Revels. "What hell it is in suing long to bide." He had been a dreary time waiting and petitioning for the place of Master of the In his own peculiar phraseology he tells the Queen, in one of his petitions,"For these ten years I have attended with an unwearied patience, and now I know not what crab took me for an oyster, that in the middest of your sunshine, of your most gracious aspect, hath thrust a stone between the shells to rate me alive that only live on dead hopes."§ Drayton described him truly, at a later period, when poetry had asserted her proper rights, as bidden paths. He plunged into the haunts | to Nash, "he is but a little fellow, but he of wild and profligate men, lighting up their hath one of the best wits in England.”‡ murky caves with his poetical torch, and The little man knew gaining nothing from them but the renewed power of scorning the unspiritual things of our being, without the resolution to seek for wisdom in the daylight track which every man may tread. If his life had not been fatally cut short, the fiery spirit might have learnt the value of meekness, and the daring sceptic have cast away the bitter "fruit of half-knowledge. He did not long survive the fearful exhortation of his dying companion, the unhappy Greene:-"Wonder not, thou famous gracer of tragedians, that Greene, who hath said with thee, like the fool in his heart, there is no God, should now give glory unto His greatness: for penetrating is His power, His hand lies heavy upon me, He hath spoken unto me with a voice of thunder, and I have felt He is a God that can punish enemies. Why should thy excellent wit, His gift, be so blinded that thou shouldest give no glory to the giver?" Marlowe resented the accusation which Greene's words conveyed. We may hope that he did more; that he felt, to use other words of the same memorable exhortation, that the "liberty which he sought was an "infernal bondage." 66 66 Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies, Playing with words, and idle similies." Lyly was undoubtedly the predecessor of Shakspere. His 'Alexander and Campaspe,' acted not only at Court but at the Blackfriars, was printed as early as 1584. It is not easy to understand how a popular audience could ever have sat it out; but the incomprehensible and the excellent are sometimes confounded. What should we think of a prologue, addressed to a gaping pit, and hushing the cracking of nuts into silence, which commences thus ?" They that fear the stinging of wasps make fans of peacocks' tails, whose spots are like eyes: and Lepidus, which could not sleep for the chattering of birds, set up a beast whose head was like a dragon: and we, which stand in awe of report, are compelled to set before our owl Pallas's shield, thinking by her virtue to cover the other's deformity." Shakspere was a naturalist, and a true one; but Lyly was the more inventive, for he made his own natural history. The epilogue to the same Eloquent and witty JOHN LYLY was called, by a bookseller who collected his plays some forty years or more after their appearance, the only rare poet of that time, the witty, comical, facetiously quick, and unparalleled John Lyly, Master of Arts." Such is the puff-direct of a title-page of 1632. The title-pages and the puffs have parted company in our day, to carry on their partnership in separate fields, and sometimes looking loftily on each other, as if they were not twin-brothers. He it was that took hold of the somewhat battered and clipped but sterling coin of our old language, and, mint-play informs the confiding audience that ing it afresh, with a very sufficient quantity of alloy, produced a sparkling currency, the very counters of court compliment. It was truly said, and it was meant for praise, that he "hath stepped one step further than any either before or since he first began the witty discourse of his 'Euphues.""+ According * Meres. + Webbe's Discourse of English Poetry,' 1586. "Where the rainbow toucheth the tree no caterpillars will hang on the leaves; where the glow-worm creepeth in the night no adder will go in the day." 'Alexander and Campaspe' is in prose. The action is little, + 'Apology of Pierce Pennilesse.' § Petition to the Queen in the Harleian MSS.: Dodsley's Old Plays, 1825, vol. ii. Ꭰ the talk is everything. Hephæstion exhorts | hard one. Without the vices of men of Alexander against the danger of love, in a higher talent, he had to endure poverty and speech that with very slight elaboration would be long enough for a sermon. Apelles soliloquizes upon his own love for Campaspe in a style so insufferably tedious, that we could wish to thrust the picture that he sighs over down his rhetorical throat (even as Pistol was made to swallow the leek), if he did not close his oration with one of the prettiest songs of our old poetry :— "Cupid and my Campaspe play'd disappointment, doomed to spin his "pithy sentences and gallant tropes" for a thankless Court and a neglectful multitude; and, with a tearful merriment, writing to his Queen, "In all humility I intreat that I may dedicate to your Sacred Majesty Lyly de Tristibus, wherein shall be seen patience, labours, and misfortunes." THOMAS KYD was the author of 'Jeronimo,' which men long held as the only best and judiciously penned play in Europe."