are highly diverting. The events of the play obviously ex tend over a considerable space of time; yet the unity of action is so well maintained that the diversities of time do not press upon the mind. On the whole, it is clear that even at that early date the principles of the Gothic Drama were vigorously at work, in preparation for that magnificent fruitage of art which came to full harvest, ere she who then sat on the English throne was taken to her rest. It may be needful to remark, that Sir John the Vicar was meant as a satire on the Roman Catholic priesthood. In one place it is said of him,

"A Bible, nay, soft you! he'll yet be more wise;

I tell you, he's none of this new start-up rabble."

But perhaps the most note-worthy feature of the play is Cacurgus, who, as may be gathered from the foregoing account, is a specimen of the professional domestic fool that succeeded to the old Vice. And he is one of the most remarkable instances of his class, that have survived; there being no other play of so early a date, wherein the part is used with any thing like equal skill. Before his master, Cacurgus commonly affects the mere simpleton, but at other times is full of versatile shrewdness and waggish mischief. He is usually called, both by himself and others, Will Summer; as though he were understood to model his action after the celebrated court fool of Henry VIII.

Hitherto we have no instance of regular tragedy, which in England was of later growth than comedy; though we have in several cases seen that some beginnings of tragedy were made in the older species of drama. The story of Romeo and Juliet, as may be seen from our Introduction to that play, was brought on the stage before 1562; in what specific form, we are without the means of deciding; though of course, from the nature of the subject, it must have been tragical. The Tragedy of Gorboduc, or, as it is sometimes called, of Ferrex and Porrex, is on several accounts deserv

ing of special attention. It is regularly arranged in Acts and scenes, and is the oldest extant specimen of English tragedy so arranged. As we have already seen, it was acted before the Queen at Whitehall, by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple, on the 18th of January, 1562: it was also printed three times, in 1565, 1571, and 1590; which shows that it stood high in public repute. The title-page of 1565 informs us that three Acts were written by Thomas Norton, and the last two by Thomas Sackville. Norton, according to Wood, was 66 a forward and busy Calvinist, and a noted zealot:" be that as it may, he made and published a translation of Calvin's Institutes, which went through five editions during his lifetime. Sackville was afterwards Earl of Dorset: he succeeded Burghley as Lord Treasurer in 1599, which office he held till his death, in 1608; and was eulogized by divers pens, Lord Bacon's being one, for his eloquence, his learning, his charity, and integrity.

We probably cannot do better than to quote Warton's abstract of the play, which is brief and accurate, as follows: "Gorboduc, a king of Britain about 600 years before Christ, made in his lifetime a division of his kingdom to his sons Ferrex and Porrex. The two young Princes within five years quarrelled for universal sovereignty. A civil war ensued, and Porrex slew his elder brother Ferrex. Their mother, Videna, who loved Ferrex best, revenged his death by entering Porrex's chamber in the night, and murdering him in his sleep. The people, exasperated at the cruelty and treachery of this murder, rose in rebellion, and killed both Videna and Gorboduc. The nobility then assembled, collected an army, and destroyed the rebels. An intestine war commenced between the chief lords: the succession of the crown became uncertain and arbitrary, for want of a lineal royal issue; and the country, destitute of a king, and wasted by domestic slaughter, was reduced to a state of the most miserable desolation."

Each Act of the tragedy is preceded by a dumb-show,

significant of what is forthcoming; and all, except the last are followed by choruses, in imitation of the Greek Drama moralizing on the events. The quality of the dumb-shows may be judged from that to the first Act: "First the music of violins began to play, during which, come upon the stage six wild men clothed in leaves. Of whom the first bare in his neck a fagot of small sticks, which they all, both severally and together, assayed with all their strengths to break; but it could not be broken by them. At the length, one of them plucked out one of the sticks, and brake it; and the rest, plucking out all the other sticks one after another, did easily break the same, being severed, which, being conjoined, they had before attempted in vain. After they had this done, they departed the stage, and the music ceased. Hereby was signified, that a state knit in unity doth continue strong against all force, but, being divided, is easily destroyed."

