their cradle, and by the anxiety of the commoners to talk French that they might be the more highly thought of.

bitions rapidly worked upon the popular mind an effect which, it is likely, the priestly dramatists themselves had not contemplated in the first instance: it developed the universally latent passion in the breast of social man for spectacle in general, and for dramatic spectacle especially, for its own sake. Here, again, was the strongest endramatic efforts. Finding the lively pleasure which the people took in this mode of receiving religious instruction, they were attempted to add, according to their barbarous ability, embellishment after embellishment to the simple copies which they had originally presented of the most remarkable passages of Scripture story, until the profane exhibition itself, the miracle play,' and not the sacred subject of it, became the sole object of interest to the people who composed the audience at these representations, as, also, it certainly became the primary object of the greater part of the ecclesiastics who took part in getting them up. These two facts are shown with the utmost clearness by the collective testimony of all the contemporary writers who have thrown a general light upon the manners of the later middle ages.

We find religious dramas to have been regularly established performances in London as early as 1180. William Fitzstephen, in the introduction to his Life of his friend and patron, archbishop Becket, written between 1170 and 1182, tells us that London, in lieu of the theatrical spec-couragement of all for the clergy to persevere in their tacles and stage plays of the Romans, to which he has just before alluded, had then a holier description of plays, in the representations of the miracles worked by holy confessors, or of the sufferings wherein the martyrs had displayed their constancy.* However, from Mathew Paris (Vita Abbatum) and from Bulæus (Historia Universitatis Parisiensis) we learn that the miracle-play of St. Katherine' had been exhibited at Dunstable before the year 1119. According to the latter authority this play of St. Katherine' was not then by any means a novelty; and from a passage in the Annales Burtonenses,' or ' Annals of Burton Abbey,' we may infer that in the middle of the 13th century itinerant actors were well known in England.

.

The oldest extant specimen of a miracle-play in English is among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum: it probably formed one of a series, and is certainly as ancient as the earlier part of the reign of Edward III.; it is founded on the 16th chapter of the apocryphal gospel of 'Nicodemus,' and relates to the descent of Christ into hell, to liberate from thence Adam, Eve, John the Baptist, and the prophets. Besides this and a few other single pieces, and a set of three plays founded on that part of the Acts of the Apostles' which relates to the conversion of St. Paul, there exist in this country three series of miracleplays which go through the principal incidents of the Old and New Testaments. These are:-1. The Towneley collection, supposed to have belonged to Widkirk Abbey, the MS. of which appears to have been written about the reign of Henry VI. 2. A volume called the Ludus Coventrix,' consisting of plays said to have been represented at Coventry at the festival of Corpus Christi, the MS. of which is at least as old as the reign of Henry VII. 3. The Chester Whitsun plays, of which there are two MSS. in the British Museum, one dated in 1600, the other in 1607. Several specimens of Cornish miracle-plays are extant, which differ from the English in no material characteristic but that of language.

The best idea that we can give of the groundwork of these plays is by specifying the subjects of that one of the series above mentioned which is the most numerous. This is, the Coventry series, comprising 42 plays, viz.:-1. The Creation. 2. The Fall of Man.' 3. The Death of Abel.' 4. Noah's Flood.' 5. Abraham's Sacrifice.' 6. Moses and the Two Tables.' 7. The Genealogy of Christ.' 8. Anna's Pregnancy.' 9. Mary in the Temple.' 10. Mary's Betrothment.' 11. The Salutation and Conception.' 12. Joseph's Return.' 13. The Visit to Elizabeth.' 14. The Trial of Joseph and Mary.' 15. The Birth of Christ.' 16. The Shepherds' Offering.' 17. (Wanting in the MS.) 18. Adoration of the Magi.' 19. The Purification.' 20. Slaughter of the Innocents.' 21. Christ disputing in the Temple.' 22. The Baptism of Christ.' 23. The Temptation.' 24. The Woman taken in Adultery.' 25. Lazarus.' 26. Council of the Jews.' 27. Mary Magdalen.' 28. Christ Betrayed.' 29. Herod.' 30. The Trial of Christ.' 31. Pilate's Wife's Dream.' 32. The Crucifixion.' 33. Christ's Descent into Hell.' 34. 'Sealing of the Tomb.' 35. The Resurrection. 36. The Three Marys.' 37. Christ aprearing to Mary Magdalen.' 38. The Pilgrim of Emaus.' 39. The Ascension.' 40. Descent of the Holy Ghost.' 41. The Assumption of the Virgin.' 42. Doomsday.' There is abundant evidence that the Romish ecclesiastics, in their first introduction of this kind of representations, especially that part of them relating to the birth, passion, and resurrection of Christ, had the perfectly serious intention of strengthening the faith of the multitude in the fundamental doctrines of their church; and it seems the less extraordinary that they should have resorted to this expedient, when we reflect that before the invention of printing, books had no existence for the people at large. But it is no less certain that the repetition of these exhiThe reader may like to see this very remarkable passage as it stands in the original text; the words are these: Lundonia pro spectaculis theatralibus, pro ludis scenicis, ludos habet sanctiores, representationes miraculorum quæ sancti confessores operati sunt, seu representationes passionum quibus claruit

