and termed Moral Plays. These were certainly a great advance upon the Miracles, in as far as they endeavoured to convey sound moral lessons, and at the same time gave occasion to some poetical and dramatic ingenuity, in imaging forth the characters, and putting appropriate speeches into their mouths. The only scriptural character retained in them was the devil, who, being represented in grotesque habiliments, and perpetually beaten by an attendant character called the Vice, served to enliven what must have been at the best a sober, though well-meant entertainment. The Cradle of Security, Hit the Nail on the Head, Impatient Poverty, and The Marriage of Wisdom and Wit, are the names of moral plays which enjoyed popularity in the reign of Henry VIII. It was about that time that acting first became a distinct profession: both miracles and moral plays had previously been represented by clergymen, schoolboys, or the members of trading incorporations, and were only brought forward occasionally, as part of some public or private festivity.

As the introduction of allegorical characters had been an improvement upon those plays which consisted of scriptural persons only, so was the introduction of historical and actual characters an improvement upon those which employed only a set of impersonated ideas. It was soon found that a real human being, with a human name, was better calculated to awaken the sympathies, and keep alive the attention of an audience, and not less so to impress them with moral truths, than a being who only represented a notion of the mind. The substitution of these for the symbolical characters, gradually took place during the earlier part of the sixteenth century, and thus, with some aid from Greek dramatic literature, which now began to be studied, and from the improved theatres of Italy and Spain, the genuine English drama took its rise.

As specimens of something between the moral plays and the modern drama, the Interludes of JOHN HEYWOOD may be mentioned. Heywood was supported at the

court of Henry VIII. partly as a musician, partly as a professed wit, and partly as a writer of plays. His dramatic compositions, some of which were produced before 1521, generally represented some ludicrous familiar incident, in a style of the broadest and coarsest farce, but yet with no small skill and talent. One, called The Four P.'s, turns upon a dispute between a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Poticary, and a Pedlar, (who are the only characters,) as to which shall tell the grossest falsehood: an accidental assertion of the Palmer, that he never saw a woman out of patience in his life, takes the rest off their guard, all of whom declare it to be the greatest lie they ever heard, and the settlement of the question is thus brought about amidst much drollery. One of Heywood's chief objects seems to have been to satirize the manners of the clergy, and aid in the cause of the Reformers. There were some less distinguished writers of interludes, and Sir David Lyndsay's Satire of the Three Estates, acted in Scotland in 1539, was a play of this kind.

The regular drama, from its very commencement, was divided into comedy and tragedy, the elements of both being found quite distinct in the rude entertainments above described, not to speak of the precedents afforded by Greece and Rome. Of comedy, which was an improvement upon the interludes, and may be more remotely traced in the ludicrous parts of the moral plays, the earliest specimen that can now be found bears the uncouth title of Ralph Royster Doyster, and was the production of NICOLAS UDALL, Master of Westminster School. It is supposed to have been written in the reign of Henry VIII., but certainly not later than 1551. The scene is in London, and the characters, thirteen in number, exhibit the manners of the middle orders of the people of that day. It is divided into five acts, and the plot is amusing and well constructed. The next in point of time is Gammer Gurton's Needle, supposed to have been written about 1566 by JOHN STILL, Master of Arts, and afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells.

This is a piece of low rustic humour, the whole jest turning upon the loss and recovery of the needle with which Gammer Gurton was mending a piece of attire belonging to her man, Hodge. But it is cleverly hit off, and contains a few well-sketched characters.

The language of Ralph Royster Doyster, and of Gammer Gurton's Needle, is in long and irregularly measured rhyme, of which a specimen may be given from a speech of Dame Custance in the former play, respecting the difficulty of preserving a good reputation:

How necessary it is now a-days,

That each body live uprightly in all manner ways;
For let never so little a gap be open,

And be sure of this, the worst will be spoken!

