they made history attractive by changing it
into a melo-drama :-"The poets drive it
(a true history) most commonly unto such
points as may best show the majesty of their
pen in tragical speeches, or set the heroes
agog with discourses of love, or paint a few
antics to fit their own humours with scoffs
and taunts, or bring in a show to furnish the
stage when it is bare. When the matter of
itself comes short of this, they follow the
practice of the cobbler, and set their teeth
to the leather to pull it out. So was the
history of 'Cæsar and Pompey,' and the play
of 'The Fabii,' at the theatre both amplified
there where the drums might walk or the
pen ruffle. When the history swelled or ran
too high for the number of the persons who
should play it, the poet with Proteus cut the
same to his own measure: when it afforded
no pomp at all, he brought it to the rack to
make it serve. Which invincibly proveth on
my side that plays are no images of truth."
The author of 'The Blast of Retreat,' who
describes himself as formerly "a great af-
fector of that vain art of play-making,"
charges the authors of historical plays not
only with expanding and curtailing the
action, so as to render them no images of
truth, but with changing the historical facts
altogether:-"If they write of histories that
are known, as the life of Pompey, the mar-
tial affairs of Cæsar, and other worthies, they
give them a new face, and turn them out
like counterfeits to show themselves on the
stage." From the author of 'The Blast of
Retreat' we derive the most accurate ac-
count of those comedies of intrigue of which
none have come down to us from this early
period of the drama. We might fancy he
was describing the productions of Mrs. Behn
or Mrs. Centlivre, in sentences that might
appear to be quoted from Jeremy Collier's
attacks upon the stage more than a century
later:-"Some, by taking pity upon the de-
ceitful tears of the stage-lovers, have been
moved by their complaint to rue on their plays, who are not unfitly so called.”

secret friends, whom they have thought to
have tasted like torment: some, having
noted the ensamples how maidens restrained
from the marriage of those whom their
friends have misliked, have there learned
a policy to prevent their parents by steal-
ing them away: some, seeing by ensample of
the stage-player one carried with too much
liking of another man's wife, having noted
by what practice she has been assailed and
overtaken, have not failed to put the like in
effect in earnest that was afore shown in jest.
The device of carrying and recarrying
letters by laundresses, practising with pedlars
to transport their tokens by colourable means
to sell their merchandise, and other kind of
policies to beguile fathers of their children,
husbands of their wives, guardians of their
wards, and masters of their servants, is it not
aptly taught in 'The School of Abuse?""*
Perhaps the worst abuse of the stage of this
period was the licence of the clown or fool
-an abuse which the greatest and the most
successful of dramatic writers found it es-
sential to denounce and put down. The au-
thor of 'The Blast of Retreat' has described
this vividly :—“ And all be [although] these
pastimes were not, as they are, to be con-
demned simply of their own nature, yet be-
cause they are so abused they are abominable.
For the Fool no sooner showeth himself in
his colours, to make men merry, but straight-
way lightly there followeth some vanity, not
only superfluous, but beastly and wicked.
Yet we, so carried away by his unseemly
gesture and unreverenced scorning, that we
seem only to be delighted in him, and are
not content to sport ourselves with modest
mirth, as the matter gives occasion, unless
it be intermixed with knavery, drunken
merriments, crafty cunnings, undecent jug-
glings, clownish conceits, and such other
cursed mirth, as is both odious in the sight
of God, and offensive to honest ears.'

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The editor of the tract appends a note :-"He meaneth

CHAPTER V.

THE EARLIEST HISTORICAL DRAMA.

66

WHEN the ancient pageants and mysteries | that." In the same pamphlet Nashe dehad been put down by the force of public scribes the plays to the performance of which opinion,―when spectacles of a dramatic cha- "in the afternoon" resorted men that are racter had ceased to be employed as instru- their own masters, as gentlemen of the court, ments of religious instruction, the profes- the inns of court, and the number of captains sional players who had sprung up founded and soldiers about London." To this auditheir popularity for a long period upon the ence, then,-not the rudest or least refined, old habits and associations of the people. however idle and dissipated, the representOur drama was essentially formed by a course ation of some series of events connected of steady progress, and not by rapid tran- with the history of their country had a charm sition. We are accustomed to say that the which, according to Nashe, was to divert drama was created by Shakspere, Marlow, them from grosser excitements. In another Greene, Kyd, and a few others of distin- passage the same writer says, "What a gloguished genius; but they all of them worked rious thing it is to have King Henry V. upon a rough foundation which was ready represented on the stage leading the French for them. The superstructure of real tra- king prisoner, and forcing both him and the gedy and comedy had to be erected upon the Dauphin to swear fealty." Something like moral plays, the romances, the histories, this dramatic action is to be found in one of which were beginning to be popular in the those elder historical plays which have come very first days of Queen Elizabeth, and condown to us, 'The Famous Victories of tinued to be so, even in their very rude Henry V., containing the Honourable Battle forms, beyond the close of her long reign. of Agincourt.' Nothing can be ruder or more inartificial than the dramatic conduct of 'The Famous Victories:' nothing grosser than the taste of many of its dialogues. The old Coventry play of 'Hock Tuesday,' exhibited before Queen Elizabeth in Kenilworth Castle, in 1575, did not more essentially differ in the conduct of its action from the structure of a regular historical drama, than such a play as 'The Famous Victories' differed, in all that constitutes dramatic beauty and propriety, from the almost contemporary histories of Marlow and Shakspere. To understand what Shakspere especially did for English History, we may well bestow a little study upon this extraordinary composition.