constantia martyrum.'

These considerations will sufficiently account for one ro markable contrast, amongst others, which the early drama of modern Europe presents to the early Greek drama, though both flowed directly from a religious source; that while in the latter a groundwork drawn from human history was adorned and elevated by mythological intermixtures; in the middle-age drama, on the contrary, the basis or substratum was religious, but soon became so much overlaid with allusions to actual life, and with sketches of manners, and even of character, drawn from the actual society, as to leave scarcely a trace of that solemnity which must in the beginning have been intended to characterize the performance. The proclamation of the Chester plays, which was read over in various parts of the city on St. George's day, before the commencement of the performances, expressly excuses the introduction of 'some things not warranted by any writ,' on the ground that it was done to make sport' and to 'glad the hearers.'

The dialogue in these productions was, for the most part, extremely rude and inartificial; and as to plot, they cannot properly be said to have had any. It is not until the middle of the sixteenth century that we arrive at a scriptural play having anything approaching to a regularly constructed dramatic action. In this respect the series of plays which we have been considering should rather be described as a series of shows or pageants exhibited in succession, but without any artificial connection. Each of these detached divisions of the representation was indeed commonly called a pageant; and each succeeding play or pageant of the series was supported by a new set of performers. Thus, to get up one of these extensive sets of plays, it was necessary to provide and to prepare a large number of actors; and here we see one manifest reason why this longer class of performances was almost wholly confined, in England as well as on the continent, to the larger cities.

The seasons for exhibiting the grand scriptural plays were chiefly the Christmas and the Whitsun holidays. The getting up and acting of these in the great cities early devolved upon the trading companies, each guild undertaking a portion of the performance and sustaining a share of the expense. The authentic information regarding the exhi bition of the Corpus Christi plays at Coventry extends from the year 1416 to 1591, during the whole of which period there is no indication that the clergy in any way co-operated. The Chester records likewise establish that the whole management of these representations there was in the hands of laymen. From Stow's Chronicle we learn that in London this class of performances was undertaken by the parish clerks (who were incorporated by Henry III.) as early as 1409; and it is remarkable that no instance is to be found of the trading companies of London having been, at any date, so engaged. The pieces were acted on temporary erections of timber, called scaffolds or stages; and it appears that in some instances they were placed upon wheels, in order that they might be removed from one part to another of a large town, and so the plays might be repeated successively in various quarters. Some of the Chester pieces required the employment of two, and even of three scaffolds, besides other contrivances: the street also must have been used,

as several of the characters enter and go out on horseback. 'Lyon were employed, having more of individuality, but The same remark is applicable both to the Widkirk and still personifying the passions supposed to have actuated the Coventry plays. In the latter indeed the place' and the Jews against Christ. As such characters became more the mid place' are mentioned as the scene of part of the numerous, they interfered in a certain degree with the proaction; and it is evident from some of the stage directions,gress of the action; in some pieces the scriptural characters that two, three, and even four scaffolds, were erected round fell quite into the back-ground; and thus, in course of time, a centre, the performers proceeding, as occasion required, what seems to have been at first designed as a sort of from one stage to another across the mid place.' It may poetical embellishment to an historical drama became a be observed, too, that in one of the Widkirk plays Cain is new species of drama unconnected with history. This was exhibited at plough with a team of horses; and that in called a 'moral' or 'moral-play,' the object being to enforce another it is absolutely necessary that something like the and illustrate some ethical precept; for it must be observed, interior of a cottage should be represented, with a peasant's that the term 'morality,' as applied to a dramatic producwife in bed, who pretends to have been just delivered of a tion, is, like mystery,' of comparatively recent introducchild, which lies beside her in a cradle. tion into our language. Some manuscript productions of this class have been lately discovered, which show that moral-plays were in a state of considerable advancement early in the reign of Henry VI. They seem to have reached their highest perfection under Henry VII., although they afterwards exhibited a greater degree of ingenious complication. In the reigns of Henry VII. and VIII., a company of actors usually consisted of only four or five individuals; but by doubling some of the parts, they were able to perform the greater number of the dramatic entertainments then in fashion.

