moralities embodied in the new dramatic form. One of these pieces, quoted by Collier, entitled "All for Money," has for three of its characters, Judas, Dives, and Damnation, which last drives the other two "making a pitiful noise" into the bottomless pit.

The history of English literature during this period, and the progress of arts and sciences, would lead us too far into detail. This, however, becomes the less necessary, from the high preeminence the English drama had now attained, by which every other department of intellect and taste was overshadowed. The first struggle of the stage to emancipate itself from allegory into real life, produced, as has been supposed, the regular comedy of "Ralph Roister Doister," written by Nicholas Udal, in the earlier part of the sixteenth century. Even this early effort, rude though it was, gave high promise of the future drama of England. Almost contemporary with it, though of inferior excellence, was "Gammer Gurton's Needle,” a comedy, the author of which is unknown. It will thus be seen, that the dramatic spirit of England, like that of Athens in the days of Thespis, commenced in the comic rather than the tragic vein. The latter, however, soon followed in the shape of historic plays, several of the scenes of which Shakspeare is supposed to have thought not unworthy of improving, and incorporating into his own imperishable dramas. Soon afterwards, regular tragedy succeeded in the "Ferrex and Porrex," or, as it was sometimes entitled, the "Tragedy of Gorboduc," the joint production of Thomas Sackville, afterwards Earl of Dorset, and Thomas Norton, a Puritan divine. In this play, which is more stately than natural, the two authors endeavoured to blend the character of the old classical drama with the newly-awakened perceptions of what was needful for modern representation, and therefore, while it was prefaced by a representation of the story in dumb show, every act was closed by an ode like the Greek chorus. As yet, also, in these preliminary attempts, the question was at issue, whether dramatic writing should be embodied in rhyme or in blank verse, so that while the first three plays were written in the former, the last was in both. The earliest attempts in the English drama, however, had not solely a retrospective view to the example of the Greek stage, for sometimes an attempt was made, though hap

As

In such preludings, and amidst such trial and experiment, the dramatic muse of England was employed for about thirty years, when the gray dawn was succeeded by a bright morning, to be immediately followed by the bursting forth of the sun itself. In 1584 George Peele first appeared as a dramatic writer, and in rapid succession, he was followed by his contemporaries, Robert Greene, John Lyly, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Lodge, and Christopher Marlow. Accomplished classical scholars, they naturally preferred to write in blank verse, then a new attempt in English poetry, and in this they persevered, until each successive improvement was perfected in "Marlow's mighty line." Of all those who held the honoured office of being the precursors of Shakspeare, Christopher, or as he is usually termed, Kit Marlow, was undoubtedly the greatest. He is supposed to have been born about the year 1562, but of what parentage is unknown. After graduating at Cambridge, he became a dramatic writer, and in 1586, if not earlier, he produced the tragedy of "Tamburlaine the Great." might be expected from a genius so young, and withal so fervid and overflowing, "Tamburlaine" abounds with bombast; but in his subsequent productions of "Faustus," the "Rich Jew of Malta," and "Edward II.," the irregularity abated, while the fire burned more vehemently than ever. The temptations of Faustus while his good and bad angel stand on either side, the one to urge, and the other to restrain him in the study of magic and its forbidden arts-the eagerness with which he plunges into sensuality when the unlawful bargain is made, and the agonizing remorse he experiences when the forfeit is to be paid-have seldom been excelled in the most powerful of dramatic delineations; while in Edward II., the misery of a king in the act of abdicating his royal office, approaches, in many instances, the similar sketch of Shakspeare in the tragedy of "Richard II." Marlow's chief delight was in the terrible, of which he showed himself a master; but withal, there was a licentiousness of spirit in his writings, and especially in his translations from Ovid, that subjected them to the censures of ecclesiastical authority. As was his poetry so was his life, wild, fervid, and erratic, until it was abruptly brought to a melancholy termination by a disgraceful brawl at the early age of thirty-one, when it might have been said of him in the words of his own "Faustus"

"Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo's laurel-bough

That sometime grew within this learned man."

Much as had now been done, the drama of England was still incomplete-nay, as yet, even the foundation was scarcely laid. A mighty superstructure was to be raised, but the master-builder had not yet appeared. This is evident from the fact, that the dramatic productions of those writers we have already named have passed away from popular remembrance, and are now scarcely to be found except in the dark crypts of antiquarianism. But William Shakspeare was already born, and he entered the field before they had departed. The date of his birth was April, 1564; the place, Stratford-on-Avon, in Warwickshire. What education he received, and what was the history

as to be able to combine the life of a gentleman and courtier with that of a player and poet. But while he enjoyed the patronage of Elizabeth, and the acquaintance of the highest characters of her court, his chief delight appears to have been to mingle with the learned and intellectual of the day; and here his "foyning o' nights" at the Mermaid will occur to the memory of our readers, as described so affectionately afterwards by Beaumont, in his epistle to Ben Jonson :-

"What things have we seen

Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtile flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolv'd to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life!"

given rise to much literary contention -as if a man so superior should be destined to exemption from that irreverent scrutiny which familiarizes us to the history of less distinguished mortals. And yet, from his knowledge of rural life, it is evident that his boyhood and youth were not spent in seclusion that his gaze must have been everywhere, and his course open as day. At the early age of eighteen he commenced life in earnest by becoming a husband; and, only two or three years after, he repaired to

