varying the pauses and modulating the verse without the aid of rhyme had not yet been generally adopted. In David and Bethsabe this monotony is less observable, because his lines are smoother, and there is a play of rich and luxurious fancy in some of the scenes. Prologue to King David and Fair Bethsabe. Of Israel's sweetest singer now I sing, holy style and happy victories; Whose muse was dipt in that inspiring dew, Arhangels 'stilled from the breath of Jove, Woking her temples with the glorious flowers Haven rain'd on tops of Sion and Mount Sinai. on the bosom of his ivory lute That precious fount bear sand of purest gold; That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill, Enter CUSAY. See, Cusay, see the flower of Israel, Tas cherubim and angels laid their breasts; Te gave alarum to the host of heaven, The fairest daughter that obeys the king, That, wing'd with lightning, brake the clouds, and cast And comelier than the silver clouds that dance eir crystal armour at his conquering feet. Of this sweet poet, Jove's musician, On zephyr's wings before the King of Ileaven. Cusay. Is it not Bethsabe the Hethite's wife, And of his beauteous son, I press to sing; Urias, now at Rabath siege with Joab ? Then help, divine Adonai, to conduct Upon the wings of my well-temper'd verse, The hearers' minds above the towers of heaven, And guide them so in this thrice haughty flight, Then deck thee with thy loose delightsome robes, To play the wantons with us through the leaves. Darid. What tunes, what words, what looks, what wonders pierce My soul, incensed with a sudden fire! Enjoys the beauty of so fair a dame ! May that sweet plain that bears her pleasant weight, 1 The sun's rays. David. Go now and bring her quickly to the king; Tell her, her graces hath found grace with him. Cusay. I will, my lord. [Erit. David. Bright Bethsabe shall wash in David's bower In water mixed with purest almond flower, * Now comes my lover tripping like the roe, Mr Lamb says justly, that the line 'seated in hearing of a hundred streams' is the best in the above passage. It is indeed a noble poetical image. Peele diedefore 1599, and seems, like most of his dramatic prethren, to have led an irregular life, in the midst of severe poverty. A volume of Merry Conceited Jests, said to have been by him, was published after his death in 1607, which shows that he was not scrupulous as to the means of relieving his ! necessities. THOMAS KYD. In 1588, THOMAS KYD produced his play of Hieronimo or Jeronimo, and some years afterwards a second part to it, under the title of the Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad Again. This second part is supposed to have gone through more editions than any play of the time. Ben Jonson was afterwards engaged to make additions to it, when it was revived in 1601, and further additions in 1602. These new scenes are said by Lamb to be 'the very salt of the old play,' and so superior to Jonson's acknowledged works, that he attributes them to Webster, or some 'more potent spirit' than Ben. This seems refining too much in criticism. Kyd, like Marlow, often verges upon bombast, and 'deals largely in blood and death.' THOMAS NASH. THOMAS NASH, a lively satirist, who amused the town with his attacks on Gabriel Harvey and the Puritans, wrote a comedy called Summer's Last Will and Testament, which was exhibited before Queen Elizabeth in 1592. He was also concerned with Marlow in writing the tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage. He was imprisoned for being the author of a satirical play, never printed, called the Isle of Dogs.. Another piece of Nash's, entitled the Supplication of Pierce Penniless to the Devil, was printed in 1592, which was followed next year by Christ's Tears over Jerusalem. Nash was a native of Leostoff, in Suffolk, and was born about the year 1564; he was of St John's college, Cambridge, He died about the year 1600, after a 'life spent,' he says, 'in fantastical satirism, in whose veins heretofore I mispent my spirit, and prodigally conspired against good hours.' He was the Churchill of his day, and was much famed for his satires. One of his contemporaries remarks of him, in a happy couplet His style was witty, though he had some gall, Return from Parnassus. The versification of Nash is hard and monotonous. The following is from his comedy of Summer's Last Will and Testament,' and is a favourable specimen of his blank verse: great part of the play is in prose : I never lov'd ambitiously