These exhibitions however of long successions of Scripture pageants form a kind of exception to the general footing of the drama in those ages. The dramas which still most generally prevailed were those which proceeded originally from two distinct though kindred sources, which may be thus described. The first was the desire to impress the minds of the people in a vivid manner with those fundamental points of Scripture history which the greater festivals of the Christian church were established to celebrate, by exhibiting before them, especially during the seasons of Christmas and Easter, a living representation of Besides allegorical personages, there are two standing the subject of celebration at that particular time. The characters very prominent in moral-plays, the Devil and second was the desire to strengthen and maintain the the Vice. The Devil was no doubt introduced into moralpeople's devotion to the patron saint of the church of their plays from the old miracle-plays, where he had figured so particular locality, by exhibiting on his feast-day a lively amusingly that his presence was indispensable in the new representation of his most remarkable actions or sufferings. species of drama; and accordingly we find him acting as To these two classes of performances the ecclesiastical es- leader of the Seven Deadly Sins in one of the most antient tablishments, not only of the cathedrals and monasteries, moral-plays that have been preserved. He was made as but of a great many parochial churches, were quite equal; hideous as possible by the mask and dress which he wore; and accordingly they continued to be generally prevalent in and from various sources we learn that his exterior was England until the commencement of the Reformation, and shaggy and hairy, so that in one piece he is mistaken by did not entirely cease until its complete establishment. one of the characters for a dancing bear.' His bottle From first to last, the clergy were not only the authors of the nose' and 'evil face' are repeatedly mentioned; and that he pieces exhibited within the churches, but were also, with- was not without a tail is evident from the circumstance out any liability to ecclesiastical censure, the actors in or that in one place the Vice asks him for a piece of it to make managers of the representations. But they did not long a fly-flap. His ordinary exclamation on entering was 'Ho, confine the exercise of their histrionic powers either to the ho, ho!' and on all occasions he was given to roaring and consecrated subjects or within the consecrated walls. They crying out, especially when, for the amusement of the audisoon partook of the dramatic passion which they had indi- ence, he was provoked to it by castigation at the hands of rectly awakened, and came to like both plays and playing the Vice, by whom he was generally, though not invariably, for their own sake. In Burnet's History of the Reforma- accompanied. As for the Vice himself, his name appears to tion we find that, so late as 1542, bishop Bonner had occa- have been derived from the predominant nature of his chasion to issue a proclamation to the clergy of his diocese, racter, as amidst all his varieties of form, he is constantly prohibiting all manner of common plays, games, or inter- represented as most wicked in design. As the Devil now ludes, to be played, set forth, or delivered, within their and then appeared without the Vice, so the Vice appeared churches and chapels.' And from the following passage of sometimes without the Devil. Malone tells us, that the à tract printed in 1572 it appears that even then interludes principal employment of the Vice was to belabour the were occasionally played in churches: the author is de- Devil; but, though frequently so engaged, he had also scribing how the clergy neglect their duties: 'He againe higher functions. He was never introduced into the miposteth it (the service) over as fast as he can gallop; for racle-plays until after the reign of Mary; but in "The Life either he hath two places to serve, or else there are some and Repentance of Mary Magdalen, which appeared in games to be played in the afternoon, as lying for the whet- 1567, we find him performing the part of her lover, before stone, heathenishe dauncing for the ring, a beare or a bull her conversion, under the name of Infidelity; in which chato be bayted, or else jack-an-apes to ride on horseback, or racter he assumes various disguises, and successfully recoman enterlude to be played; and if no place else can be mends to her not to make two hells instead of one,' but to gotten, it must be doone in the church.' In proof also, that live merrily in this world, since she is sure to be damned in in the early part of the same century ecclesiastics still exhi- the next. In 'King Darius,' dated 1565, he likewise acted a bited themselves as common players, we see, among many prominent part, under the name of Iniquity, by his own misother evidences, that in 1519 Cardinal Wolsey found it ne-chievous impulses, without any prompting from the reprecessary to insert an express injunction against this practice sentative of the principle of evil. Such was the general in the regulations of the Canons Regular of St. Austin.* style of the Vice; and as Iniquity we find him spoken of Miracle plays were acted very constantly at Chester until by Shakspeare and Ben Jonson. Sometimes, however, the 1577, at Coventry until 1591, at York until late in the six- Vice and Iniquity seem to have been two distinct personteenth century, at Newcastle until 1598, at Lancaster, ages; and the former was not unfrequently called by the Preston, and last of all at Kendal, in the beginning of the name of some particular vice. In the moral-plays, as in reign of James I. Although, in the beginning, these plays the miracle-plays before them, the comic ingredients were only dramatised certain scriptural events by the characters made to predominate more and more over the serious; and historically concerned, yet abstract impersonations found the Vice became a standing vehicle of grosser and more their way into them by degrees. This was perhaps done to thorough buffoonery than the Devil himself. Thus it was introduce some variety into the constant repetition of the that he came to be so completely confounded with the chasame sets of dramatis personæ. Among the first innova- racter of the domestic fool, as to be very commonly dressed tions of this kind were the representatives of Truth, Justice, in the fool's parti-coloured habit, wearing his dagger of Peace, and Mercy, in the Parliament of Heaven,' which lath. It appears to have been a very common termination forms part of the eleventh play or pageant of the Ludus of the adventures of the Vice for him to be carried off to Coventria. Death, in the same series, was a subsequent addition; and the Mother of Death, a still later enrichment; until at length such characters as 'Renfin' and The original MS. is in the British Museum, Cotton MS. Vesp. F. ix. It