London, but whether instigated by literary ambition seeking its fittest arena, or by some wild escapade that required concealment or protection, is also matter of controversy. His, however, was no idle life in London; for in 1589, or about four years after his arrival, and at the age of twentyfive, he was one of the proprietors of the Blackfriars' Theatre, and in 1598 had already produced his best plays, and acquired the character of being by far the best of English dramatic writers, whether in tragedy or comedy. While his fame thus rose so rapidly, his fortune almost kept pace with it, so that he had property in several theatres, and was soon in such comfortable circumstances

member, and which contained more wit, learning, and talent than perhaps were ever assembled in one tavern room, was founded by Sir Walter Raleigh; and, besides Shakspeare and himself, ineluded Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Flet

cher, Cotton, Carew, Selden, Donne,

Martin, and many others, whose names were the trumpet signals of an age awakening from the slumbers of the past, and preparing a new era for the world. This splendid association derived its name from its place of meeting - the Mermaid, a tavern

in Friday Street, leading from Cheapside towards the river. But who can well imagine these glorious encounters to which Beaumont so affectionately reverts, and which the quaint old Fuller, who was only in his eighth year when Shakspeare died, endeavours, from his knowledge of the parties, to describe, as if he had been an onlooker and listener? "Many were the wit-combats betwixt him [Shakspeare] and Ben Jonson, which two I beheld like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war: Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his performances. Shakspeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk but lighter in sailing,

kindliness of his nature, and unostentatious simplicity with which he bore the honours that were heaped upon him, secured him the love of his contemporaries; and while they recognized and acknowledged his superiority, the title by which he was best known among them was "the gentle Shakspeare." After having written thirty-seven plays, a collection of sonnets, and the poems of "Venus and Adonis," and "Tarquin and Lucrece" -after having distanced competition, whether aucient or modern, in every department he attempted, and enjoyed, what is still more rare and wonderful, an unqualified foretaste of the renown that awaited him from posterity-he hied him homeward while it was still day, as if all he had achieved and enjoyed was of little account, and that the main business of life was still to come. At the age of forty-eight, while the maturity of manhood is still unbent, and the promises of ambition are more alluring than ever, he retired to an estate which he had purchased in the neighbourhood of his native town. Here, however, he lived only four years, and died in 1616. His fate, like that of so many of the highest of mankind, was to leave no family succession, his only son having died early, while his married daughters were childless. Is this seemingly harsh doom inflicted upon the greatest and the best, that the veneration of future ages may not be disturbed by the presence of an unworthy posterity?

SHAKSPEARE'S TOMB, Stratford-upon-Avon 1-Drawn and engraved by J. L. Williams.

1 Shakspeare is buried in the chancel of the church of Strat

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187

bricklayer, required his assistance at home; and, accordingly, the young student, as Fuller tells us, "helped in the building of the new structure of Lincoln's Inn, when, having a trowel in his hand, he had a book in his pocket." Soon tired of this uncongenial occupation, and before he had reached his twentieth year, he joined, as a volunteer, the English army in Flanders; and there, according to the conversation set down for him with Drummond of Hawthornden, he slew an enemy in the face of both camps, and carried from him the spolia opima. His military service in Flanders does not seem to have lasted beyond a single campaign. On his return to London, at the age of twenty, he married; and although he resumed his original occupation of a bricklayer, it was only for the purpose of completing his literary education, and commencing the life of a dramatic author, to which, it is probable, the success already acquired by Shakspeare may have powerfully incited him. Besides this, the opening glories of the English stage, and the distinction which it already promised, had turned the poetical spirit of the country exclusively in that direction. While his time was thus occupied between the book and the trowel, an interruption, not by any means strange for the period, occurred. He quarrelled with an adversary, who challeng

holes, like the cover of a warming pau;" "one eye lower than t'other, and bigger;" and, even according to his own declaration, "a mountain belly and rocky face." But with all these personal disadvantages, he was already one of the ripest scholars in England, and resolute to become one of its choicest dramatic poets. He is supposed to have commenced writing for the stage so early as his nineteenth year; but nothing can be certainly ascertained of his novitiate as an author until three years later, when his comedy of "Every Man in his Humour" was brought out at the Rose Theatre. Such was its success that his reputation, as a dramatic writer of the first rank, was established. And no wonder, for, although the earliest, it is also the best of his productions. Then followed

two tragedies and ten comedies, among the last of which the three best were thus commemorated:

"The Fox, the Alchemist, and Silent Woman,

Done by Ben Jonson, and outdone by no man."

But the chief occupa

tion in which he was employed from 1606 to 1633, was as a writer of masques for the diversion of the sovereign and courtiers; and this literary department, hitherto so barren and puerile, he raised by his genius, inventiveness, and taste, to a high state of classical excellence. The death of James I. was to him the loss of a liberal patron; his court and city pensions ceased, and he was once more driven to dependence on the stage by the pressure of his necessities; but his later efforts, under such circumstances, were not equal to those he had produced before he became a court writer, and its poet-laureate. His last piece was even hissed from the stage as a mere effort of dotage, upon which he indignantly adopted, and eloquently expressed his final resolution:

ed him to the field; and, in the duel that followed, he slew his man, whose tuck was ten inches longer than his own. For this deed of homicide he was imprisoned, and would have been brought to the gallows but for a favourable verdict of his judges. On being set free he resumed his literary labours, accompanied with his daily mechanical toil; and it would appear that, even already, he had acquired the malicious title of "the lime-and-mortar poet." His appearance, also, was as unpromising as could well be, for, according to the testimony of his enemies, he had a face "like a russet apple when it is bruised," or "punched full of eye-let

an inscription by himself covers the spot, and near it, on the north wall, is the monument to his memory containing the well-known Stratford bust.

"Leave things so prostitute, And take the Alcaic lute;

Or thine own Horace, or Anacreon's lyre; Warm thee by Pindar's fire;

:

And though thy nerves be shrunk and blood be cold,
Ere years have made thee old,
Strike that disdainful heat
Throughout, to their defeat,

As curious fools, and envious of thy strain
May, blushing, swear no palsy's in thy brain."