Lecture the Twelfth. DRAMATIC LITERATURE. THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA-JOHN HEYWOOD-RICHARD ODELL-THOMAS RYCHARDES-JOHN STILL-THOMAS SACKVILLE-THOMAS NORTON-RICHARD EDWARDS-JOHN LYLY-GEORGE PEELE-THOMAS KID-THOMAS NASH-ROB ERT GREENE-THOMAS LODGE-ANTHONY MUNDAY-HENRY CHATTLE-CHRISTOPHER MARLOW. To the dramatic literature of the period of Elizabeth our attention must now be directed, as toward the latter part of her reign that form of composition and its representation, coinciding with the love of magnificence, chivalrous feeling, and romantic adventures, which animated the court, suddenly arose to the highest degree of splendor, and attracted nearly all the poetic genius of the country. But to present this department of English literature clearly before the mind, it will be necessary to notice briefly, the origin and nature of those rude dramatic representations which both remotely and more immediately preceded it, and in which it had its commence ment. At the dawn of modern civilization most countries in Christian Europe possessed a rude kind of theatrical entertainment, consisting, not in those exhibitions of nature, 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 called Miracles, or Miracle Plays. Originally, they appear to have been acted by the clergy, or under their immediate management, and they are supposed to have considered them favorable to the dif fusion of religious feeling; though from the traces of those Miracles which still 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 1268, a period of more than three hundred years, they were performed almost every year in Chester; and there were few large cities in England which were not then regaled in a similar manner: even in Scotland they were not unknown. The most sacred personages, not excluding the Deity himself, were introduced into them. During the reign of Henry the Sixth, 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 plays were, certainly, a great advance upon the 'Miracles,' inasmuch as they endeavored 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 by 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 the Eighth. It was about that time that acting first became a distinct profession, both miracles and moral plays having previously been represented by clergymen, school-boys, 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 now 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. We should, perhaps, here notice the Interludes of JoHN HEYWOOD, as occupying a place between the moral plays and the modern drama. Heywood was a native of London, and was partially educated at Oxford; but the severity of academical studies did not suit his gay and sprightly disposition; and he therefore returned to his native city, and soon became familiar with the men of wit about the court, especially with Sir Thomas More, with whom he was on terms of close intimacy. He was particularly noticed and patronized by Henry the Eighth, and was afterward equally a favorite with Queen Mary, whom he is represented to have entertained and amused even on her death-bed. As Heywood was a devoted papist, he left England on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and retired to Mecklin, in Brabant, where he died in 1565. Heywood's dramatic compositions, part of which were produced before 1521, generally represented some ludicrous familiar incidents, in a style of the broadest and coarsest farce, but still with no small degree of skill and talent. One of these, called the Four P's, turns upon a dispute between a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Poticary, and a Pedler, 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, throws 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 amid much drollery. There were some less distinguished writers of 'Interludes' than Heywood, 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 already described. Of comedy, which was an improvement upon the interludes, the earliest specimen that can now be found bears the singular title of Ralph Royster Doyster. It was the production of RICHARD ODELL, master of Westminster school, and is supposed to have been written during the reign of Henry the Eighth, but certainly not later than 1551. The scene is laid 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. The language is in long and irregularly measured rhyme, of which the following, from a speech of Dame Custance, one of the leading characters, respecting the difficulty of preserving a good reputation, is a specimen :- How necessary it is now-a-days, That each body live uprightly in all manner ways; And be sure of this, the worst will be spoken ! THOMAS RYCHARDES, according to Collier, was the author of the second English comedy of which we have now any knowledge. Mesogonus is the name of the play here alluded to, and the date of its publication is 1560. 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 English comedy, in the order of time, is Gammer Gurton's Needle. This piece was written by JOHN STILL, Master of Arts, and afterward bishop of Bath and Wells, about 1565, or perhaps at an earlier date. 'In this play,' says Hawkins, 'there is a vein of familiar humor, and a kind of grotesque imagery, not unlike some parts of Aristophanes; but without those graces of language and metre, for which the Greek comedian is so eminently distinguished.' There is certainly much whim and wit in many of the situations; and the characters, although rudely, are very forcibly delineated. The plot is both simple and coarse, the whole turning upon the loss and recovery of the needle with which Gammer Gurton was mending a pair of breeches belonging to her man Hodge. The following fine old ong with which the second act opens is, of itself, sufficient to preserve the whole play from oblivion : SONG. I can not eat but little meat, My stomach is not good; I stuff my skin so full within Of jolly good ale and old. Back and side go bare, go bare; Both foot and hand go cold; But belly, God send thee good ale enough, I love no roast but a nut-brown toast, No frost, no snow, no wind, I trow, I am so wrapp'd, and thoroughly lapp'd, Back and side, &c. And Tib, my wife, that as her life Even as a maltworm should, And saith, Sweetheart, I took my part Back and side, &c. Now let them drink till they nod and wink, Even as good fellows should do; They shall not miss to have the bliss Good ale doth bring men to. And all poor souls that have scour'd bowls, Or have them lustily troul'd, God save the lives of them and their wives, Back and side, &c. Tragedy, of later origin than comedy, came directly from the more levated 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 and THOMAS NORTON, and acted before queen Elizabeth at Whitehal! by the members of the Inner Temple, in January, 1561. It is founded on a fabulous incident in early English history, and is full of carnage. It is written, however, in regular blank verse, consists of five acts, and observes some of the more useful rules of the classical 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; How short they be, how fading here in earth; Of nothing sure save only of the death, To whom both man and all the world doth owe Than as the naked hand whose stroke assays The armed breast where force doth light in vain. Not long after the appearance of 'Ferrex and Porrex,' both tragedies and comedies had become not 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 so far as it contained an admixture of vulgar comedy, and was written in rhyme. In the same year two plays, respectively styled Supposes, and Jocasta, the one a comedy adapted from Ariosto, the other a tragedy from Euripides, were acted in Gray's Inn Hall. 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 English play taken from an Italian novel. Various other dramatic pieces now followed, and between the years 1568, and 1580, no less than fifty-two dramas were acted at court under the superintendence of the Master of Revels. Under the date of 1578, the play of Promos and Cassandra, by George Whetsone, was produced, on which Shakspeare founded his 'Measure for Measure.' Historical plays were also at this time written, and the Troublesome Reign of King John. the Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, and the Chronicle History of Lear, King of England, formed the quarry from which Shakspeare constructed his dramas on the same events. As dramatic writing, about this time, began to assume the aspect of a regular profession, buildings for the representation of plays became necessary; |