is printed in Wilkins's Concilia, iii. 687.

hell on the Devil's back. In King Darius,' he runs thither of his own accord, to escape from Constancy, Equity, and Charity. It seems, also, that he was in the habit of riding and beating the Devil at other times than when he was thus forcibly carried off to punishment.

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The mechanical contrivances used for the representation | scriptural, saintly, or allegorical intermixture, belong to of moral-plays differed in no material point from those em- that class to which the denomination of interludes, though ployed in the religious exhibitions which they gradually it has had a more general application, most properly and superseded; except that, in general, there seems to have distinctively belongs. These pieces being, as their name been only one scaffold or stage, which was erected either in imports, expressly designed for performance during the a street or on a green adjoining a town or village, sometimes intervals of convivial entertainment, the first condition in the public hall of a city or borough, and sometimes in a of their structure was that the limits should be brief great private mansion. and the characters few. The historical play of 'Sir Thomas More,' written towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, and extant among the Harleian MSS, shows very exactly the time, form, and manner of such representations. Sir Thomas More there gives a splendid supper to the lord mayor of London, the aldermen, their wives, &c.; and four men players and a boy (the latter taking, no doubt, the female parts) having heard of the intended banquet, tender their services in order to vary the amusements. Sir Thomas declares that it will be excellent to have a play before the banquet,' and asks the actors what pieces they can perform. In answer, they run over the titles of six different pieces, out of which Sir Thomas chooses the one entitled The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom. Its representation accordingly commences, as a play within a play, and is continued until there occurs an accidental interruption. The piece selected by Sir Thomas More on this occasion was evidently of the class of 'morals,' and so do all the pieces acted by way of interlude appear to have been until the reign of Henry VIII.; so much was this the case, that the very terms 'moral' and 'interlude' came to be generally confounded. John Heywood, a musician of Henry's household, set the first example of composing interludes quite independently of allegorical materials. Among the pieces of Heywood's that have come down to us, the three which alone can strictly be termed comic are directed against the vices of the clergy, and more especially of the holy mendicants who swarmed over the land under the names of friars and pardoners. They have much o the genuine humour as well as broad satire of Chaucer's comic pictures wherein the same characters so prominently figure; and indeed it should here be borne in mind that, in the same spirit which favoured the production of these satirical interludes, Henry, when his thoughts had begun to tend towards ecclesiastical reform, patronized the first printed edition of 'The Canterbury Tales. In the earliest of the pieces in question, A mery play betwene the pardoner and the frere, the curate and neybour Pratte,' Leo X., whose remarkable indulgence to similar compositions we have already had occasion to mention, is spoken of as still living. A pardoner and a friar have each obtained leave of the curate to use his church; the former to exhibit his relics (among which he shows the great toe of the Holy Trinity'), the latter to deliver a sermon, their common object being the raising of money. The friar arrives first, and is about to commence his discourse, when the pardoner comes in and disturbs him; each desires to be heard; and after many vain attempts by force of lungs, they proceed to kick and cuff each other unmercifully. The curate, called by the disturbance in his