of art.

One of them, Love's Labor's Lost, excites an additional interest by bringing forward the question: What was the author's relation to Euphuism? Euphuism was an affected, pompous, pedantic style of speech cultivated in the days of Queen Elizabeth. It was considered a mark of high standing in society. The term was derived from a work of the dramatist John Lyly, entitled Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit. The book was written in the Euphuistic style. This method of speech is supposed to have enlarged somewhat the range of the English language. Shakespeare uses a superabundance of words, some of which were never in general use. Hence it is asked, was he a Euphuist? Ridiculous as this method of speech now seems, it was popular for a time. Queen Elizabeth was an adept in it. In Love's Labor's Lost one character, Don Armado, a fantastical Spaniard, set off by his page, Moth, blurts out his sounding words intended to overawe the audience. As an illustration we may take these words addressed to the King: "Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god, and body's fostering

patron." What the introduction of this character indicates has been a matter of debate. Moulton thinks Shakespeare was at heart a Euphuist. Dowden says against pedantic learning, he directed the light artillery of his wit. Another author thinks the part of Don Armado is a pitiless satire on Euphuism. It is certain that Shakespeare took pleasure in a broad vocabulary, but no one will accuse him of bombast.

It will give us some facility in apprehending the life of the author to speak of his plays in groups. One of the groups most distinctly marked is The Chronicle plays. They follow immediately upon those already noticed, to some extent mingled with them. Baker succintly states the facts concerning these plays: "Ten of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays are chronicle histories in the strict sense of the word. Three more are drawn from English legendary history. Three others are founded on the history of two other nations. That is, roughly speaking, onequarter of Shakespeare's work is chronicle play, and nearly one-half of it has its source in the histories." The ten founded on veritable English history are, the three

parts of Henry VI, Richard III, Richard II, King John, two parts of Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VIII. These are mentioned in the order of their composition. The first of these is assigned to 1592, the last but one, that is Henry V, to 1598. Henry VIII belongs to a later time, and is a composite production, much of it from the hand of John Fletcher. This play was not written with the same aim as the other nine relating to England.

There was a period of about fifteen years when popular audiences were delighted with English story. Queen Elizabeth, coming to the throne in 1558 was beset by manifold dangers and most trying duties. By 1585 the government had become master of the situation. In 1587 the intrigues over Mary, Queen of Scots, subsided with her death, in 1588 the Spanish Armada was annihilated, and the country entered on a period of national pride as well as prosperity. Dramatists found their account in glorifying England before the people. Professor Baker says: "Indeed I think it may be said that between 1588 and 1598 the Chronicle play was the most popular kind of play in England. The pages of Henslow's diary certainly

show that all the leading dramatists, at one time or another within that decade, tried their hands on this kind of workGreene, Peele, Marlow, Dekker, Jonson, Shakespeare.".. ....He adds, "It (the Chronicle play) was trained in the freest of all schools, that of the only national drama England then had, the miracle plays and the moralities." The people, however, soon desired more amusing exhibitions, and there was little of the strictly historic brought upon the stage after 1600. Shakespeare's work in this department brought out some of his finest literary passages and gave free play to his powers of invention. The account of Cardinal Beaufort's death is the most appalling picture to be found in Shakespeare. There are passages of deepest pathos in King John, and stirring exhibitions of moral and mental struggle in Richard III. In Henry IV we have comic exhibitions of soldier life and that unique character, the bibulous, lying braggart and wit, Falstaff. These plays, of little value in furnishing accurate information in minute affairs, are in outline truthful and instructive. They also constitute a grand gallery of portraiture. In their more serious and

passion-stirring portions they prepared the mind of the author for his great tragedies. The two plays based on Roman history, Julius Cæsar and Anthony and Cleopatra, tragedies of great power and abiding value, were not intended to be prominently historical narratives.

The decade devoted prominently to the Chronicle plays, from 1590-1600, was an important one in Shakespeare's life. At its opening he had been five years in London. His Stratford life and education had not opened to him broad views of the world. London lifted him from provincialism, Blackfriars made him acquainted, to some extent, with social life and with the nobility of England. Before the decade closed he had become a good actor and had with his theatrical company visited many of the country towns of England. He had seen the places of historic interest and had doubtless visited the scenes of contest where the fate of his country had been decided. In accord with the habit of the times he had studied English history. His taste and imagination led him to reproduce the past. Only one of his plays, The Merry Wives of Windsor, represents scenes of his own day.