It was avowedly taken from Euripides, but can hardly be called a translation, since it makes "many omissions, retrenchments, and transpositions"; though the main substance of the original is retained.
The example of making English plays out of Italian novels appears to have been first set, unless the lost play of _Romeo and Juliet_ should be excepted, in 1568, when the tragedy of _Tancred and Gismunda_ was performed before Elizabeth at the Inner Temple. It was the work of five persons, each 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 _The Palace of Pleasure_.
The accounts of the revels from 1568 to 1580 furnish the t.i.tles of fifty-two dramas performed at Court, none of which have survived. Of these fifty-two pieces, judging by the t.i.tles, eighteen were on cla.s.sical subjects; twenty-one on subjects from modern history, romance, and other tales; while seven may be cla.s.sed as comedies, and six as Moral-Plays. It is to be noted, also, that at this time the Master of the Revels was wont to have different sets of players rehea.r.s.e their pieces before him, and then to choose such of them as he judged fit for royal ears; which infers that the Court rather followed than led the popular taste.
This may probably be taken as a fair indication how far the older species of drama still kept its place on the stage. Moral-Plays lingered in occasional use till long after this period; and we even hear of Miracle-Plays performed now and then till after the death of Elizabeth. And this was much more the case, no doubt, in the country towns and villages than in the metropolis, as the growing life of thought could not but beat l.u.s.tiest at the heart; and of course all the rest of the nation could not bridle Innovation, spurred as she was by the fierce compet.i.tion of wit in London.
Certain parts, however, of the Moral-Plays had vigour enough, it appears, to propagate themselves into the drama of comedy and tragedy after the main body of them had been withdrawn. An apt instance of this is furnished in _A Knack to know a Knave_, entered at the Stationers" in 1593, but written several years before. It was printed in 1594, the t.i.tle-page stating that it had been "acted sundry times by Edward Alleyn and his company," and that it contained "Kempe"s applauded merriments of the men of Gotham."[4]
[4] Alleyn, the founder of Dulwich College, was the leading actor of the Lord Admiral"s company; and, after the death of Tarlton in 1588, Kempe, who at a later period was of the same company with Shakespeare, bore the palm as an actor of comic parts.
The play is made up partly of allegorical personages, partly of historical; the chief of the latter being King Edgar, St. Dunstan, Ethenwald, Osrick, and his daughter Alfrida. From reports of Alfrida"s beauty, Edgar gets so enamoured of her, that he sends Ethenwald, Earl of Cornwall, to court her for him. The Earl, being already in love with the lady, wants to court her for himself. Introduced by her father, his pa.s.sion gets the better of his commission; he woos and wins her, and has her father"s consent. On his return, he tells Edgar she will do very well for an earl, but not for a king: Edgar distrusts his report, and goes to see for himself, when Ethenwald tries to pa.s.s off the kitchen-maid as Alfrida: the trick is detected, Dunstan counsels forgiveness, and Edgar generously renounces his claim. There is but one scene of "Kempe"s applauded merriments," and this consists merely of a blundering dispute, whether a mock pet.i.tion touching the consumption of ale shall be presented to the King by a cobbler or a smith.
As to the allegorical persons, it is worth noting that several of these have individual designations, as if the author had some vague ideas of representative character,--that is, persons standing for cla.s.ses, yet clothed with individuality,--but lacked the skill to work them out. Such is the Bailiff of Hexham, who represents the iniquities of local magistrates. He has four sons,--Walter, representing the frauds of farmers; Priest, the sins of the clergy; Coney-catcher, the tricks of cheats; and Perin, the vices of courtiers. Besides these, we have Honesty, whose business it is to expose crimes and vices. The Devil makes his appearance several times, and, when the old Bailiff dies, carries him off. At last, Honesty exposes the crimes of all cla.s.ses to the King, who has justice done on their representatives.--The piece is in blank-verse, and in respect of versification shows considerable improvement on the specimens. .h.i.therto noticed.
SHAKESPEARE"S CONTEMPORARIES.
Touching the general state of the Drama a few years before Shakespeare took hold of it, our information is full and clear, not only in the specimens that have survived, but in the criticisms of contemporary writers. A good deal of the criticism, however, is so mixed up with personal and polemical invective, as to be unworthy of much credit.