church, endeavours, without avail, to part the combatants; he therefore calls in neighbour Pratt to his aid; and while the curate seizes the friar, Pratt undertakes to deal with the pardoner, in order that they may set them in the stocks. Both friar and pardoner, however, prove too strong for their assailants, and the latter, after receiving a sound drubbing, are glad to allow the former quietly to depart. In the course of the piece, the friar, pardoner, and curate deal out the most furious oaths, and neighbour Pratt is the only decently-spoken man of the party. In 'The Four P's' (that is, the Palmer, the Pardoner, the Poticary, and the Pedlar), the question at issue among them is, which shall tell the greatest lie. And in the 'mery play between Johan the husbande, Tyb his wife, and syr Johan the preest,' the nature of the plot will easily be divined, especially by such as are acquainted with Chaucer's comic tales. Heywood's play of "The Weather was written to illustrate a point of natural philosophy, and vindicate Providence in its distribution of the seasons. Perhaps, too, he should be regarded as the inventor of another species of composition, dramatic in so far as that it was conducted in dialogue and recited in public, but without plot, being merely a discussion in verse, between two or more characters, of some particular topic or opinion. This sort of production being little calculated for popularity, it is not surprising that but one specimen of it by him has descended to us, and that in manuscript. The point de

One of the most curious of the later moral-plays was written in defence of dramatic exhibitions in general, in answer to a tract against them by Stephen Gosson, called 'The School of Abuse,' and published in 1579. This piece, entitled 'The Play of Plays,' was acted at a theatre in Shoreditch about 1580. A considerable portion remains of a still more remarkable production of this class, which must here be noticed as being the only one that we can trace as having had an object openly and entirely political: it seems to have been designed to illustrate and enforce the right rules of government for the good of a nation at large, and there is reason to suppose that it was suppressed immediately after its first performance. The portion preserved, about one-third of the whole, is in the Duke of Devonshire's collection, and consists of twelve closely-printed quarto pages, apparently of the date of 1566. From this fragment we gather that among the characters of the play were the following:Albion, personified as a knight; Justice; Injury, who seems to have been the Vice of the piece; Division, and his two ministers Double-Device and Old-Debate ; Temporalty and Spiritualty; Principality and Commonalty; Sovereignty, Peace, and Plenty. In the commencement of it, Injury, under the assumed name of Manhood, ingratiates himself with Justice and Albion, and endeavours to persuade the latter, amongst other things, that salutary acts of parliament are not enforced as they ought to be, but allowed to sleep, because they touch the lords spiritual and temporal, so that, although passed to benefit merchants and the commonalty, the great declare them only fit to wipe a pan.' In like manner, Division sends his agents to sow dissension, on the one hand, between the lords spiritual and the lords temporal, on the other between Principality (personifying the sovereign authority) and the Commons. But, although there is every appearance that the author made his play terminate in the defeat of the scheme of Injury and Division, and the happy union of Albion and Plenty, yet it is manifest that the Vice of the play was here made use of to cover some serious strokes of satire and reprobation against the political abuses of the time, involving the most important principles of constitutional government, and rendering this unique and mutilated piece a very interesting feature of our old dramatic literature, and an illustration of the various uses to which the stage was turned while no periodical press yet existed.

