of females in the old plays, while it serves to point out still more clearly the depth of that innate sense of beauty and excellence which prompted the exquisite pictures of loveliness and perfection in Shakspeare's female characters. At the end of each performance, the clown, or buffoon actor of the company, recited or sung a rhyming medley called a jig, in which he often contrived to introduce satirical allusions to public men or events; and before dismissing the audience, the actors knelt in front of the stage, and offered up a prayer for the queen! Reviewing these rude arrangements of the old theatres, Mr Dyce happily remarks- What a contrast between the almost total want of scenery in those days, and the splendid representations of external nature in our modern playhouses! Yet perhaps the decline of the drama may in a great measure be attributed to this improvement. The attention of an audience is now directed rather to the efforts of the painter than to those of the actor, who is lost amid the marvellous effects of light and shade on our gigantic stages." The only information we possess as to the payment of dramatic authors at this time, is contained in the memoranda of Philip Henslowe, a theatrical manager, preserved in Dulwich college, and quoted by Malone and Collier. Before the year 1600, the price paid by Henslowe for a new play never exceeded £8; but after this date, perhaps in consequence of the exertions of rival companies, larger sums were given, and prices of £20 and £25 are mentioned. The proceeds of the second day's performance were afterwards added to the author's of wood, of a circular form, open to the weather, the prices of which varied from five to twenty shilemoluments. Furnishing prologues for new plays, excepting over the stage, which was covered with a lings, was another source of gain; but the proverbial thatched roof. Outside, on the roof, a flag was poverty of poets seems to have been exemplified in hoisted during the time of performance, which com the old dramatists, even when they were actors as menced at three o'clock, at the third sounding or well as authors. The shareholders of the theatre flourish of trumpets. The cavaliers and fair dames derived considerable profits from the performances, of the court of Elizabeth sat in boxes below the and were occasionally paid for exhibitions in the houses gallery, or were accommodated with stools on the of the nobility. In 1602, a sum of ten pounds was stage, where some of the young gallants also threw given to 'Burbidge's players' for performing Othello themselves at length on the rush-strewn floor, while before Queen Elizabeth, at Harefield, the seat of Sir their pages handed them pipes and tobacco, then a Thomas Egerton. Nearly all the dramatic authors fashionable and highly-prized luxury. The middle preceding and contemporary with Shakspeare were classes were crowded in the pit, or yard, which was men who had received a learned education at the not furnished with seats. Moveable scenery was university of Oxford or Cambridge. A profusion first introduced by Davenant, after the Restoration,* of classical imagery abounds in their plays, but they but rude imitations of towers, woods, animals, or did not copy the severe and correct taste of the furniture, served to illustrate the scene. To point ancient models. They wrote to supply the popular out the place of action, a board containing the name, demand for novelty and excitement for broad farce painted or written in large letters, was hung out or superlative tragedy-to introduce the coarse during the performance. Anciently, an allegorical raillery or comic incidents of low life-to dramatise exhibition, called the Dumb Show, was exhibited a murder, or embody the vulgar idea of oriental before every act, and gave an outline of the action bloodshed and splendid extravagance. 'If we seek or circumstances to follow. Shakspeare has pre- for a poetical image,' says a writer on our drama, served this peculiarity in the play acted before thea burst of passion, a beautiful sentiment, a trait of king and queen in Hamlet; but he never employs it in his own dramas. Such machinery, indeed, would be incompatible with the increased action and business of the stage, when the miracle plays had given place to the pomp and circumstance' of historical dramas, and the bustling liveliness of comedy. The chorus was longer retained, and appears in Marlow's Faustus, and in Henry VI. Actresses were not seen on the stage till after the Restoration, and the female parts were played by boys, or delicate-looking young men. This may perhaps palliate the gross The air-blest castle, round whose wholesome crest No pencil's aid as yet had dar'd supply, Seen only by th' intellectual eye.'-C. LAMB. nature, we seek not in vaia in the works of our very oldest dramatists. But none of the predecessors of Shakspeare must be thought of along with him, when he appears before us like Prometheus, moulding the figures of men, and breathing into them the animation and all the passions of life.'t Among the immediate predecessors of the great poet are some worthy of separate notice. A host of playwrights abounded, and nearly all of them have touches of that happy poetic diction, free, yet choice and select, which gives a permanent value and interest to these elder masters of English poetry. *Memoir of Shakspeare-Aldine Poets. + Blackwood's Magazine, vol. ii., from Essays on the Old Drama, said to have been contributed by Henry Mackenzie, author of the Man of Feeling." 