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and being to the English drama. It is my intention to illustrate 
by some short passages from the different dramatists, each separate 
era in the history of the stage. [The author read Shakespere’s 
comparison of the world to a stage. As you like it—Act 2 
scene vii. | 
Ben Jonson generally has assigned to him the second place 
in dramatic literature, although many writers advocate the more 
_Shakesperian style of Beaumont and Fletcher. Like Shakespeare, 
Jonson was an actor, and therefore naturally understood better the 
requirements most needed in building up a play. Ben Jonson is 
more famed for comedy than tragedy. [As a specimen of his 
quaint humour and conceit, the author read a short extract from 
“Every Man in his Humour,” where one Bobadil, a braggadocia 
fellow, tells you his plan how to save the expense of an army. | 
The chief fault of the comedies of the Elizabethan age is their 
coarseness, but that was the habit of the time; and when we reflect 
that the beautiful creations of Portia, Imogene, Juliet, and Rosalind, 
were not acted by females, but by young men and boys, it may go 
some little way to palliate their grossness. 
Up to this time the authors of each drama had to beg, cap in 
hand, permission from some noble lord or patron of the drama, to 
dedicate their plays to him; and the recompense each generally 
received was a gratuity doled out according to the fulsome adulation 
addressed in the dedication. Poets and dramatists at all times 
have been unfortunate, and even the mighty Shakespere, 
although his dramas were always accepted and found favour in his 
_ day, became rich and opulent, not by his works, or by his acting 
(for he was but a third rate performer), but by his share in the 
_ proprietorship of the Globe theatre, which was a profitable concern, 
_and placed him and his fellows above the reach of want. In 
Shakespere’s time many of his brother actors wielded the dramatic 
pen, but all their works were eclipsed by his more magic hand. 
Following Queen Elizabeth, the reign of James I. produced 
