Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/402

388 which reminds one of the like simple, homely ditties in Shakespeare:—

There are fine truths also scattered through his dramas as:—

"To see what solitariness is about dying princes! As heretofore they have unpeopled towns, divided friends, and made great houses inhospitable, so now, O justice, where are their flatterers? Flatterers are but the shadows of princes' bodies; the least thick cloud makes them invisible."

Of Middleton, who wrote from twenty to thirty plays, in some of which, according to a very prevalant fashion of that age, he called in the aid of Rowley, Decker, Fletcher, and Massinger; of Decker, who wrote the whole or part of about thirty plays; of John Marston, who wrote eight plays; of Tailor, Tourneur, Heywood, and Ford, we can only say that their dramas abound with fine things, and would well repay a perusal, though they are not destined to see the stage again. John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont require a more specific notice. These gentlemen wrote together on the same plays to the amount of upwards of thirty, whilst John Fletcher wrote fourteen or fifteen himself. In fact, Fletcher, so far as can be known, was the most voluminous writer of the two, Beaumont having written little in his own name, except a masque, a few farces, dramatic pieces, and translations. The style of the two, however, was so much alike, that there is little to distinguish their productions from those of an individual mind. Beaumont and Fletcher were, as stated by Dryden, far more popular in their time than Shakespeare himself. The truth is, that they had less originality and were more compliant with the spirit of their age. They sought their characters more in the range of ordinary life, and therefore hit the tastes of a large and commoner class. They were extremely lively and forcible in dialogue, and had a flowery and dignified style which oftener approached the poetical than became it. We are everywhere met by admirable writing, and a finely sustained tone, but we travel on without encountering those original characters that can never again be forgotten, that become a part of our world, or those exquisite gushes of poetry and poetic scenery, which are like the music of Ariel ringing in the memory long afterwards. At the same time we are continually offended by extreme grossness and jarred by slovenliness and incongruity. They are of the class of great and able play-wrights who command the popularity of their age, but whom future ages praise and neglect; and who are only read by the curious for the fragments of good things that they contain.

The fate of Ben Jonson has been nearly the same. With the exception of his comedies of "Every Man in his Humour," "Vulpone," "The Silent Woman," and "The Alchemist," we are content to read the bulk of his dramas, and wonder at his erudition and his wit. The genius of Jonson is most conspicuous in his masques and court pageants, which were the delight of James's queen, Anne of Denmark, and the whole court. In them the spirits of the woods seem to mingle with those of courts and cities; and fancy and a hue of romance give to royal festivities the impressions of Arcadian life. But the living poetry of the "Midsummer Night's Dream," or of "Comus," are yet wanting to touch them with perfection. Hence their chief charm died with the age which patronised them, and having once perused them, we are not drawn to them again by a loving memory, as we are to the Shakespeare woodlands and lyrical harmonies. In Jonson's graver dramas there is a cold classical tone which leaves the affections untouched and the feelings unmoved, whilst we respect the artistic skill and the learned dignity of the composition.

Massinger, who wrote nearly forty dramatic pieces, is a vigorous writer, eloquent and effective. He is extremely trenchant in his satire, and delights in displaying pride and meanness exposed and punished. Still he is greater as a dramatist than a poet. His "New Way to Pay Old Debts," and "The Fatal Dowry," are best known to the present lovers of the drama. The "City Madam" is a play which is full of strong features of the times. Decker assisted him in "The Virgin Martyr" and is supposed to have introduced a higher and richer vein of feeling than belonged to Massinger himself.

Altogether the dramatic writing of this period has never been surpassed, and in Shakespeare has never been equalled. There is mingled with much licentiousness and coarseness a manly and healthy strength in the writers of this department; and though the bulk of these compositions have vanished from the stage, they will be long examined with enjoyment by those who delight in living portraiture of past ages, and the strong current of genuine English sense and feeling. The arrival of the commonwealth put down all theatres and scenic amusements. The solemn religion of the puritans was death to what they called "the lascivious mirth and levity of players." After their suppression for six years, it was found that the ordinance of the Long Parliament was clandestinely and extensively evaded; and in 1648 an act was passed, ordering all theatres to be pulled down and demolished, and the players to be punished "as rogues according to law." Towards the end of the protectorate, however, dramatic representations again crept in cautiously, and Sir William Davenant at first giving musical entertainments and declamations at Rutland House, Charter House Square, and afterwards in Drury Lane, calling his entertainments operas, at length gave regular plays. The restoration at length set the imprisoned drama altogether free.

Besides dramatic writers, poets abounded. It has been calculated that from the reign of Elizabeth to the restoration, no less than four hundred writers of verse appeared; some of these, who attained a great reputation in their day, and whose works are still retained in our collections, were rather verse-wrights than poets, and would now tax the patience of poetical readers beyond endurance. Such were William Warner, the author of "Albion's England," a history of England in metre extending from Noah's flood to the reign of Elizabeth; Samuel Daniel, the author of the "Civil Wars of Lancaster and York," in eight books; and Michael Drayton, who also wrote the "Barons' Wars,"