165 6 JOHN LYLY. JOHN LYLY, born in Kent in 1554, produced nine plays between the years 1579 and 1600. They were mostly written for court entertainments, and performed by the scholars of St Paul's. He was educated at Oxford, and many of his plays are on mythological subjects, as Sappho and Phaon, Endymion, the Maid's Metamorphosis, &c. His style is affected and unnatural, yet, like his own Niobe, in the Metamorphosis, oftentimes he had sweet thoughts, sometimes hard conceits; betwixt both a kind of yielding.' By his Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit, Lyly exercised a powerful though injurious influence on the fashionable literature of his day, in prose composition as well as in discourse. His plays were not important enough to found a school. Hazlitt was a warm admirer of Lyly's Endymion, but evidently from the feelings and sentiments it awakened, rather than the poetry. I know few things more perfect in characteristic painting,' he remarks, than the exclamation of the Phrygian shepherds, who, afraid of betraying the secret of Midas's ears, fancy that "the very reeds bow down, as though they listened to their talk;" nor more affecting in sentiment, than the apostrophe addressed by his friend Eumenides to Endymion, on waking from his long sleep, "Behold the twig to which thou laidest down thy head is now become a tree."' There are finer things in the Metamorphosis, as where the prince laments Eurymene lost in the woods Adorned with the presence of my love, The woods I fear such secret power shall prove, Or the song of the fairies By the moon we sport and play, The genius of Lyly was essentially lyrical. The songs in his plays seem to flow freely from nature. The following exquisite little pieces are in his drama of Alexander and Campaspe, written about 1583: Cupid and Campaspe. Cupid and my Campaspe play'd Song. What bird so sings, yet so does wail ! Brave prick-song! who is't now we hear? GEORGE PEELE. GEORGE PEELE held the situation of city poet and conductor of pageants for the court. He was also an actor and a shareholder with Shakspeare and others, in 1589, in the Blackfriars theatre. In 1584, his Arraignment of Paris, a court show, was represented before Elizabeth. The author was then a young man, who had recently left Christ-church, Oxford. In 1593, Peele gave an example of an Eng lish historical play in his Edward I. The style of this piece is turgid and monotonous; yet, in the following allusion to England, we see something of the high-sounding kingly speeches in Shakspeare's historical plays: Illustrious England, ancient seat of kings, Her neighbour realms, as Scotland, Denmark, France, varying the pauses and modulating the verse without the aid of rhyme had not yet been generally adopted. In David and Bethsabe this monotony is less observable, because his lines are smoother, and there is a play of rich and luxurious fancy in some of the scenes. Prologue to King David and Fair Bethsabe. Of Israel's sweetest singer now I sing, The cherubim and angels laid their breasts; The golden wires of his ravishing harp, He gave alarum to the host of heaven, That precious fount bear sand of purest gold; See, Cusay, see the flower of Israel, That, wing'd with lightning, brake the clouds, and cast And comelier than the silver clouds that dance Their crystal armour at his conquering feet. Of this sweet poet, Jove's musician, And of his beauteous son, I press to sing; BETHSABE and her maid bathing. King DAVID above. The Song. Hot Nor pierce any bright eye Bethsabe. Come, gentle zephyr, trick'd with those That erst in Eden sweeten'd Adam's love, This shade (sun proof) is yet no proof for thee; My soul, incensed with a sudden fire! 1 The sun's rays. On zephyr's wings before the King of Heaven. [Exit. David. Bright Bethsabe shall wash in David's bower In water mixed with purest almond flower, * * Now comes my lover tripping like the roe, Mr Lamb says justly, that the line 'seated in hearing of a hundred streams' is the best in the above passage. It is indeed a noble poetical image. Peele died fore 1599, and seems, like most of his dramatic orethren, to have led an irregular life, in the midst of severe poverty. A volume of Merry Conceited Jests, said to have been by him, was published after his death in 1607, which shows that he was not scrupulous as to the means of relieving his necessities. THOMAS KYD. In 1588, THOMAS KYD produced his play of Hieronimo or Jeronimo, and some years afterwards a second part to it, under the title of the Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad Again. This second part is supposed to have gone through more editions than any play of the time. Ben Jonson was afterwards engaged to make additions to it, when it was revived in 1601, and further additions in 1602. These new scenes are said by Lamb to be the very salt of the old play,' and so superior to Jonson's acknowledged works, that he attributes them to Webster, or some more potent spirit' than Ben. This seems refining too much in criticism. Kyd, like Marlow, often verges upon bombast, and deals largely in blood and death.' |