* Wherever performed originally, the principal character was adapted to an actor of very small stature. It is not impossible that a precocious boy, one of the children of Growing on 's cheek (but none knows how), Paul's, might have filled the character. With these the crystal of his brow, And then the dimple of his chin; All these did my Campaspe win. At last he set her both his eyes, She won, and Cupid blind did rise. O Love! has she done this to thee? What shall, alas! become of me?" The dramatic system of Lyly is a thing unique in its kind. He never attempts to deal with realities. He revels in pastoral and mythological subjects. He makes his gods and goddesses, his nymphs and shepherds, all speak a language which common mortals would disdain to use. In prose or in verse, they are all the cleverest of the clever. They are, one and all, passionless beings, with no voice but that of their showman. But it is easy to see how a man of considerable talent would hold such things to be the proper refinements to banish for ever the vulgarities of the old comedy. He had not the genius to discover that the highest drama was essentially for the people; and that its foundations must rest upon the elemental properties of mankind, whether to produce tears or laughter that should command a lasting and universal sympathy. Lyly came too early, or too late, to gather any enduring fame; and he lived to see a new race of writers, and one towering above the rest, who cleared the stage of his tinselled puppets, and filled the scene with noble copies of humanity. His fate was a Jeronimo the Spanish marshal, and Balthazar the Prince of Portugal, thus exchange compliments : "Balthazar. Thou inch of Spain, Thou man, from thy hose downward scarce so much, Thou very little longer than thy beard, Little Jeronimo: words greater than thyself! Jeronimo. And thou, long thing of Por- Thou that art full as tall As an English gallows, upper beam and all, What! have I almost quited you?" There can be no doubt that 'Jeronimo,' whatever remodelling it may have received, belongs essentially to the early stage. There is killing beyond all reasonable measure. Lorenzo kills Pedro, and Alexandro kills Rogero: Andrea is also killed, but he does not so readily quit the scene. After a decent interval, occupied by talk and fighting, the man comes again in the shape of his own ghost, according to the following stagedirection :-"Enter two, dragging of ensigns; then the funeral of Andrea: next * Jonson's Induction to 'Cynthia's Revels.' Your sable streams which look like molten pitch; My funeral rites are made, my hearse hung rich." HENRY CHETTLE, a friend of Greene, but who seems to have been a man of higher morals, if of inferior genius; and ANTHONY MUNDAY, who was called by Meres "the best plotter" (by which he probably means a manufacturer of dumb shows), are the only remaining dramatists, whose names have escaped oblivion, that can be called contemporaries of Shakspere in his early days at the Blackfriars. The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Measure for Measure. The Comedy of Errors. As You Like It. The Taming of the Shrew. Twelfth Night, or What You Will. Histories. The Life and Death of King John. The First Part of King Henry VI. Tragedies. Troilus and Cressida. The Tragedy of Coriolanus. The Life and Death of Julius Cæsar. The Tragedy of Macbeth. The Tragedy of Hamlet. King Lear. Othello, the Moor of Venice. Cymbeline, King of Britain." The general division here given of the plays into three classes is manifestly a discriminating and a just one. The editors were thoroughly cognizant of the distinction which Shakspere drew between his Histories and Tragedies, as works of art. Subsequent editors have not so accurately seen this distinction; for they have inserted 'Macbeth' immediately after the Comedies, and preceding 'King John,' as if it were a History, taking its place in the chronological order of events. It will be observed, also, that the original editors had a just regard to the order of events in their arrangement of the Histories, properly so called. But the order of succession in the Comedies and Tragedies must be considered an arbitrary one. Subsequent editors have introduced an order still more arbitrary; and to Malone belongs the leading company of players, as early as the year 1589. We begin, therefore, by assuming that he was a writer for the stage five years at least before the period usually assigned for the commencement of his career as a dramatic poet. It may be convenient here briefly to recapitulate the reasons for this opinion, which we shall have to enforce in many subsequent passages of these “studies." We shall first present an Abstract of Malone's last Chronological Order, as a case upon which to ground our argument. 1. First Part of King Henry VI. 2. Second Part of King Henry VI. 8. Love's Labour's Lost . Poet's Age. 1589 25 1591 1591 27 1591 1592 28 1593) 29 1593 1594 1594 30 1594 1596 the credit of having endeavoured to place | established in London, as a shareholder in the Comedies and Tragedies in the order in which he supposed them to have been written. This arrangement took place in his posthumous edition; but, his preliminary notices to each play consisting of the various opinions of the commentators generally, the advantage of considering each with reference to the supposed epoch of its production was very imperfectly attained in that edition. We therefore resolved, previous to the commencement of our Pictorial Edition,' to establish in our own minds certain principles, which should become to us a general guide as to the order in which we should publish the Comedies and Tragedies; still, however, keeping the classes separate, and not mixing them, according to their supposed dates, as Malone had done. But we did not pretend, nor even desire, to establish an exact date for the