ELIZABETHAN DRAMA i 95 



liographical reasoning which established the position that some of the Shakespeare 

 quartos, which bear the dates 1600 and 1608 on their title pages, were really printed in 

 1619, and form part of an endeavour, earlier than that of 1623, to produce a collective 

 edition of some at least of the plays. This is of course a discovery with which the critical 

 editor of Shakespeare, no less than the bibliographer, must make his account. Following 

 up the same train of research, Dr. Greg in an edition (1910) of the First Quarto of The 

 Merry Wives of Windsor has produced some interesting speculations as to how that 

 piratical text may have come into being, probably with the aid of a blackleg actor who 

 played the part of the Host. 



The structure of the Elizabethan theatre and the methods of staging plays upon its 

 boards continue to be the subjects of minute investigation. But the ground has by now 

 been fairly covered, and there is not likely, so far as existing material is concerned, to 

 be much to add to the exhaustive monographs of V. E. Albright, The Shakesperian 

 Stage (1909) and B. Neuendorff, Die englische Volksbuhne im Zeitalter S hakes p ear es 

 (1910). These are of American and German origin respectively; the most important 

 recent English contribution to the solution of the problems involved is to be found in 

 the erudite and well-reasoned papers by Mr. W. J. Lawrence collected in his The 

 Elizabethan Playhouse and Other Studies (1912). The mounting of plays at court has 

 been treated, on the basis of the accounts of the Revels office which he edited in 1908, 

 by Prof. Feuillerat in Le Bureau des Menus- Plaisirs et la Mise en Scene a la Cour d' Eliza- 

 beth (1910) ; and a cognate subject by M. Paul Reyher in Les Masques Anglais (1909), 

 wherein the importance of the part played by Inigo Jones in the spectacular develop- 

 ment of the masque under the Stuarts is very fully established. 



Two comprehensive works on the history of English drama in its literary aspect 

 have appeared. One is the first part of the fourth volume of Prof. Creizenach's monu- 

 mental Geschichte des neueren Dramas (1909), which is wholly concerned with England 

 and covers the period 1570-1593. The other consists of a number of chapters by various 

 writers forming volumes v and vi of the Cambridge History of English Literature, issued 

 together in 1910. These range from the origins of the drama to 1642 and are supple- 

 mented by three chapters on the Restoration drama in volume viii, issued in 1912. As 

 might be expected from the method adopted, the treatment lacks continuity, but several 

 of the chapters and of the bibliographies by which they are accompanied are of individual 

 value. Amongst special monographs Prof. Feuillerat's John Lyly (1910) and Miss M. 

 L. Hunt's Thomas Dekker (1911) call for mention. The critical editing of texts has made 

 some progress. The long desired edition of Ben Jonson by Prof. Herford and Mr. Percy 

 Simpson has not yet made its appearance, and editions of Dekker and of Thomas 

 Heywood are still to seek. But Dr. Waller's 10 volume reprint of the Second Folio of 

 Beaumont and Fletcher reached completion in 1012, and the fourth volume of the more 

 elaborate " Variorum " edition supervised by Mr. A. H. Bullen is on the point of issue. 

 Mr. C. F. Tucker Brooke has published a useful text of Marlowe (1910), preparatory to 

 a full edition; Mr. R. W. Bond, a volume of Early Plays from the Italian (1911) ; and Prof. 

 J. W. Cunliffe, a volume of Early English Classical Tragedies (1912). Particularly 

 welcome is the first volume of an edition of George Chapman's plays (1910) by Prof. 

 T. M. Parrott of Princeton University. Little has been done for mediaeval dramatic 

 texts; but Dr. Karl Young has contributed some valuable versions of liturgical plays 

 to the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America and other periodicals. 

 The careful facsimile reprints of plays issued by the Malone Society under the editorship 

 of Dr. W. W. Greg continue to appear in annual instalments. Two of the .series, The 

 Second Maiden's Tragedy (1909) and Sir Thomas More (1911) are not strictly reprints, 

 but are of singular interest as being attempts to exhaust the resources of typography in 

 reproducing the palaeographical peculiarities of complicated manuscripts, upon which 

 several hands have been at work. These texts, with Dr. Greg's introductory notes, 

 render possible some estimate of the extent and methods of official censorship as exer- 

 cised by Edmund Tilney and Sir George Buck; and that of Sir Thomas More also affords 

 opportunity for the reopening of the old controversy as to whether one of the passages 