to climb, Or thrust my hand too far into the fire. Nor yet so poor the world should pity me. In his poem of Pierce Penniless, Nash draws a harrowing picture of the despair of a poor scholar Ah, worthless wit! to train me to this woe: And I am quite undone through promise breach; ROBERT GREENE. ROBERT GREENE, a more distinguished dramatist, is conjectured to have been a native of Norfolk, as he adds 'Norfolciensis' to his name, in one of his productions. He was educated at Clare-Hall, Cambridge, and in 1583 appeared as an author. He is supposed to have been in orders, and to have held the vicarage of Tollesbury, in Essex, as, in 1585, Robert Greene, the vicar, lost his preferment. The plays of Greene are the History of Orlando, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. Alphonsus, King of Arragon, George-aGreen, the Pinner of Wakefield, James IV., and the Looking-glass for London and England: the latter was written in conjunction with Lodge. Greene died in September 1592, owing, it is said, to a surfeit of red herrings and Rhenish wine! Besides his plays, he wrote a number of tracts, one of which, Pandosto, the Triumph of Time, 1588, was the source from which Shakspeare derived the plot of his Winter's Tale. Some lines contained in this tale are very beautiful: Ah, were she pitiful as she is fair, Then knew I where to seat me in a land Under the wide heavens, but yet not such. The blank verse of Greene approaches next to that Tread she these lawns-kind Flora, boast thy pride. Wash ye with roses when she longs to drink. thought! Smile, joy in her that my content hath wrought. Passages like this prove that Greene succeeds well, as Hallam remarks, 'in that florid and gay style, a little redundant in images, which Shakspeare frequently gives to his princes and courtiers, and which renders some unimpassioned scenes in the historic plays effective and brilliant.' Professor Tieck gives him the high praise of possessing 'a happy talent, a clear spirit, and a lively imagination.' His comedies have a good deal of boisterous merriment and farcical humour. George-a-Green is a shrewd Yorkshireman, who meets with the kings of Scotland and England, Robin Hood, Maid Marian, &c., and who, after various tricks, receives the pardon of King Edward George-a-Green, give me thy hand: there is Jenkin. This fellow comes to me, Said he, hold my horse, and look ར 1 No, marry, shall he, sir, quoth I; I'll lay my cloak underneath him. And his horse on the midst of it.. epicures, whose loose life hath male religion loathsome to your ears; and when they soothe you with terms of mastership, remember Robert Greene (whom they have often flattered) perishes for want of comfort. Re George. Thou clown, did'st thou set his horse upon member, gentlemen, your lives are like so many lightthe cloak? Jenkin. Ay, but mark how I served him. Madge and he were no sooner gone down into the ditch, But I plucked out my knife, cut four holes in my eloak, And made his horse stand on the bare ground. *Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay' is Greene's best comedy. His friars are conjurors, and the piece conelndes with one of their pupils being carried off to hell on the back of one of Friar Bacon's devils. Mr Collier thinks this was one of the latest instances of the devil being brought upon the stage in propria peroma. The play was acted in 1591, but may have been produced a year or two earlier. In some hour of repentance, when death was nigh at hand, Greene wrote a tract called A Groat's Worth of Wit, Bought with a Million of Repentance, in which Le deplores his fate more feelingly than Nash, and also gives ghostly advice to his acquaintances, 'that spend their wit in making plays.' Marlow he accuses of atheism: Lodge he designates 'young Juvenal,' and 'a sweet boy;' Peele he considers too good for the stage; and he glances thus at Shakspeare: For there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Fac-totum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country.' The paaning allusion to Shakspeare is palpable: the xpressions, 'tiger's heart,' &c. are a parody on the line in Henry VL., part third O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide. These The Winter's Tale is believed to be one of Shakspeare's late dramas, not written till long after Greene's death; consequently, if this be correct, the unhappy man could not allude to the plagiarism of the plot from his tale of Pandosto. Some forgotten Day of Greene and his