No

PREFACE

O reader of English literature can fail to be impressed by certain contradictory traits characteristic of what is known somewhat loosely as Elizabethan drama. The subject-matter of this old literature is easily distinguishable and remarkably concrete; and yet it reflects every mode and passing fashion which conspired to produce the teeming multiplicity of the age. No literary development could be more patently logical than that of Elizabethan drama; yet none is so apparently chaotic in the processes of its growth. In short, there is no part of English literature alike so alluring and yet so embarrassing of approach. Nor is this embarrassment seeming. The mass of material, whether of plays, illustration, or allusion, is great, and much of it remains difficult of access. The estimate of fifteen hundred new plays, extant or perished, between the accession of Queen Elizabeth and the closing of the theaters, eighty-four years later, errs on the side of moderation, not of excess. Moreover, the heterogeneousness of this mass is remarkable, running in kind into sub-species and varieties in bewildering profusion, extending in scope from trifling dialogues of a single scene to trilogies of consummate dramatic art, and in quality from bits of actual life, conveyed bodily from the streets and taverns, to deeps of wisdom and flights of imaginative poetry such as other

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ages of the drama knew not. Our data, too, as to much of this material, is woefully insufficient and involved in an intricacy of detail, historical, archæological, and biographical, which compels even the most conservative to trust at times to the insecurity of analogy and inference. Finally, this material has, some of it, been warped from its actual place in history by the misdirected, if pardonable, zeal with which everything Elizabethan has been given a color Shakespearean; and thus the true proportions of his vigorous and manifold age have been distorted and obscured by Shakespeare's own overshadowing great

ness.

It is the purpose of this book to relate the history of the English drama from the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the closing of the theaters in the year 1642. Inasmuch as many influences affecting the drama are traceable to far earlier times, and the relation of later plays can often be understood only in the light of these influences, a résumé of the origins of the English drama, and of the course of its growth through miracle, morality, and interlude, has been deemed necessary. The literature of a country is one continuous fabric in which are interwoven many threads, in which breaks and patchings with alien material are rare, if they ever occur. In unraveling one thread it is often impossible not to cross and tangle many others. Necessary digression is its own excuse, and a devious course is often the most direct.

This book is not a history of English dramatic literature: far less of English dramatic poetry. Such titles, if accurately descriptive, are destructive of genuine historical inquiry; because they substitute

for the real boundaries, which are determinable only by an exhaustive examination of material, narrower limits prearranged by the taste or the caprice of the writer. While the chief interest of an investigation such as the present must lie in the final acquisition of a fuller understanding of those works which rise above their age on account of their superior artistic worth, no treatment which neglects humbler contemporary productions and the interrelations of these with all others can be regarded otherwise than with suspicion. A literature can no more justly be studied in those works alone which have stood the test of time than the ethnology of a race can be decided solely on the traits of its Bismarcks or its Darwins.

Once more, this book is not concerned with abstract æsthetic considerations of the nature of drama, its kinds, its relations to other forms of art, its structure and technique, except in so far as these topics may be involved in the general theme itself. Nor will an attempt be made to trace to their sources those interesting points of foreign contact which are so alluring and so misleading when unsubmitted to the larger historical tests which trace the fuller tides and greater sweeps of literature and disregard the accidental eddies in its currents.

Still again, this book is neither a chronicle of the stage, a bibliography of plays, nor a biography of playwrights. All are indispensable and often enduring monuments not only of learning and scholarship but also of self-effacement. The history of literature has often been written as if still in the leading-strings of annals, and much has been sacrificed to the chronology of birthdays and groupings by reason of gentle nurture or education at one or the other of

the universities. In view of these and other like considerations, the readers of these pages will find a studied avoidance of the repetition of the mere commonplaces of history and literary biography, except in so far as such repetitions are imperative and make for clearness. In a word, it is the purpose of this investigation to relate not only those facts concerning the drama of this period which are usually comprehended under the term history, but likewise to determine the development of species among dramatic compositions within the period; to ascertain, as nearly as possible, the character of each play considered, and refer it to its type; to establish its relations to what had preceded and to what was to follow; and definitely to learn when a given dramatic species appeared, how long it continued, and when it was superseded by other forms. If the attempt of the following pages to reach this end shall seem to the reader to involve many distinctions and divisions, let him consider that all classification is but a means to an end, like a scaffolding necessary to the erection of the structure, but, like other scaffoldings, to be discarded when that structure is complete.

This method of presentation by species, each followed in its development and change, has involved at times a departure from strict chronological order. But in these volumes the succession of groups, thus classified, stand in the order of their priority of appearance in the history of the drama, and even the backward thrusts of the shuttle, in a sense, thus carry the pattern forward. Once more, this method of presentation necessitates frequent references to the several connections in which many plays and authors stand. It is hoped that the references given may

prove sufficient to guide the reader where there is need for guidance. As to the notes in general, the author requests the indulgence accorded to the woodsman, who, traversing an overgrown path, blazes his way. He spoils a few trees; but you can always follow him.

The chief sources for this book have been the original texts of the plays themselves, which have been read and reread, sometimes again and again. Little has been accepted on report, save information as to some manuscript plays which have proved inaccessible - like some of the dramas of William

Percy or which would seem as in the case of some of the Latin college plays, also in manuscript in exhaustive study to have consumed an amount of time disproportionate to their historical importance. While an honest endeavor has been made on the part of the author to acquaint himself with the mass of comment on the Elizabethan drama, whether biographical, critical, or æsthetic, and to keep in touch with the results of recent incessant scholarly research in this field, to profess a mastery of the programmes, theses, dissertations, and articles which the learned and the zealous, the tried and the tyro, put forth, as the trees their leaves with each recurring year, would be to affect omniscience. In the months during which this work has been going through the press, articles and books have appeared embodying newer and truer points of view, of which the present writer would gladly have availed himself, but that there must come an end to revision.

In view of the licensed variety of Elizabethan spelling and the quaint prolixity of the titles of many Elizabethan plays, all titles have been frankly normal