George Whetstone, in the dedication of his _Promos and Ca.s.sandra_, published in 1578, tells us: "The Englishman in this quality is most vain, indiscreet, and out of order. He first grounds his work on impossibilities; then in three hours he runs through the world, marries, makes children men, men to conquer kingdoms, murder monsters, and bringeth G.o.ds from Heaven, and fetcheth devils from h.e.l.l. And, that which is worst, many times, to make mirth, they make a clown companion with a king; in their grave counsels they allow the advice of Fools; yea, they use one order of speech for all persons,--a gross indecorum."--In 1581, Stephen Gosson published a tract in which he says: "Sometimes you shall see nothing but the adventures of an amorous knight, pa.s.sing from country to country for the love of his lady, encountering many a terrible monster made of brown paper; and at his return so wonderfully changed, that he cannot be known but by some posy in his tablet, or by a broken ring, or a handkerchief, or a piece of c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l." And in another part of the same tract he tells us that "_The Palace of Pleasure, The Ethiopian History, Amadis of France_, and _The Round Table_, comedies in Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish, have been thoroughly ransacked, to furnish the play-houses in London." Which shows very clearly what direction the public taste was then taking. The matter and method of the old dramas, and all "such musty fopperies of antiquity," would no longer do: there was an eager though ignorant demand for something wherein the people might find or fancy themselves touched by the real currents of nature.
And, as prescription was thus set aside, and art still ungrown, the materials of history and romance, foreign tales and plays, any thing that could furnish incidents and a plot, were blindly pressed into the service.
Whatever discredit may attach to the foregoing extracts on the score of prejudice or pa.s.sion, nothing of the sort can hold in the case of Sir Philip Sidney, whose _Defence of Poesy_, though not printed till 1595, must have been written before 1586, in which year the author died. "Our tragedies and comedies," says he, "are not without cause cried out against, observing rules neither of honest civility nor skilful poetry. You shall have Asia of the one side, and Afric of the other, and so many other under-kingdoms, that the player, when he comes in, must ever begin with telling where he is, or else the tale will not be conceived. Now you shall have three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then we must-believe the stage to be a garden: by-and-by we hear news of a shipwreck in the same place; then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock. Upon the back of that, comes out a hideous monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a cave; while in the mean time two armies fly in, represented with four swords and bucklers, and then what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field? Now, of time they are much more liberal; for ordinary it is, that two young princes fall in love; after many traverses she is delivered of a fair boy; he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, and all this in two hours" s.p.a.ce: which how absurd it is in sense, even sense may imagine, and art hath taught, and all ancient examples justified. But, besides these gross absurdities, all their plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders, to play a part in majestical matters with neither decency nor discretion."
From all which it is evident enough that very little if any heed was then paid to dramatic propriety and decorum. It was not _merely_ that the unities of place and time were set at nought, but that events and persons were thrown together without _any_ order or law; unconnected with each other save to the senses, while at the same time according to sense they were far asunder. It is also manifest that the principles of the Gothic Drama in respect of general structure and composition, in disregard of the minor unities, and in the free blending and interchange of the comic and tragic elements, were thoroughly established; though not yet moulded up with sufficient art to shield them from the just censure and ridicule of sober judgment and good taste. Here was a great work to be done; greater than any art then known was sufficient for. Without this, any thing like an original or national drama was impossible. Sir Philip saw the chaos about him; but he did not see, and none could foresee, the creation that was to issue from it. He would have spoken very differently, no doubt, had he lived to see the intrinsic relations of character and pa.s.sion, the vital sequence of mental and moral development, set forth in such clearness and strength, the whole fabric resting on such solid grounds, of philosophy, and charged with such cunning efficacies of poetry, that breaches of local and chronological succession either pa.s.s without notice, or are noticed only for the gain of truth and nature that is made through them. For the laws of sense hold only as the thoughts are absorbed in what is sensuous and definite; and the very point was, to lift the mind above this by working on its imaginative forces, and penetrating it with the light of relations more inward and essential.
At all events, it was by going ahead, and not by retreating, that modern thought was to find its proper dramatic expression. The foundation of principles was settled, and stood ready to be built upon whenever the right workman should come. Moreover public taste was sharp for something warm with life, so much so indeed as to keep running hither and thither after the shabbiest semblances of it, but still unable to rest with them. The national mind, in discarding, or rather outgrowing the older species of drama, had worked itself into contact with Nature. And it was the uncritical, popular, living, practical mind that was to give the law in this business: nothing was to be achieved either by the word or the work of those learned folk who would not be pleased unless they could pa.r.s.e their pleasure by the rules of ancient grammar. But to reproduce nature in mental forms requires great power of art, much greater, perhaps, than minds educated amidst works of art can well conceive.