In the controversial writers who, about 1580, attacked and defended the early Stage, we find no direct mention of those Histories, "borrowed out of our English Chronicles, wherein our forefathers' valiant acts, that have been long buried in rusty brass and worm-eaten books, are revived, and they themselves raised from the grave of oblivion, and brought to plead their aged honours in open presence." This is a description of the early Chronicle Histories of the stage, as given by Thomas Nashe, in 1592. Nashe goes on to say:-"In plays, all cosenages, all cunning drifts, over-gilded with outward holiness, all stratagems of war, all the cankerworms that breed in the rust of peace, are most lively anatomised. They show the ill success of treason, the fall of hasty climbers, the wretched end of usurpers, the misery of civil dissention, and how just God is evermore in punishing murder. And to prove every one of these allegations could I propound the circumstances of this play and

"The Famous Victories' is a regal story; its scenes changing from the tavern to the palace, from England to France; now exhibiting the wild Prince striking the representative of his father on the seat of justice, and then, after a little while, the same Prince a hero and a conqueror. A raised floor furnishes ample room for all these dis

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having this hint for a clown's licence, soon renders the Chief Justice a very insignificant personage. The real wit of Tarleton probably did much to render the dullness of the early stage endurable by persons of any refinement. Henry Chettle, in his curious production, 'Kind-Hartes Dreame,' written about four years after Tarleton's death, thus describes his appearance in a vision;—“The next, by his suit of russet, his buttoned cap, his tabor, his standing on the toe, and other tricks, I knew to be either the body or resemblance of Tarleton, who, living, for his pleasant conceits was of all men liked, and, dying, for mirth left not his fellow." The Prince enters and demands the release of his servant, which the Chief Justice refuses. The scene which ensues when the Prince strikes the Chief Justice is a remarkable example of the poetical poverty of the early stage. In the representation, the action would of course be exciting, but the dialogue which accompanies it is beyond comparison bald and meaningless. The audience was, however, compensated by Tarleton's iteration of the scene:-"Faith, John, I'll tell thee what thou shalt be my lord chief justice, and thou shalt sit in the chair; and I'll be the young prince, and hit thee a box on the ear; and then thou shalt say, To teach you what prerogatives mean, I commit you to the Fleet." The Prince is next presented really in prison, where he is visited by Sir John Oldcastle. The Prince, in his dialogue with Jockey, Ned, and Tom, again exhibits himself as the basest and most vulgar of ruffians; but, hearing his father is sick, he goes to Court, and the bully, in the twinkling of an eye, becomes a saintly hypocrite :

plays. A painted board leads the imagina- | bar to the prisoner;" but what he adds, tion of the audience from one country to another; and when the honourable battle of Agincourt is to be fought, "two armies fly in, represented with four swords and bucklers, and then what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field?" (Sidney-‘De- | fence of Poesy.) The curtain is removed, and without preparation we encounter the Prince in the midst of his profligacy. Ned and Tom are his companions; and when the Prince says, "Think you not that it was a villainous part of me to rob my father's receivers ?" Ned very charitably answers, "Why no, my lord, it was but a trick of youth." Sir John Oldcastle, who passes by the familiar name of Jockey, joins this pleasant company, and he informs the Prince that the town of Deptford has risen with hue and cry after the Prince's man who has robbed a poor carrier. The accomplished Prince then meets with the receivers whom he has robbed; and, after bestowing upon them the names of villains and rascals, he drives them off with a threat that if they say a word about the robbery he will have them hanged. With their booty, then, will they go to the tavern in Eastcheap, upon the invitation of the Prince :-"We are all fellows, I tell you, sirs; an the king my father were dead, we would be all kings." The scene is now London, with John Cobbler, Robin Pewterer, and Lawrence Costermonger keeping watch and ward in the accustomed style of going to sleep. There is short rest for them; for Derrick, the carrier who has been robbed by the Prince's servant, is come to London to seek his goods. Tarleton, the famous Clown, plays the Kentish carrier. It matters little what the author of the play has written down for him, for his "wondrous plentiful pleasant extemporal wit" will do much better for the amusement of his audience than the dull dialogue of the prompt-books. In the scene before us he has to catch the thief, and to take him before the Lord Chief Justice; and when the Court is set in order, and the Chief Justice cries, "Gaoler, bring the prisoner to the bar," Derrick speaks according to the book,