But the most notable feature of the piece is, that all except the choruses is in blank-verse; in which respect it was without precedent, a great and noble innovation; what was then known on the stage being mostly written in alternate or consecutive rhyme. And the versification runs abundantly smooth on the ear; beyond which, little can be said in its favour; though that was indeed much for the time. With considerable force of thought and language, the speeches are excessively formal, stately, and didactic; the dialogue is but a series of studied declamation, without any gushings of life, or any relish of individual traits: in a word, all is mere state rhetoric speaking in the same vein, now from one mouth, now from another. From the subjectmatter, the unities of time and place are necessarily disregarded, while there is no continuity of action or character to lift it above the circumscriptions of sense. The several Acts and scenes stand apart, each by itself, and follow one another without any principle of inherent succession: there is indeed nothing like an organic composition of the parts,

no weaving of them together into a vital whole, by the laws of dramatic coherence or development. Still the piece is a very great advance on all that is known to have gone before it. In the single article of blank-verse, though having all the monotony of structure that the most regular rhyming versifier could give it, it did more for dramatic improvement, than, perhaps, could have been done by a century of labour without that step being taken.

From this time till we come to Shakespeare's immediate predecessors, there is a considerable number and variety of dramas, most of which we shall have to despatch rather summarily. Richard Edwards was esteemed more highly in his time than we can discover any good reason for; which was probably owing in part to the strong praise of Elizabeth, whose taste or fancy he happened to hit in the right spot. Meres, in his Wit's Commonwealth, 1598, sets him down as one of "the best for comedy amongst us." Damon and Pythias is the only play of his extant; though, as was seen in the preceding Chapter, we hear of another piece by him, called Palamon and Arcite, which was acted before the Queen at Oxford in 1556, about two months before the author's death. Damon and Pythias is a sort of tragi-comedy, and is in rhyme. How little account the writer made of dramatic propriety, may be judged from the fact of his taking Grim the Collier of Croydon to the court of Dionysius, where he plays at verbal buffoonery with two lackeys named Jack and Will.

We have before mentioned The Supposes, translated from the Italian of Ariosto by George Gascoigne, and acted at Gray's Inn in 1566. It is chiefly remarkable as being the oldest extant play in English prose. Jocasta, also acted at Gray's Inn the same year, demands notice as the second known play in blank-verse. It was avowedly taken from the Phanissa of Euripides, but can hardly be called a transla tion, since, as Warton observes, it makes "many omissions, retrenchments, and transpositions;" though the main sub

stance of the original is retained. The second, third, and fifth Acts were by Gascoigne; the first and fourth by Francis Kinwelmarsh; and, as in Gorboduc, each Act is preceded by a dumb-show. The versification presents nothing worthy of remark in comparison with that of Norton and Sackville: it is fully equal to theirs, though much less has been said about it. It is the earliest known attempt to domesticate the Greek Drama on the English stage.

The example of making English dramas out of Italian novels appears to have been first set, unless we should except the lost play of Romeo and Juliet, in 1568, when The Tragedy of Tancred and Gismund was performed before Elizabeth at the Inner Temple. It was the work of five persons, who were probably members of that Inn; each of them contributing an Act, and one of them being Christopher Hatton, afterwards known as Elizabeth's "dancing Chancellor." Except in the article of blank-verse, the writers seem to have taken Gorboduc as their model; each Act beginning with a dumb-show, and ending with a chorus. The play was founded on one of Boccaccio's tales, an English version of which had recently appeared in Paynter's Palace of Pleasure.

To the same period we are to reckon ten dramas translated from the Latin of Seneca, which no doubt had some influence in forming the public taste. Three of these translations, Troas, Thyestes, and Hercules Furens, severally published in 1559, 1560, and 1561, were by Jasper Heywood, son of the celebrated John Heywood. Four of them were by John Studley, Medea and Agamemnon, printed in 1566, and Hippolytus and Hercules Oetaus. Edipus, by Alexander Neville, came out in 1563. The other two were Octavia, by Thomas Nuce, entered at the Stationers' in 1566; and Thebais, by Thomas Newton. The whole set were printed together in quarto, in 1581. Nine of them are in Alexandrines of fourteen syllables, rhyme. Heywood and Studley take rank above mere trans

and all are in