The moral-plays now extant are classed by Mr. Payne Collier (Annals of the Stage, &c.) in the following divisions. The curious manuscript specimens formerly in the collection of Dr. Cox Macro, and now in that of Hudson Gurney, Esq., which are much more antient than any others yet discovered. 2. Printed moral-plays, the lesson enforced by which relates to the vices and regeneration of mankind at large. 3. Such as convey instructions for human conduct of a more varied character. 4. Pieces belonging to the class of moral-plays, but making approaches to the representation of real life and manners.

The performance of moral-plays was not wholly discontinued until the end of Elizabeth's reign; and one of the last dramatic representations that she witnessed was a piece of this kind, The Contention between Liberality and Prodigality,' played before her in the 43rd year of her reign. Attempts had however been very early made to invest even symbolical representatives with metaphysical as well as physical peculiarities, and attract for them a personal interest; and thus it was that even in the allegorical species, the nature of which would seem to have least admitted of such modification, advances more and more decided were successively made towards individuality of character, and consequently towards the representation of actual life. Hence nearly all the later moral-plays exhibit a strange mixture of individual characters with allegorical impersonations, which, however, with all its violent incongruity, was a necessary step in the progress towards the modern drama, the drama of human passions and manners.

The first English dramatic productions in which it was attempted to exhibit sketches from actual life without any

I

a

C

ductions of Thomas Heywood, who became a writer for the
stage some years before the death of Elizabeth.

Sidney says nothing of the performance of miracle-plays
in his time; but we know from many other authorities,
that while the romantic drama was thus establishing itself,
and moral-plays were still frequently exhibited, pieces
founded on Scripture history continued to be represented.
The latter, however, already confined chiefly to country
places, soon ceased altogether; nor have we any specimen
of what can strictly be termed a moral-play subsequent to
the death of Elizabeth.

We have now traced the progress of the English stage from its ecclesiastical and religious origin until it became almost exclusively a mirror of actual life, and attained al those dramatic and theatrical forms which most prominently characterized the later and fuller maturity of our elder modern drama. It was in the same year, 1583, wherein Sidney wrote his Apology,' that Elizabeth first allowed a public company to act under her name and authority. As the dramatic writers who flourished in the brief interval between this period and that of the fullest development of Shakspeare's genius, with one exception, did nothing importantly to alter or improve dramatic art, it is needless to enlarge upon the various kinds and degrees of merit which made a number of them, as Kyd, Lodge, Greene, Lyly, Peele, Nash, Chettle, Munday, Wilson, &c., highly popular and celebrated in their own time. Immediate predecessors of Shakspeare, they have long been lost, necessarily and deservedly, in the near effulgence of his blaze.' The single exception that we are called upon to make is in favour of Christopher Marlow, of whom we must observe, not only that his works exhibit greater vigour both of conception and of language than belongs to any of his contemporaries, but also that he was the first who established the use of blank verse upon the public stage, in lieu of that exclusive rhyming which possessed it before he wrote.