Which brings me to the matter of Shakespeare"s SENIOR CONTEMPORARIES.
For here, again, the process was gradual. Neither may we affirm that nothing had yet been done towards organizing the collected materials.
But the methods and faculties of art were scattered here and there; different parts of the thing had been worked out severally; and it yet remained to draw and knit them all up together. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to determine exactly by whom the first steps were taken in this work. But all that was done of much consequence, Shakespeare apart, may be found in connection with the three names of George Peele, Robert Greene, and Christopher Marlowe.
PEELE took his first degree at Oxford in 1577, and became Master of Arts in 1579. Soon after this, he is supposed to have gone to London as a literary adventurer. Dissipation and debauchery were especially rife at that time among the authors by profession, who hung in large numbers upon the metropolis, haunting its taverns and ordinaries; and it is but too certain that Peele plunged deeply into the vices of his cla.s.s.
His first dramatic work, _The Arraignment of Paris_, was printed in 1584, the t.i.tle-page stating that it had been played before the Queen by the children of her chapel. The piece is vastly superior to any thing known to have preceded it. It is avowedly a pastoral drama, and sets forth a whole troop of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses; with nothing that can properly be called delineation of character. The plot is simply this: Juno, Pallas, and Venus get at strife who shall have the apple of discord which Ate has thrown among them, with directions that it be given to the fairest. As each thinks herself the fairest, they agree to refer the question to Paris, the Trojan shepherd, who, after mature deliberation, awards the golden ball to Venus. An appeal is taken: he is arraigned before Jupiter in a synod of the G.o.ds for having rendered a partial and unjust sentence; but defends himself so well, that their G.o.dships are at a loss what to do. At last, by Apollo"s advice, the matter is referred to Diana, who, as she wants no lovers, cares little for beauty. Diana sets aside all their claims, and awards the apple to Queen Elizabeth; which verdict gives perfect satisfaction all round.
The piece displays fair gifts of poetry; it abounds in natural and well-proportioned sentiment; thoughts and images seem to rise up fresh from the writer"s observation, and not merely gathered at second hand; a considerable portion is in blank-verse, but the author uses various measures, in all which his versification is graceful and flowing.
_The Battle of Alcazar_, written as early as 1589, but not printed till 1594, is a strange performance, and nearly as worthless as strange; full of tearing rant and fustian; while the action, if such it may be called, goes it with prodigious license, jumping to and fro between Portugal and Africa without remorse. I have some difficulty in believing the piece to be Peele"s: certainly it is not in his vein, nor, as to that matter, in anybody"s else; for it betrays at every step an ambitions imitation of Marlowe, wherein, as usually happens, the faults of the model are exaggerated, and the virtues not reached.
Peele could hardly have been cast into such an ecstasy of disorder, but from a wild attempt to rival the author of _Tamburlaine_, which is several times referred to in the piece.
_King Edward the First_, printed in 1593, and probably written later than the preceding, is much better every way. But its chief claim to notice is as an early attempt in the Historical Drama, which Shakespeare brought to such perfection. The character of Edward is portrayed with considerable spirit and truth to history, and is perhaps Peele"s best effort in that line. On the other hand, Queen Elinor of Castile is shockingly disfigured, and this, not only in contempt of history, which might be borne with if it really enriched the scene, but to the total disorganizing of the part itself; the purpose being, no doubt, to gratify the bitter national antipathy to the Spaniards. Peele seems to have been incapable of the proper grace and delectation of comedy: nevertheless the part of Prince Lluellen, of Wales, and his adherents, who figure pretty largely, and sometimes in the disguise of Robin Hood and his merry men, shows something of comic talent, and adds to the entertainment of the piece. The other comic portions have nothing to recommend them.
_The Old Wives" Tale_, printed in 1595, is little worth mention save as having probably contributed somewhat to one of the n.o.blest and sweetest poems ever written.--Two brothers are wandering in quest of their sister, whom Sac.r.a.pant, an enchanter, has imprisoned: they call her name, and Echo replies; whereupon Sac.r.a.pant gives her a potion that induces self-oblivion. His magical powers depend on a wreath which encircles his head, and on a light enclosed in gla.s.s which he keeps hidden under the turf. The brothers afterwards meet with an old man, also skilled in magic, who enables them to recover their sister.
