USH LI 



111 



in Chaucer ' workH. Not lung afterwards, early in tbo t: 

 i-fistii! began to oonio into vogue. Th< 



entirely mjpurxi'deii tli. i.ut they ^. 



ii|...n tin-in until ti irly supplanted them. 



Both, 



K.i/.uln<th. I that inyrttoricM and mural* 



: though I : frequently, 



the whole of her roig-u ami down to its very close, if 

 a somewhat later period. T!u;y only faded away 

 splendour of tin- Elizabethan drama. 



The prevalence of the monility over the more sacred n 

 was evidently a xtep towards bringing the dniuia to deal with 

 bjeots of real lit" and iva! huniiin character. A further 

 te in this diriM'tion was niadn by the class of short play, 

 or rather scenes, which hnvo received specially the name of 

 idea. They were short comic pieces, each of :i 



generally of a broadly humoroas character intended, 

 P'-rlmpH, to be acted in the intervals of longer performances. 

 Tho principal writer of those pieces was .Mm Hoywood, who 

 !io office of court jester under Henry V 1 1 1 . 



The transition state of the drama before the accession of 

 Elisabeth and in the early years of her reign is well illustrated 

 by the career and works of Bale. John Bale was a churchman, 

 and a man of extensive and varied learning, a laborious author, 

 and an eager controversialist. Early in life ho embraced the 

 reformed faith, and under Edward VI. ho was made Bishop 

 of Ossory. The accession of Queen Mary obliged him to leave 

 his Irish see ; and, although restored under Elizabeth, he never 

 i. turned to it, but died in England five or six years after that 

 queen's accession. He was the author of several prose works, 

 of which the most important is a Latin biography of British 

 authors. But it is as a dramatist that we are concerned with 

 him at present. He was one of tho most diligent writers of 

 religious plays in tho old forms, mysteries and moralities. 

 But in his hands, as in many others, apparently, at that time, 

 -ro 710 longer designed for tho simple teaching of tho 

 undisputed truths of Christianity his plays, whatever their 

 form, are in substance controversial attacks upon Popery, in 

 bitter contest with which his whole life was spent. But in 

 addition to his plays of this class, he was the author of one 

 which forms an important connecting link between tho old and 

 now drama. His play of ''King John" is founded upon tho 

 old chronicles of that king's reign, which it follows pretty 

 closely ; bnt tho play partakes also of the characteristics of 

 the morality, for side by side with the historical personages 

 with whom wo arc familiar, wo find the stage occupied by such 

 abstractions as Widowed England, Verity, Treason, and Se- 

 dition. This is the oldest historical play extant, but it was 

 soon followed by others of the same class. 



Tho first regular comedies in the language belong to about 

 the same period. The earliest comedy which has come down 

 t > us is " Ralph Royster Doyster," written by Nicholas Udall, 

 master first of Eton and afterwards of Westminster School, 

 which was acted in the year 1551. This is a comedy of con- 

 siderable force and spirit, representing tho vices, follies, and 

 misfortunes of a rich and senseless young man, Ralph Royster 

 Doyster, surrounded by a troop of flatterers, who live upon 

 him and lead him into every sort of trouble. Of somewhat 

 later date, and of far inferior merit, is the comedy of "Gammer 

 Gurton's Needle," supposed to have been written by John Still, 

 Bishop of Bath and Wells. This play is founded upon a farcical 

 incident of low life, but the humour of tho piece never rises 

 above the merest and coarsest buffoonery. 



Very little later we meet with tho first regular tragedies. 

 Among those, one of the earliest, if not tho very earliest, is the 

 tragedy of " Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex." This play was tho 

 joint production of Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst (a poet of 

 whom we have already given some account, when speaking of 

 the " Mirror for Magistrates," tho great work designed and in 

 part executed by him), and of Thomas Norton ; and it was 

 acted in 15G2. It is founded upon a story from the legendary 

 British history a story which had been several times used for 

 poetical purposes before, amongst other places, in the " Mirror 

 for Magistrates " itself. The story is a very tragic one, by no 

 means ill suited for representation on tho stage ; and the language 

 of the play is dignified and net wanting in eloquence. But the 

 play, as a play, is lifeless and uninteresting. It is written in blank 

 verse ; the earliest example of the use of this metre in dramatic 



composition. Thi* tragedy was rapidly followed by other* of 

 the name olass ; and thai by a very early period in the reign of 

 Elizabeth, the throe main kind* of drama which were cultivated 

 with mont BUOCOMII in the Elizabethan age tragedy, comedy, and 

 history were already in existence, though the art of dramatic: 

 computation wan uu.-rely in it* infancy. 