Tragedy, of later origin than comedy, came directly from the more elevated portions of the moral plays, and from the pure models of Greece and Rome." The earliest known specimen of this kind of composition, is the Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, composed by Thomas Sackville, afterwards Earl of Dorset, and by Thomas Norton, and played before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall, by the members of the Inner Temple, in January 1561. It is founded on a fabulous incident in early British history, and is full of bloody murders and civil broils. It is written, however, in regular blank verse, consists of five acts, and observes some of the more useful rules of the classic drama of antiquity, to which it bears resemblance in the introduction of a chorus-that is, a group of persons whose sole business it is to intersperse the play with moral observations and inferences, expressed in lyrical stanzas. It may occasion some surprise that the first English tragedy should contain lines like the following:

Acastus. Your grace should now in these grave years of yours, Have found ere this the price of mortal joys;

How short they be, how fading here in earth,

MARLOWE.

How full of change, how little our estate,
Of nothing sure save only of the death,

To whom both man and all the world doth owe
Their end at last: neither should nature's power
In other sort against your heart prevail,
Than as the naked hand whose stroke assays
The armed breast where force doth light in vain.

Gorboduc. Many can yield right sage and grave advice
Of patient sprite to others wrapped in woe,

And can in speech both rule and conquer kind,
Who, if by proof they might feel nature's force,
Would show themselves men as they are indeed,
Which now will needs be gods.

43

Not long after the appearance of Ferrex and Porrex, both tragedies and comedies had become not uncommon. Damon and Pythias, the first English tragedy upon a classical subject, was acted before the queen at Oxford, in 1566; it was the composition of Richard Edwards, a learned member of the University, but was inferior to Ferrex and Porrex, in as far as it carried an admixture of vulgar comedy, and was written in rhyme. In the same year, two plays respectively styled the Supposes and Jocasta, the one a comedy adapted from Ariosto, the other a tragedy from Euripides, were acted in Gray's Inn. A tragedy called Tancred and Gismunda, composed by five members of the Inner Temple, and presented there before the Queen in 1568, was the first English play taken from an Italian novel. Within the ensuing twenty years, comedies, tragedies, histories (as expressly historical plays were called), and morals, were acted in great numbers, and several regular theatres were established in the metropolis for their performance. Among the most popular dramatic writers of that age, may be mentioned Jasper Heywood, Robert Greene, John Lylly, George Peele, Thomas Lodge, and Thomas Nash, all of whom, however, rank much beneath CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, who is almost the only predecessor of Shakspeare worthy of being

*The ties of blood.

D

classed with him. Marlowe (1562-1592), though educated at Cambridge, entered life as an actor, and thus was led to employ his poetical talents in dramatic composition. During his short life, he produced eight plays, besides miscellaneous poems, and wrought a great improvement in theatrical literature. In his Tamburlain, which was first acted in 1587, he broke through the old prejudice in favour of rhyme, which, notwithstanding the instance of Ferrex and Porrex, still kept possession of the public stage. The play is in lofty and sounding blank verse, which, beyond doubt, is alone qualified to give full effect to dramatic sentiment. In his Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, supposed to have been produced in the ensuing year, he writes with a force and freedom unknown previously in our infant drama; and, calling in the aid of magic and supernatural agency, produces a work full of power, novelty, and variety. Marlowe delighted in delineating the strong and turbulent passions. His Faustus was designed to depict ambition in its most outrageous form; his Jew of Malta, on the other hand, exhibits every good and humane feeling under subjection to the love of money. His plays contain many passages of the highest poetic excellence.

If Marlowe had no other claim to notice, he would be deserving of it, as having, by the changes he wrought in dramatic poetry, prepared the way for Shakspeare, whose writings might have otherwise wanted the freedom of blank verse, and many other excellencies. Born at Stratford on the Avon, in a humble rank of life, WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE (1564-1616), was early called to London, probably by his relation, Robert Greene, and induced to become a player. He appears, about the year 1591, to have begun to compose plays for the company to which he belonged, with hardly any expectation of their ever being applied to a more noble or extensive use. The classes of subjects chosen by him, are the same with those adopted by other writers of his own age; namely, the more striking parts of ancient and modern history, and