friends may have been alInsel to; perhaps the old dramas on which Shakspeare constructed his Henry VI., for in one of these, the line, O tiger's heart,' &c., also occurs. oli plays, however, seem above the pitch of Greene in tragedy. The 'Groat's Worth of Wit' was published after Greene's death by a brother dramatist, Henry Chettle, who, in the preface to a subsequent work, apologised indirectly for the allusion to Shakspeare. I am as sorry,' he says, 'as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself have seen his demeanour no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes. Besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, that approves his art.' This is a valuable statement: full Justice is done to Shakspeare's moral worth and civil deportment, and to his respectability as an actor and author. Chettle's apology or explanation was made in 1593. The conclusion of Greene's' Groat's Worth of Wit' contains more pathos than all his plays: it is a harrowing picture of genius debased by vice, and sorrowing in repentance : But now return I again to you three (Marlow, Lodge, and Peele), knowing my misery is to you no news: and let me heartily intreat you to be warned by my harms. Delight not, as I have done, in irreligious oaths, despise drunkenness, fly lust, abhor those tapers that are with care delivered to all of you to maintain; these, with wind-puffed wrath, may be extinguished, with drunkenness put out, with negligence let fall. The fire of my light is now at the last snuff. My hand is tired, and I forced to leave where I would begin; desirous that you should live, though himself be dying. ROBERT GREENE.' Content-A Sonnet. Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content: [Sephestia's Song to her Child, After escaping from Shipwreck.] Mother's wag, pretty boy, Last his sorrow, first his joy. Weep not my wanton, smile upon my knee; The wanton smiled, father wept, Weep not my wanton, smile upon my knee; The Shepherd and his Wife. It was near a thicky shade, Voice did sing and fingers sew. He was young, his coat was green, With welts of white seamed between, That breast and bosom in did wrap, Turned over with a flap, Skirts side and plighted free, Seemly hanging to his knee, A whittle with a silver chape; Fair she was, as fair might be, Buxom, blithe, and young, I ween, With drops of blood, to make the white [Philador, seeing this couple sitting thus lovingly, noted the concord of country amity, and began to conjecture with himself, what a sweet kind of life those men use, who were by their birth too low for dignity, and by their fortunes too simple for envy. well, he thought to fall in prattle with them, had not the shepherd taken his pipe in hand, and began to play, and his wife to sing out, this roundelay :-] Ah! what is love! It is a pretty thing, And sweeter too: If country loves such sweet desires gain, And blither too : 1 Do. THOMAS LODGE was an actor in London in 1584. He had previously been a servitor of Trinity college, Oxford (1573), and had accompanied Captain Clarke in his voyage to the Canary Islands. He first studied law at Lincoln's Inn, but afterwards practised medicine. He took the degree of M.D. at Avignon. In 1590, he published a novel called Rosalind, Euphues Golden Legacy, in which he recommends the fantastic style of Lyly. From part of this work (the story of Rosalind) Shakspeare constructed his. As You Like It. If we suppose that Shakspeare wrote first sketches of the 'Winter's Tale' and As You Like It,' before 1592 (as he did of Romeo and Juliet,' 'Hamlet,' &c.), we may account for Greene's charge of plagiarism, by assuming that the words beautified with our feathers,' referred to the tales of Pandosto' and 'Rosalind.' In 1594, Lodge wrote a historical play, the Wounds of Civil War, Lively set forth in the True Tragedies of Marius and Sylla; this play is heavy and uninteresting, but Lodge had the good taste to follow Marlow's Tamburlaine, in the adoption of blank verse. For example Ay, but the milder passions show the man; A mild and piteous thought augments renown. The play, A Looking-Glass for London and England, written by Lodge and Greene, is directed to the defence of the stage. It applies the scriptural story of Nineveh to the city of London, and amidst drunken buffoonery, and clownish mirth, contains some powerful satirical writing. Lodge also wrote a volume of satires and other poems, translated Josephus, and penned a serious prose defence of the drama. He was living