Jtut In -t.,rc wo go on to notice tho Elizabethan dramatist*, 

 properly HO call.-d, it will probably a*i*t the we de- 



H.-nb.) hhortly tin; external material! with which the dramatist 

 of that day had to work. It will be gathered from what we 

 naid that in tho earliest timce there were no 

 buildingH mmcially set apart for tho performance of play*, and 

 no class of men whoso biuiness waa to act thorn. The earlier 

 mysteries were acted in church and by tho clergy ; tho Cheater 

 plays in the street* of Cheater, and by member* of the trading 

 guilds of tho city. Tho banqueting halls of palaces and baronial 

 castles, the dining halls of tho inns of court these, and probably 

 many similar and far less suitable buildings, served as theatres ; 

 and tho members of the household, or of the inn of court, or 

 any similar body of persons did duty as actors. Thus the 

 tragedy of " Gorboduc ' ' itself was acted before the Queen at tho 

 palace of Whitehall, by members of the Inner Temple. Bat, 

 while tho practice of public and periodical dramatic represen- 

 tations by amateurs of such classes and in such places as w 

 have described long continued common, a great step in the 

 history of the drama was made in the institution of regular 

 theatres and professional actors. The latter innovation long 

 preceded tho former, for professional actors were to bo found 

 some time before tho close of tho fifteenth century : bnt the-* 

 were at first, and for a long time continued to be, at least 

 nominally, in the service of some peer or great man, and are 

 always described as the Earl of Leicester's servants, etc., as the 

 case may bo. Indeed, actors not under such protection were 

 apt to be roughly treated as rogues and vagabonds. The early 

 actors seem, however, to have been companies of strolling 

 players such as that which, in "Hamlet," visits tbo Danish 

 court at Elsinore. But early in the reign of Elizabeth regular 

 theatres, specially built and reserved for tho acting of play--, 

 began to bo established, and rapidly increased in number in 

 proportion to the development of the drama. 



One result of the increase in numbers, and the concentration 

 and general improvement in the status of the dramatic profession 

 during Elizabeth's reign, is too remarkable to remain unnoticed . 

 Actors became authors. Each company of players endeavourc 1 

 to produce for themselves the pieces they needed for represen- 

 tation, which thereupon, remaining unpublished, became a 

 valuable part of the property of the company, and a special 

 attraction to the theatre. Thus Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Shake- 

 speare himself, and many more of the Elizabethan drai: 

 were all actors both before and after they became famous aa 

 authors. 



In order to appreciate the Elizabethan drama, it must further 

 be remembered that the theatre and all its accessories were 

 then very unlike what they are now. The theatre itself 

 was generally a rough wooden building with a rude thatcheu 

 roof; the spectators, sitting or standing, for the most part 

 arranged somewhat as they are at present, but in part on the 

 stage itself. The elaborate scenery of modern times was ur.- 

 known to Shakespeare's contemporaries. Tho stage in those 

 days was a simple stage and no more, with perhaps a gallrry 

 or scaffold above it to do duty for a castle wall or any other 

 elevated place from which a character had to speak, 

 presence on the stage of a chair of state, a bed, or a table, was 

 enough to indicate that the scene was in a royal presence- 

 chamber, a bedroom, or an inn. Another difference between 

 the early and the modern stage is, that in the Elizabethan ago 

 there were no women actors. Tho female parts were then all 

 acted by boys, for women never appeared on the stage till after 

 the Restoration. This is a subject frequently alluded to in the 

 plays of tho Elizabethan period, as for instance in Hamlet's 

 address to tho boy actor, " What, my young lady and mistress ! 

 By-'r-lady, your ladyship is nearer heaven than when I saw you 

 last by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like a 

 pieoe of uncurrrent gold, be not cracked within the ring." All 

 these circumstances compelled the dramatists of those days to 

 rely on their own genius and their power of arousing the imagina- 

 tion of their hearers for tho effect they sought to produce, 

 j instead of upon the skill of the scene-painter, the mechanician, 