A Spirit in the likeness of a young page comes to Sac.r.a.pant, tears off his wreath, and kills him. Still the sister remains enchanted, and cannot be released till the gla.s.s is broken and the light extinguished; which can only be done by a Lady who is neither maid, wife, nor widow. The Spirit blows a magical horn, and the Lady appears, breaks the gla.s.s, and puts out the light. A curtain being then withdrawn discovers the sister asleep; she is disenchanted, joins her brothers, and the Spirit vanishes.--The resemblance to Milton"s _Comus_ need not be pointed out. The difference of the two pieces in all points of execution is literally immense; Peele"s work in this case being all steeped in meanness and vulgarity, without a touch of truth, poetry, or wit.
_The Love of King David and Fair Bethseba_ is commonly regarded as Peele"s masterpiece. And here, again, we breathe the genuine air of nature and simplicity. The piece is all in blank-verse, which, though wanting in variety, is replete with melody; and it has pa.s.sages of tenderness and pathos such as to invest it with an almost sacred charm. There is perhaps a somewhat too literal adherence to the Scripture narrative, and very little art used in the ordering and disposing of the materials, for Peele was neither strong nor happy in the gift of invention; but the characters generally are seized in their most peculiar traits, and presented with a good degree of vigour and discrimination; while at the same time their more prominent features are not worked into disproportion with the other parts.
Peele"s contributions to the Drama were mainly in the single article of poetry: here his example was so marked, that it was bound to be respected and emulated by all who undertook to work in the same field.
In the development of character, and in the high art of dramatic composition and organization, he added very little; his genius being far unequal to this high task, and his judgment still more so. And his efforts were probably rendered fitful and unsteady by vicious habits; which may explain why it was that he who could do so well sometimes did so meanly. Often, no doubt, when reduced to extreme shifts, he patched up his matter loosely and trundled it off in haste, to replenish his wasted means, and start him on a fresh course of riot and debauchery.
GREENE, inferior to Peele as a whole, surpa.s.sed him however in fertility and aptness of invention, in quickness and luxuriousness of fancy, and in the right seizing and placing of character, especially for comic effect. In his day he was vastly notorious both as a writer and a man;--a cheap counterfeit of fame which he achieved with remarkable ease, and seems not to have coveted any thing better. He took his first degree at Cambridge in 1578, proceeded Master of Arts in 1583, and was incorporated at Oxford in 1588; after which he was rather fond of styling himself "Master of Arts in both Universities."
Soon after 1585, if not before, he betook himself to London, where he speedily sank into the worst type of a literary adventurer.
Thenceforth his life seems to have been one continual spasm, plunging hither and thither in transports of wild profligacy and repentance. He died in 1592, eaten up with diseases purchased by sin.
Much of Greene"s notoriety during his lifetime grew from his prose writings, which, in the form of tracts, were rapidly thrown off, and were well adapted both in matter and style to catch a loud but transient popularity. One of them had the honour of being laid under contribution for _The Winter"s Tale_. In these pieces, generally, the most striking features are a constant affecting of the euphuistic style which John Lily had rendered popular, and a certain incontinence of metaphors and cla.s.sical allusions, the issue of a full and ready memory unrestrained by taste or judgment; the writer galloping on from page to page with unflagging volubility, himself evidently captivated with the rolling sound of his own sentences. Still, his descriptions often have a warmth and height of colouring that could not fail to take prodigiously in an age when severity or delicacy of taste was none of the commonest. Several of his prose pieces are liberally interspersed with pa.s.sages of poetry, in which he uses a variety of measures, and most of them with an easy, natural skill, while his cast of thought and imagery shows him by no means a stranger to the springs of poetic sweetness and grace, though he never rises to any thing like grandeur.
_The History of Orlando Furioso_ was acted as early as 1591, and probably written some time before. The plot was partly founded on Ariosto"s romance, partly invented by Greene himself. The action, or what stands for such, is conducted with the wildest license, and shows no sense or idea of dramatic truth, but only a prodigious straining after stage effect; the writer trying, apparently, how many men of different nations, European, African, and Asiatic, he could huddle in together, and how much love, rivalry, and fighting he could put them through in the compa.s.s of five Acts. As for the fury of Orlando, it is as far from the method of madness as from the logic of reason; being none other than the incoherent jargon of one endeavouring to talk stark nonsense.