and Porrex,' admits that it is full of stately speeches and | well-sounding phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca his stile, and full of notable morality, which it doth most delightfully teach.' It is not indeed surprising that this first attempt to imitate or emulate the regular or classic tragedy should have been highly extolled at the time, especially by those who inculcated by formal precept a general imitation of the antique models; but certain it is, that, both as to incident and dialogue, the piece is laboriously heavy; the speeches are of most tedious length, and the thoughts and sentiments very trite and commonplace. It is however worthy of especial notice, that this was the first play in the English language the dialogue of which was written in blank verse. This, again, in all probability was owing to the earnest endeavour which the authors were making to follow the method of the antients. This tragedy was followed almost immediately by Julius Cæsar, the earliest instance on record in which events from the Roman history were dramatised in English, although the precise nature of this performance, of which we have nothing but the mention in an old MS. chronicle, cannot be ascertained. It is doubtful, however, whether both these pieces were not preceded by a tragedy founded on Luigi da Porto's famous tale of Romeo and Juliet.' From about this date until shortly after 1570, the dramatic field seems to have been pretty equally divided between the later moral-plays and the earlier attempts in tragedy, comedy, and history. In some pieces of this date and a little later, as already shown, endeavours were made to reconcile or combine the two kinds of composition; but afterwards the morals generally gave way to the more popular and intelligible species of performance. We find precedence given to the latter in the license to James Burbage and others in 1574, in its mention of comedies, tragedies, interludes, and stageplays; and in the act of common council of the following year against theatrical performances in the city they are designated as interludes, tragedies, comedies, and shows.' The collection of Shakspeare's plays, as commonly Still the terms tragedy and comedy, in general accepta- printed, affords the grandest and most instructive study tion, remained far from the strictness of signification at- possible of the progress of the romantic drama from the tached to them by the professed inculcators, by example or crudeness of its early state to the blended richness of its precept, of the imitation of the antients. It is observable, full maturity. In this view, even those pieces in that collec however, that comely was from the beginning used in a tion in the composition of which Shakspeare is known to more comprehensive sense than tragedy, being in fact very have had little or no concern, become extremely interesting. often employed as synonymous with the general designa- Such plays as the First Part of Henry VI., Pericles of tion of play. It is plain, even from the instances we have Tyre,' and 'Titus Andronicus,' for instance, if not highly already cited, that, for a long period, any play might with favourable, are not unfair specimens of the state of the art out impropriety be termed a comedy, though none but a when Shakspeare was first introduced to its acquaintance: serious piece was ever called a tragedy. Hence it was, the Second' and 'Third Part of Henry VI.,' 'King John,' that, as late as 1578, Thomas Lupton called his moral-play &c., show us in progressive gradation the rapid developof All for Money' both a comedy and a tragedy; and ment of his wonderful power of infusing a spirit of life into hence it is, that Shakspeare makes Hamlet, after he has a production which came into his hands à piece of cold, had the tragedy exhibited before the king and queen, ex-heavy, mechanical, and often incongruous composition. In claim,

"For if the king like not the comedy,' &c.

the Two Gentlemen of Verona,' &c. we have the first free spontaneous flowings from his own peculiar and delightful Not only, however, was the tragic element, as we here see, spring of dramatic poesy, unmixed with baser matter;' by no means excluded from what was at that time under- and then, proceeding onward, still rising as we proceed, we stood as comedy; but the comic, as we find, both from pass through those greater historical compositions, whether examining the productions of the time, and from the testi- from English or Roman history, which display so deep an mony of the contemporary critics, was employed without insight into national as well as individual character, and reserve in tragedy. Thus Sir Philip Sidney, the most dis- into the personal springs of political transactions; then tinguished at that day among the English champions of the through those pieces founded on romantic story, as 'Romeo classic school, in his Apology of Poetry,' written, as already and Juliet,' 'Othello,' &c., fraught with all the depth, the mentioned, about 1583, after inveighing severely against wildness, and the richness of vehement passion; until we the total disregard, by the English dramatists, of the unities reach the grandest and most profound of his dramatic of time and place, felt himself called upon to add:- But be- creations, where, in boundless diversity, the beauties and the sides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither deformities, the glory and the emptiness, of human existence, right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and are unfolded in the tender light of a compassionate symclowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in pathy, as in 'The Tempest,' or disclosed with more awful the clown by head and shoulders, to play a part in majes-depth and unsparing though beautiful rigour in Macbeth,' tical matters with neither decency nor discretion; so as in Lear,' in 'Timon of Athens,' or in Hamlet.' neither the admiration and commiseration, nor right sport- Indeed, as the compositions of Shakspeare form the most fulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained.' elevated region of dramatic poetry in that age, so the play of 'Hamlet' may, we think, be taken as the highest summit of that region. It seems to present the finest example of the depth, sublimity, refinement, and variety of which the romantic drama is capable; and it is the most abundantly marked with those peculiar characteristics which sprang from the union, in the person of its author, of such wonderful dramatic powers with such familiar and thorough experience of theatrical management. Thus, besides its exalted interest in a poetical view, it is singularly valuable as an historical study of dramatic and histrionic art. Here Shakspeare exhibits to us even the relation in which

Small as is the value now-a-days of this critical opinion of Sidney's, it affords an interesting and conclusive testimony as to the essen tially romantic character of the rising drama, which we thus find it to have thoroughly, and, as the classic advocates deemed, incorrigibly, assumed at least ten years before Shakspeare, who by some has been supposed to have impressed that character upon it, became an original writer for the stage. The vast variety of matters embraced by the dramatists of that day, and of sources from which they drew, is perfectly expressed in the prologue to the 'Royal King and Loyal Subject,' one of the earlier pro