66 Hear you, my lord, I pray you bring the

:

"Pardon me, sweet father, pardon me : good my lord of Exeter, speak for me; pardon me, pardon, good father: not a word: ah, he will not speak one word: ah, Harry, now thrice unhappy Harry. But what shall I do? I will go take me into some solitary place, and there lament my sinful life, and, when I have done, I will lay me down and die". The scene where the Prince removes the crown possesses a higher interest, when we recollect the great parallel

scene of Shakspere's Henry IV. Part II., | Now trust me, my lords, I fear not but my son beginning

"I never thought to hear you speak again."

"The Famous Victories' was printed in 1594. In that copy much of the prose is chopped up into lines of various lengths, in order to look like some kind of measure :

Hen. V. Most sovereign lord, and well-beloved father,

Will be as warlike and victorious a prince
As ever reigned in England."

Henry IV. dies; Henry V. is crowned; the evil companions are cast off; the Chief Justice is forgiven; and the expedition to France is resolved upon. To trace the course of the war would be too much for the patience of our readers. The clashing of the four swords and bucklers might have rendered its

I came into your chamber to comfort the melan- stage representation endurable.
choly

Soul of your body, and finding you at that time
Past all recovery, and dead to my thinking,
God is my witness, and what should I do,
But with weeping tears lament the death of you,
my father;

And after that, seeing the crown, I took it.
And tell me, my father, who might better take
it than I,

After your death? but, seeing you live,

I most humbly render it into your majesty's

hands,

And the happiest man alive that my father lives;
And live my lord and father for ever!

Hen. IV. Stand up, my son;

Thine answer hath sounded well in mine ears,
For I must needs confess that I was in a very
sound sleep,

And altogether unmindful of thy coming:
But come near, my son,

And let me put thee in possession whilst I live,
That none deprive thee of it after my death.

Hen. V. Well may I take it at your majesty's
hands,

But it shall never touch my head so long as my
father lives.
[He taketh the crown.
Hen. IV. God give thee joy, my son;
God bless thee and make thee his servant,

And send thee a prosperous reign;

‘The True Tragedy of Richard III.' is the only other History, of which we possess a printed copy, that we can assign to the period before the first real dramatists. This old play is a work of higher pretension than 'The Famous Victories.' Like that play, it contains many prose speeches which are printed to have some resemblance to measured lines; but, on the other hand, there are many passages of legitimate verse which are run together as prose. The most ambitious part of before the battle: and this we transcribe :— the whole performance is a speech of Richard

"King. The hell of life that hangs upon the

crown,

The daily cares, the nightly dreams,
The wretched crews, the treason of the foe,
And horror of my bloody practice past,
Strikes such a terror to my wounded conscience,
That, sleep I, wake I, or whatsoever I do,
Methinks their ghosts come gaping for revenge
Whom I have slain in reaching for a crown.
Clarence complains and crieth for revenge;
My nephews' bloods, Revenge! revenge! doth
cry;

The headless peers come pressing for revenge;
And every one cries, Let the tyrant die.
The sun by day shines hotly for revenge;

For God knows, my son, how hardly I came by it, The moon by night eclipseth for revenge;

And how hardly I have maintained it.

Hen. V. Howsoever you came by it I know not;

And now I have it from you, and from you I will keep it :

The stars are turn'd to comets for revenge;
The planets change their courses for revenge;
The birds sing not, but sorrow for revenge;
The silly lambs sit bleating for revenge;
The screeching raven sits croaking for revenge;

And he that seeks to take the crown from my Whole heads of beasts come bellowing for rehead,

Let him look that his armour be thicker than

mine,

Or I will pierce him to the heart,

Were it harder than brass or bullion.

Hen. IV. Nobly spoken, and like a king.

venge;

And all, yea, all the world, I think,

Cries for revenge, and nothing but revenge:

But to conclude, I have deserv'd revenge.

In company I dare not trust my friend;
Being alone, I dread the secret foe;