_Alphonsus, King of Arragon_, belongs, by internal marks, to about the same period as the preceding, but is not known to have been printed till 1597. Each Act opens with a chorus by Venus. Medea, also, is employed to work enchantments, and raises Homer"s Calchas, who comes forth "clad in a white surplice and a cardinal"s mitre." This play, too, is crammed from first to last brimful of tumult and battle; the scene changing between Italy and Turkey with admirable lawlessness; and Christians of divers nations, Turks, and a band of Amazonian warriors, bestriding the stage with their monstrous din.
Both of these pieces are mainly in blank-verse, with a frequent interspersing of couplets. In the latter piece, allusion is made to "the mighty Tamburlaine," thus indicating the height which Greene was striving to reach, if not surpa.s.s. In fact, both pieces have plenty of Marlowe"s thunder, but none of his lightning. Even the blank-verse reads like that of one accustomed to rhyme, and unable to get out of his wonted rut. And the versification runs, throughout, in a stilted monotony, the style being made thick and turgid with high-sounding epithets; while we have a perfect flux of learned impertinence. As for truth, nature, character, poetry, we look for them in vain; though there is much, in the stage noise and parade, that might keep the mult.i.tude from perceiving the want of them.
In _The Scottish History of James the Fourth_, probably written some time after the two preceding, the author seems to have got convinced that imitation of Marlowe was not his line, and that he could do best by working his own native vein: accordingly, considerable portions of it are in prose and rhyme; while the style throughout is disciplined into a tolerable degree of sobriety and simplicity. Though purporting to be a history, it has scarce any thing of historical matter. It opens with a comic scene betwixt Oberon, King of Fairies, and Bohan, an old Scottish lord, who, disgusted with the vices of Court, city, and country, has withdrawn from the world with his two sons, Slipper and Nano, turned Stoic, lives in a tomb, and talks broad Scotch. King Oberon has nothing in common with the fairy king of _A Midsummer Night"s Dream_, except the name. The main plot of the drama is as follows:
King James marries Dorothea, the daughter of Arius, King of England.
Before the wedding is fairly over, he falls in love with Ida, the Countess of Arran"s daughter, makes suit to her, and is rejected with horror. He then sets himself to work to get rid of his Queen, turns away from his old counsellors, and gives his ear to an unscrupulous parasite named Ateukin. Through his influence, the King forms a scheme for a.s.sa.s.sinating the Queen; who gets information of the plot, disguises herself in male attire, and escapes, with Nano in her company. The parasite"s agent overtakes her, finds out who she is, fights with her, and leaves her for dead. During the fight, Nano runs for help, and soon returns with Sir Cuthbert Anderson, who takes her to his house, where her wounds are healed, both Sir Cuthbert and his wife supposing her all the while to be a man. Meanwhile Ida gives herself in marriage to Lord Eustace, with whom she has suddenly fallen in love upon his asking her hand. The King now begins to be devoured by compunctions on account of the Queen, believing her to be dead. The King of England also gets intelligence how his daughter has been treated, and makes war on her husband. When they are on the eve of a decisive battle, Dorothea makes her appearance, to the astonishment of all the parties: she pleads tenderly for her repentant husband, and a general reconciliation takes place; Ateukin and his abettors being delivered over to their deserts.
This play has something of what may not unworthily be called character. The parts of Ida and the Queen are not without delicacy and pathos, showing that the author was not far from some right ideas of what womanhood is. Ateukin"s part, too, is very well conceived and sustained, though the qualities of a parasite are made rather too naked and bald, as would naturally result from the writer"s ambition being stronger than his love of nature and truth. The comic portions are much beyond any thing we have met with in that line, since _Ralph Roister Doister_ and _Misogonus_. The versification is endurably free from gas, and the style in many parts may be p.r.o.nounced rather tight and sinewy.
_Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_ was printed in 1594, but acted as early as 1591. The hero is Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward the First; the heroine, Margaret, a keeper"s daughter, known as "the fair maid of Fressingfield." The Prince, who is out on a hunting excursion with Lacy and several other friends, and Ralph Simnel, the Court Fool, meets with Margaret, and his fancy is at once smitten with her, while she has no suspicion who he is. At Ralph"s suggestion, he sends Lacy, in the disguise of a farmer"s son, to court Margaret for him, and sets out on a visit to Friar Bacon at Oxford, to learn from the conjurer how his suit is going to speed. Lacy thinks the Prince"s aim is not to wed the girl, but to entrap and beguile her; besides, his own heart is already interested; so he goes to courting her in good earnest for himself. Meanwhile the Prince with his company, all disguised, arrives at Friar Bacon"s; and, through the conjurer"s art, learns what Lacy is doing. Soon after, he comes upon Lacy, poniard in hand, meaning to kill him on the spot. Margaret, being present, intercedes for her lover, and takes all the blame of his course to herself. The Prince then lays siege to her in person, but she vows she will rather die with Lacy than divorce her heart from his, and finally reminds him of his own princely honour; whereupon he frankly resigns her to his rival"s hand.
