DRAM A. 



103 



i Drama, kind of drama may be obtained. The subject of Every 

 ^TV^^ Man is the summoning of man out of the world by 

 Drama of Death, and its moral, that nothing \vill then avail him 

 ' but a well-spent life, and the comforts of religion. This 

 subject and moral are opened in a monologue spoken 

 by the messenger, (for that was the name generally 

 given by our ancestors to the prologue on their rude 

 stage.) Then God is represented, who; after some ge- 

 neral complaints on the degeneracy or mankind, calls 

 for Death, and orders him to bring before his tribunal 

 'Account of EVery Man, for so is called the personage who re- 

 'ihe old dra- presents the human race. Every Man appeal's, and re- 

 lC ~ ceives the summons with all the marks of confusion 

 and terror. When Death is withdrawn, Every Man 

 applies for relief in this distress to Fellowship, Kindred, 

 Goods, or Riches, but they successively renounce and 

 forsake him. In this disconsolate state, he betakes him- 

 self to Good-Dede's, who, after upbraiding him with 

 his long neglect of her, introduces him to her sister 

 Knowledge, and she leads him to'the holy man Con- 

 fession, who appoints him penance. This he inflicts 

 upon himself upon the stage, and then withdraws to 

 receive the sacraments of the priest. On his return he 

 begins to wax faint ; and after Strength, Beauty, Dis- 

 cretion, and Five Wits,* have taken their leave of him, 

 gradually expires on the stage ; Good-Dedes still ac- 

 companying him to the last. Then an angel descends 

 to sing his requiem, and the Epilogue is spoken by a 

 person called Doctour, who recapitulates the whole, and 

 delivers the moral. From this analysis it may be ob- 

 served, that " Every Man" is a grave solemn piece, 

 not without some rude attempts to excite terror and 

 pity, and therefore may not improperly be referred to 

 the- class of tragedy. It is remarkable, that in this old 

 simple drama, the fable is conducted upon the strictest 

 model of the Greek tragedy. The action is simply one ; 

 the time of action is that of the performance ; the scene 

 is never changed, nor the stage ever empty. " Every 

 Man," the hero of the piece, after his first appearance, 

 never withdraws, except when he goes out to receive 

 the sacraments, which could not be well exhibited in 

 public ; and during his absence, Knowledge descants 

 on the excellence and power of the priesthood, some- 

 what after the manner of the Greek chortis. And, in- 

 deed, except in the circumstance of " Every Man's" 

 expiring on the stage, the Samson Agonistes of Milton 

 is hardly formed on a severer plan. The other play is 

 Old drama entitled Hick Scorner, and bears no distant resemblance 

 >f Hick to comedy ; its chief aim seems to be to exhibit characters 

 and manners, its plot being much less regular than the 

 foregoing. The Prologue is spoken by Pity, represent- 

 ed under the character of an aged pilgrim ; lie is joined 

 by Contemplacyon and Perseverance, two holy men, 

 who, after lamenting the degeneracy of the age, declare 

 their resolution of stemming the torrent. Pity is then left 

 upon the stage, and presently found by Freewill, re- 

 presenting a lewd debauchee, who, with his dissolute 

 companion Imaginacion, relate their manner of life, and 

 not without humour, describe the stews and other places 

 of base resort ; they are presently joined by 'Hick Scor- 

 ner, who is drawn as a libertine returned from travel, 

 and agreeably to his name, scoffs at religion. These 

 three are described as extremely vicious ; who glory in 

 every act of wickedness. At length two of them quarrel, 

 and Pity endeavours to part the fray ; on this, they fall 

 upon him, put him in the stocks, and there leave him. 

 Pity, thus imprisoned, descants in a kind of lyric mea- 



Draiua. 



Drama in 

 the reign of 

 Hen. VI II. 



sure, on the profligacy of the age ; and in this situation 

 is found by Perseverance and Contertplacyon, who set "~~~V ~" 

 him at liberty, and advise him to go in search of the Drama of 

 delinquents. As soon as he is gone, Freewill appears England, 

 again, and, after relating in a very comic manner some 

 of his rogueries and escapes from justice, is rebuked by 

 the two holy men, who, after a long altercation, at 

 length convert him and his libertine companion Imagi- 

 nacion, from their vicious course of life, and then the 

 play ends, with a few verses from Perseverance by way 

 of epilogue. This, and every morality I have seen, 

 concludes with a solemn prayer. We see then, Dr 

 Percy adds, that the writers of these moralities were 

 upon the very threshold of real tragedy and comedy, 

 and therefore we are not to wonder that tragedies and 

 comedies in form, soon after took place, especially as 

 the revival of learning about this time brought them 

 acquainted with the Greek mid Roman models. 



In the time of Henry VIII. one or two dramatic 

 pieces liad been published under the classical names of 

 tragedies and comedies. Bale applied the name of tra- 

 gedy to his God's Promise, in 1538 ; and, in 1 54-0, John 

 Palsgrave republished a Latin comedy, called Acolastus, 

 with an English version ; but these appear not to have 

 been intended for popular use : it was not till the reli- 

 gious ferments had subsided, that the public had leisure 

 to attend to dramatic poetry. In the reign of Queen 'j n therelga 

 Elizabeth, tragedies and comedies began to appear in of Queen 

 form ; and could the poets have persevered, the first Elizabeth. 

 models were good. Gorbodue, a regular tragedy, was 

 acted in 1561 j and Gascoigne, in 156Y>, exhibited ,7o- 

 casta, a translation from Euripides, as also the Supposes, 

 a regular comedy, from Ariosto, near thirty years be- 

 fore any of Shakespeare's were printed. The people 

 still, however, retained a relish for their old mysteries 

 and moralities, and the popular dramatic poets seem to 

 have made them their models, From the graver sort 

 of moralities, our tragedy appears to have derived its 

 origin, as our comedy evidently took its rise from the 

 lighter interludes of that kind. As most of these pieces 

 contain an absurd mixture of religion and buffoonery, 

 Bishop Warburton has derived from thence our " un- 

 natural trtigi-comedies." Indefensible, however, as tra- 

 gi-comedies are, upon the cultivated and genuine prin- 

 ciples of art, they may be barbarous, but are not so . 

 well entitled to the epithet of unnatural ; and it seems 

 unnecessary to trace back the origin of tragi-comedy 

 to any circumstance, except the primitive rudeness of 

 human taste, to which, at a certain era in all countries, 

 the mixture of the ludicrous and the serious seems to 

 be perfectly congenial. 



After tragedy and comedy had got possession of 

 our stage, the moralities still kept their ground. One 

 of them, entitled The New Ciistiim, was printed so 

 late as 1573. -At length they assumed the name of 

 masques, and, with some classical improvements, be- 

 came, in the following reigns, the favourite enter- 

 tainments of the court. The old mysteries, (says 

 Dr Percy.) which ceased to be acted after the Refor- 

 mation, appear to have given birth to a third species of 

 stage exhibition, which, though now confounded with 

 tragedy and comedy, were, by our first dramatic wri- 

 ter, considered as quite distinct from them both. These Historical 

 were historical plays, or histories ; a species of dramatic l )la }'*- 

 writing which resembled the old mysteries, in repre- 

 senting a series of historical events, simply in the order 

 of time in which they happened, without any regard to 



These arc frequently exhibited as five distinct personages on the Spanish stage, but our moralist has represented them by one chaiacu* 