in 1600, as is proved by his obtaining that year a pass from the privy council, permitting himself and his friend, Henry Savell, gent.,' to travel into the archduke's country, taking with them two servants, for the purpose of recovering some debts due them there. The actor and dramatist had now merged in the prosperous and wealthy physician. Lodge had profited by Greene's example and warning. According to Wood, Lodge died of the plague in September 1625. It is impossible to separate the labours of Greene and Lodge in their joint play, but the former was certainly the most dramatic in his talents. In Lodge's 'Rosalind,' there is a delightful spirit of romantic fancy and a love of nature that marks the true poet. We subjoin some of his minor pieces : [Beauty.] Like to the clear in highest sphere, Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud, That Phœbus' smiling looks doth grace.. Her lips are like two budded roses, Whom ranks of lilies neighbour nigh; Within which bounds she balm encloses, Apt to entice a deity. Her neck like to a stately tower, Yet soft in touch, and sweet in view. The gods are wounded in her sight; And Love forsakes his heavenly fires, And at her eyes his brand doth light. [Rosalind's Madrigal.] Love in my bosom, like a bee, Now with his wings he plays with me, Within mine eyes he makes his nest, And if I sleep, then percheth he With pretty flight, And makes his pillow of my knee, Strike I my lute, he tunes the string; He lends me every lovely thing, Yet cruel he my heart doth sting: Whist, wanton, still ye ? Else I with roses every day And bind you, when you long to play, I'll shut mine eyes to keep you in, What if I beat the wanton boy He will repay me with annoy, Then sit thou safely on my knee, Spare not, but play thec. [Love.] Turn I my looks unto the skies, CHRISTOPHER MARLOW, The greatest of Shakspeare's precursors in the drama was CHRISTOPHER MARLOW-a fiery imaginative spirit, who first imparted consistent character and energy to the stage, in connexion with a finely modulated and varied blank verse. Marlow is supposed to have been born about the year 1562, and is said to have been the son of a shoemaker at Canterbury. He had a learned education, and took the degree of M.A. at Bennet college, Cambridge, in 1587. Previous to this, he had written his tragedy of Tamburlaine the Great, which was successfully brought out on the stage, and long continued a favourite. Shakspeare makes ancient Pistol quote, in ridicule, part of this play Holla, ye pamper'd jades of Asia, &c. But, amidst the rant and fustian of Tamburlaine," there are passages of great beauty and wild grandeur, and the versification justifies the compliment afterwards paid by Ben Jonson, in the words, 'Marlow's mighty line.' His high-sounding blank verse is one of his most characteristic features. Marlow now commenced the profession of an actor; but if we are to credit a contemporary ballad, he was soon incapacitated for the stage by breaking his leg 'in one lewd scene.' His second play, the Life and Death of Dr Faustus, exhibits a far wider range of dramatic power than his first tragedy. The hero studies necromancy, and makes a solemn disposal of his soul to Lucifer, on condition of having a familiar spirit at his command, and unlimited enjoyment for twentyfour years; during which period Faustus visits different countries, 'calls up spirits from the vasty deep,' and revels in luxury and splendour. At.length the time expires, the bond becomes due, and a party of evil spirits enter, amidst thunder and lightning, to claim his forfeited life and person. Such a plot afforded scope for deep passion and variety of adventure, and Marlow has constructed from it a powerful though irregular play. Scenes and passages of terrific grandeur, and the most thrilling agony, are intermixed with low humour and preternatural machinery, often ludicrous and grotesque. The ambition of Faustus is a sensual, not a lofty ambition. A feeling of curiosity and wonder is excited by his necromancy and his strange compact with Lucifer; but we do not fairly sympathise with him till all his disguises are stripped off, and his meretricious splendour is succeeded by horror and despair. Then, when he stands on the brink of everlasting ruin, waiting for the fatal moment, imploring, yet distrusting repentance, a scene of enchaining interest, fervid passion, and overwhelming pathcs, carries captive the sternest heart, and proclaims the full triumph of the tragic poet. |