Among other entertainments of the scene, we have a trial of national skill between Bacon and Bungay on one side, and Vandermast, a noted conjurer from Germany, on the other. First, Bungay tries his art, and is thoroughly baffled by the German; then Bacon takes Vandermast in hand, and outconjures him all to nothing. Bacon has a servant named Miles, who, for his ignorant blundering in a weighty matter, is at last carried off by one of his master"s devils. The last scene is concerned with the marriage of Prince Edward and Elinor of Castile, and is closed by Bacon with a grand prophecy touching Elizabeth.
Here, again, we have some fair lines of characterization, especially in the Prince, Lacy, Margaret, and Ralph. The heroine is altogether Greene"s masterpiece in female character; she exhibits much strength, spirit, and sweetness of composition; in fact, she is not equalled by any woman of the English stage till we come to Shakespeare, whom no one has ever approached in that line. It scarce need be said that the play is quite guiltless of any thing worthy to be named _dramatic composition_. But it has a good deal of dramatic poetry, that would be almost charming, had not Shakespeare spoilt every thing of the kind that was done before he taught men how to do it.
The comedy of _George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield_, printed in 1599, is ascribed to Greene, but, it seems to me, not on very strong grounds. I can hardly believe it his; certainly the style and versification are much better than in any other of his plays; nor does it show any thing of that incontinence of learning which he seems to have been unable to restrain. The blank-verse, too, is far unlike Greene"s anywhere else.
The story of the piece is quite entertaining in itself, and is set forth with a good deal of vivacity and spirit. Among the characters are King Edward of England, King James of Scotland, the Earl of Kendall, with other lords, and Robin Hood. George a Greene is the hero; who, what with his wit, and what with his strength, gets the better of all the other persons in turn. Withal he is full of high and solid manhood, and his character is drawn with more vigour and life than any hitherto noticed. The piece opens with the Earl of Kendall and his adherents in rebellion against the State. The Earl sends Sir Nicholas Mannering to Wakefield, to demand provision for his camp. Sir Nicholas enters the town, and shows his commission: the magistrates are at a loss what to do, till the hero comes amongst them, outfaces the messenger, tears up his commission, makes him eat the seals, and sends him back with an answer of defiance.
Greene was concerned, along with Thomas Lodge, in writing another extant play, ent.i.tled _A Looking-Gla.s.s for London and England_. This is little better than a piece of stage trash, being a mixture of comedy, tragedy, and Miracle-Play; an Angel, a Devil, and the Prophet Hosea taking part in the action. The verse parts are in Greene"s puffiest style, the prose parts in his filthiest.
Greene probably wrote divers other plays, but none others have survived that are known to be his.
MARLOWE, the greatest of Shakespeare"s senior contemporaries, was baptized in St. George"s church, Canterbury, on the 26th of February, 1564, just two months before the baptism of Shakespeare. He took his first degree at Cambridge in 1583, became Master of Arts in 1587, and was soon after embarked among the worst literary adventurers in London, living by his wits, and rioting on the quick profits of his pen. His career was brief, but fruitful,--fruitful in more senses than one. He was slain by one Francis Archer in a brawl, on the 1st of June, 1593.
His first dramatic work was _Tamburlaine the Great_, in two parts; printed in 1590, but written before 1588. In this work, what Ben Jonson describes as "Marlowe"s mighty line" is out in all its mightiness. The lines, to be sure, have a vast amount of strut and swell in them, but then they also have a good deal of real energy and force. Marlowe has had much praise, perhaps more than his due, as the introducer of blank-verse on the public stage; it being alleged that the previous use of it was only in what may be called private theatricals. Be that as it may, he undoubtedly did much towards _fixing_ it as the habit of English dramatic poetry. _Tamburlaine_ had a sudden, a great, and long-continued popularity. And its success may have been partly owing to its faults, inasmuch as the public ear, long used to rhyme, needed some compensation in the way of grandiloquent stuffing, which was here supplied in abundance.