Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/448

428 428 DRAMA [ENGLISH. snip, and Italian examples helped to commend Ssneca, the most modern of the ancient tragedians, as a rlies-t favourite author for such exercises. With the year of gedies. Elizabeth s accession began a series of translations of his plays by Jasper Hey wood (John Hey wood s son) and others ; and to the direct influence of one of Seneca s tragedies l is to be ascribed the composition of the first tragedy proper in the English tongue, the Gorboduc (after wards renamed Ferrex and Porrex) of T. Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, with whom T. Norton was joint author (1562), Though, unlike Gorboduc, classical in theme, and in some respects approaching nearer to the true conception of tragedy in their treatment of dramatic passion, the nearly contemporary Apiiis and Virginia (r. 1563) and Preston s Cambises King of Percia, in the roughness of their form more closely resemble the old religious drama ; of other tragedies on classical subjects we have only the names, except in the instance of Gascoigne s Jocasta, a free version of the Ph jenisscK of Euripides (15G6), and of E. Edwards s Damon and Pithias (printed 1571), which calls itself a comedy, aud is in fact a mixture of both species. Simul taneously with the influence, directly or indirectly exercised, of classical literature, that of Italian, both dramatic and narrative, assarted itself ; early works from this source were the first Romeo and Juliet (not preserved, but apparently anterior in date even to Gorboduc}, Tancred and Gismiuida (1563 1), and G. Whetstone s Promos and Cassandra (printed 1578), from which Shakespeare took the story of Measure for Measure. oniclo From the double danger which threatened our tragic
 * ones. d,- ama j u the days of its infancy that it would congeal on

the cold heights of classical themes, or dissolve its vigour in the glowing heat of a passion fiercer than that of the Italians (Inglese Italianato e un diavolo incarnato) it was preserved, more than by any other cause, by its happy association with the traditions of the national history. The crude growth of the chronicle history proved strong enough to assert itself by the side of tragedy based on classical and Italian models ; and in a series of works of more or less uncertain dates, a vein was worked from which Shakespeare was to draw the richest ore. Among these rude compositions, which intermixed the blank verse introduced by Gorboduc with pros, and freely mingled comic with tragic elements works half-epic, half-dramatic, and popu lar in form as they were national in theme, are the Famous Victories of Henry V., acted before 1588, The Troublesome Raigne of King John (printed 1591), and the True Chronicle History of King Leir (acted 1593). A still further step in advance was taken in what really deserves the title of the Tragedy of Sir Thomas More (c. 1590), not so much on account of the relative nearness of the subject to the time of its treatment, as because of the tragic responsibility of character here already clearly worked out. Such had been the beginnings of tragedy in England up ie3 to the time when the genius of dramatists worthy to be called the predecessors of Shakespeare, under the influence of a creative literary epoch, seized the form ready to their hands. The birth of comedy, at all times a process of less labour, had slightly preceded that of tragedy in the history of our drama. Isolated Latin comedies had been produced in the original or in English versions or reproductions as early as the reign of Henry VIII., and the morality and its descendant, the interlude, pointed the way towards nationalizing and popularizing types equally fitted to divert Roman aud Italian and English audiences. Thus the earliest extant English comedy, N. Udall s Ralph Roister Doixter, which cannot be dated later than 1551, may be 1 TkclMls. described as a genuinely English adaptation of Plautus, while its successor, Gammer Gurton s Needle, printed 1575, and probably written by (Bishop) Still, has an original, arid iu consequence a slighter, though by no means unamusing, plot. In the main, however, our early English comedy, while occasionally introducing characters of genuinely native origin, and appealing to the traditional humours of Will Summer, the court-fool of Henry VIII.,- or Grim, the collier of Croydon, 3 was content to borrow its themes from Italian or classical sources ; Ariosto s 7 Suppositi found a translator in Gascoignc 4 (156G), and the Mencechmi of Plautus translators or imitators in writers of rather later dates. 5 While on the one hand the mixture of tragic with comic motives was already leading in the direction of tragi-comedy, the precedent of the Italian pastoral drama encouraged the introduction of figures and stones from classical mythology ; and the rapid and versatile influence of Italian corned seemed likely to con tinue to control the progress of the lighter branch of the English drama. Out of such promises as these the glories of our drama Comliti were ripened by the warmth and light of the great of the Elizabethan age of which the beginnings may fairly be ^. ly reckoned from the third decennium of the reign to which it ^han owes its name. The queen s steady love of dramatic drama. entertainments could not of itself have led, though it undoubtedly contributed, to such a result. Against the attacks which a nascent puritanism was already direct ing against the stage by the hands of Northbrooke, the repentant playwright Gosson, Stubbes, and others, were to be set not only the barren favour of royalty, and the more direct patronage of great nobles, but the fact that literary authorities were already weighing the endeavours of the English drama in the balance of respectful criticism, and that in the abstract at least the claims of both tragedy and comedy were upheld by those who shrunk from the desipience of idle pastimes. As the popularity of the stage increased, the functions of playwright and actor, whether combined or not, began to hold out a reasonable promise of personal gain. Nor, above all, was that higher impulse, which leads men of talent and genius to attempt forms of art in harmony with the tastes and tendencies of their times, wanting to the group of writers who can be remem bered by no nobler name than that of Shakespeare s predecessors. The lives of all of these are, of course, in part contem- The pro porary with the life of Shakespeare himself; nor was there decessor any substantial difference in the circumstances under which most of them, and he, led their lives as dramatic authors. A distinction was manifestly kept up between poets and riav- play wrights. Of the contempt entertained for the actor s wights profession some fell to the share of the dramatist; &quot; even :U1(1 - Lodge,&quot; says Dr Ingleby, &quot; who had indeed never trod the actors - stage, but had written several plays, and had no reason to be ashamed of his antecedents, speaks of the vocation of the play-maker a,s sharing the odium attaching to the actor.&quot; Among the dramatists themselves good fellowship and literary partnership only at times asserted themselves as stronger than the tendency to mutual jealousy and abuse ; of all chapters of dramatic history, the annals of the early Elizabethan stage perhaps least resemble those of Arcadia. Moreover, the theatre had hardly found its strength History as a powerful element in the national life, when it i^?,^ 1 * was involved in a bitter controversy, with which it had s tag g_ originally no connection, on behalf of an ally whose i sympathy with it can only have been of a very limited 2 Misogonus. 3 The History of the. Collier. * Tlis. Supposes. 5 A Historie of Error (?), 1577 ; The Mencechmi taken out of Plautus (pr. 1595).