original production of each play. We attempted only to obtain a general notion of the date of their production in several groups. There would, of course, occur, with reference to each play, some detailed investigation, which would exhibit facts having a tendency to approximate that play to a particular year; but we knew, and we have subsequently shown, that, with very few exceptions indeed, the confident chronological orders of Malone, and Chalmers, and Drake, have been little more than guesses, sometimes ingenious and plausible, but oftener unsatisfactory and almost childish. But it appeared to us that there were certain broad principles to be kept in view, which would offer no inconsiderable assistance in forming a just estimate of the growth of the poet's powers, and of his peculiarities of thought and style 25. Lear at different periods of his life. It is obvious that, upon some such estimate as this, however imperfect, much that is most valuable in any critical analysis of his works, and especially in any comparison with the works of his contemporaries, must in a large degree depend. The general views which we have taken differ considerably from those of our predecessors; and they do so, for the most part, because we have more facts to guide us,—and especially the one fact that he was 13. King John . . 14. First Part of King Henry IV. 18. Much Ado about Nothing 20. Merry Wives of Windsor 26. All's Well that Ends Well 28. Julius Cæsar 30. Antony and Cleopatra 33. Timon of Athens. 37. Titus Andronicus Omitted as This notice fixes the date of thirteen plays, as having been produced up to 1598. But this list can scarcely be supposed to be a complete one. The expression which Meres uses, "for comedy witness," implies that he selects particular examples of excellence. We know that the three parts of 'Henry VI.' | existed before 1598: we believe that 'The Taming of the Shrew' was amongst the early plays; and that the original sketch of 'Hamlet' had been produced at the very outset of Shakspere's dramatic career. 'All's Well that Ends Well,' we believe, also, to have been an early play, known to Meres as 'Love's Labour's Won.' But carry the list of Meres forward two years, and we have to add 'Much Ado about Nothing' and 'Henry V.,' which were then printed. The account, therefore, stands thus in 1600: In 1598 Francis Meres published his | have just given, to crowd twenty plays into 'Palladis Tamia, Wit's Treasury,' which ten years. But, putting aside Titus Androcontains the most important notice of Shak- nicus,' Meres gives us a list of twelve original spere of any contemporary writer:-" As plays existing when his book was printed in Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best 1598-twelve plays which we would not exfor comedy and tragedy among the Latins, change for all the contemporary dramatic so Shakespeare, among the English, is the literature produced in the years between most excellent in both kinds for the stage: 1593 and 1598. In support of these asserfor comedy, witness his 'Gentlemen of Ve- tions, and these computations, not the slightrona,' his 'Errors,' his 'Love's Labour's Lost,' est direct evidence has ever been offered. his 'Love Labours Won,' his 'Mid-summer's The indirect evidence constantly alleged Night Dream,' and his 'Merchant of Venice;' against Shakspere being a writer before he for tragedy, his 'Richard II.,' 'Richard III.,' was twenty-seven years old is that he had 'Henry IV.,''King John,' 'Titus Andro- obtained no reputation, and is not even mennicus,' and his 'Romeo and Juliet.'" tioned by any contemporary, previously to the satirical notice of him in the last production of Robert Greene, who died in September, 1592, in which he is called "the only Shake-scene in the country." The very terms used by Greene would imply that the successful author of whom he was envious had acquired a reputation. But this is not the usual construction put on the words. The silence of other writers with regard to Shakspere is minutely set forth by Malone; and his opinions, as it appears to us, have been much too implicitly received- -sometimes indolently-sometimes for the support of a theory that would recognise Shakspere as a mere actor, or, at most, as the repairer of other men's works-whilst the original genius of Marlowe, and half a dozen inferior writers, was in full activity around him. The omission of all notice of Shakspere by Webbe, Puttenham, Harrington, Sidney, are brought forward by Malone as unquestionable proofs that our poet had not written before 1591 or 1592. He says that in Webbe's 'Discourse of English Poetry,' published in 1586, we meet with the names of the most celebrated poets of that time, particularly those of the dramatic writers Whetstone and Munday; but that we find no trace of Shakspere or of his works. But Malone does not tell us that Webbe makes a general apology for his omissions, saying, "Neither is my abiding in such place where I can with facility get knowledge of their works." "Three years afterwards," continues Malone, "Puttenham printed his 'Art of English Poesy;' and in that work also we look in vain for the name Plays mentioned by Meres, considering Henry VI., Three Parts Hamlet (sketch) } Much Ado about Nothing 13 3 2 2 20 We have now seventeen plays, including 'Pericles,' left for the seventeenth century; but some of these have established their claim to an earlier date than has been usually assigned to them. "Twelfth Night' and 'Othello' were performed in 1602. Under the usual chronological order we are compelled, according to the analysis which we |