Chapter XV (1)

HISTORY OF DRAMATIC LITERATURE, FROM 1550 TO 1600.

_Italian Tragedy and Comedy--Pastoral Drama--Spanish Drama--Lope De Vega--French Dramatists--Early English Drama--Second Æra; of Marlowe and his Contemporaries--Shakspeare--Character of several of his Plays written within this Period._

|Italian tragedy.|

1. Many Italian tragedies are extant, belonging to these fifty years, though not very generally known, nor can I speak of them except through Ginguéné and Walker, the latter of whom has given a few extracts. The Marianna and Didone of Lodovico Dolce, the Œdipus of Anguillara, the Merope of Torelli, the Semiramis of Manfredi, are necessarily bounded, in the conduct of their fable, by what was received as truth. But others, as Cinthio had done, preferred to invent their story, in deviation from the practice of antiquity. The Hadriana of Groto, the Acripanda of Decio da Orto, and the Torrismond of Tasso are of this kind. In all these we find considerable beauties of language, a florid and poetic tone, but declamatory and not well adapted to the rapidity of action, in which we seem to perceive the germ of that change from common speech to recitative, which, fixing the attention of the hearer on the person of the actor rather than on his relation to the scene, destroyed in great measure the character of dramatic representation. The Italian tragedies are deeply imbued with horror; murder and cruelty, with all attending circumstances of disgust, and every pollution of crime, besides a profuse employment of spectral agency, seem the chief weapons of the poet’s armoury to subdue the spectator. Even the gentleness of Tasso could not resist the contagion in his Torrismond. These tragedies still retain the chorus at the termination of every act. Of the Italian comedies little can be added to what has been said before; no comic writer of this period is comparable in reputation to Machiavel, Ariosto, or even Aretin.[1242] They are rather less licentious; and in fact, the profligacy of Italian manners began, in consequence probably of a better example in the prelates of the church, to put on some regard for exterior decency in the latter part of the century.

[1242] Ginguéné, vol. vi.

|Pastoral drama.|

2. These regular plays, though possibly deserving of more attention than they have obtained, are by no means the most important portion of the dramatic literature of Italy in this age. A very different style of composition has, through two distinguished poets, contributed to spread the fame of Italian poetry, and the language itself, through Europe. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were abundantly productive of pastoral verse; a style pleasing to those who are not severe in admitting its conventional fictions. The pastoral dialogue had not much difficulty in expanding to the pastoral drama. In the Sicilian gossips of Theocritus, and in some other ancient eclogues, new interlocutors supervene, which is the first germ of a regular action. Pastorals of this kind had been written, and possibly represented, in Spain, such as the Mingo Rebulgo, in the middle of the fifteenth century.[1243] Ginguéné has traced the progress of similar representations, becoming more and more dramatic, in Italy.[1244] But it is admitted that the honour of giving the first example of a true pastoral fable to the theatre was due to Agostino Beccari of Ferrara. This piece, named Il Sagrifizio, was acted at that court in 1554. Its priority in a line which was to become famous appears to be its chief merit. In this, as in earlier and more simple attempts at pastoral dialogue, the choruses were set to music.[1245]

[1243] Bouterwek’s Spanish Literature, i. 129.

[1244] vi. 327 et post.

[1245] Id. vi. 332.

|Aminta of Tasso.|

3. This pleasing, though rather effeminate, species of poetry was carried, more than twenty years afterwards, one or two unimportant imitations of Beccari having intervened, to a point of excellence, which perhaps it has never surpassed, in the Aminta of Tasso. Its admirable author was then living at the court of Ferrara, yielding up his heart to those seductive illusions of finding happiness in the favour of the great, and even in ambitious and ill-assorted love, which his sounder judgment already saw through, the Aminta bearing witness to both states of mind. In the character of Tirsi he has drawn himself, and seems once (though with the proud consciousness of genius), to hint at that eccentric melancholy, which soon increased so fatally for his peace.

Ne già cose scrivea degne di riso,
Se ben cose facea degne di riso.

The language of all the interlocutors in the Aminta is alike, nor is the satyr less elegant or recondite than the learned shepherds. It is in general too diffuse and florid, too uniform and elaborate, for passion; especially if considered dramatically, in reference to the story and the speakers. But it is to be read as what it is, a beautiful poem; the delicacy and gracefulness of many passages rendering them exponents of the hearer’s or reader’s feelings, though they may not convey much sympathy with the proper subject. The death of Aminta, however, falsely reported to Sylvia, leads to a truly pathetic scene. It is to be observed that Tasso was more formed by classical poetry, and more frequently an imitator of it, than any earlier Italian. The beauties of the Aminta are in great measure due to Theocritus, Virgil, Ovid, Anacreon, and Moschus.

|Pastor Fido of Guarini.|

4. The success of Tasso’s Aminta produced the Pastor Fido of Guarini, himself long in the service of the duke of Ferrara, where he had become acquainted with Tasso; though in consequence of some dissatisfaction at that court, he sought the patronage of the duke of Savoy. The Pastor Fido was first represented at Turin in 1585, but seems not to have been printed for some years afterwards. It was received with general applause; but the obvious resemblance to Tasso’s pastoral drama could not fail to excite a contention between their respective advocates, which long survived the mortal life of the two poets. Tasso, it has been said, on reading the Pastor Fido, was content to observe that, if his rival had not read the Aminta, he would not have excelled it. If his modesty induced him to say no more than this, very few would be induced to dispute his claim; the characters, the sentiments are evidently imitated; and in one celebrated instance a whole chorus is parodied with the preservation of every rhyme.[1246] But it is far more questionable whether the palm of superior merit, independent of originality, should be awarded to the later poet. More elegance and purity of taste belong to the Aminta, more animation and variety to the Pastor Fido. The advantage in point of morality, which some have ascribed to Tasso, is not very perceptible; Guarini may transgress rather more in some passages, but the tone of the Aminta, in strange opposition to the pure and pious life of its author, breathes nothing but the avowed laxity of an Italian court. The Pastor Fido may be considered, in a much greater degree than the Aminta, a prototype of the Italian opera; not that it was spoken in recitative; but the short and rapid expressions of passion, the broken dialogue, the frequent changes of personages and incidents, keep the effect of representation and of musical accompaniment continually before the reader’s imagination. Any one who glances over a few scenes of the Pastor Fido will, I think, perceive that it is the very style which Metastasio, and inferior coadjutors of musical expression, have rendered familiar to our ears.

[1246] This is that beginning, O bella età dell’oro.

|Italian opera.|

5. The great invention, which though chiefly connected with the history of music and of society, was by no means without influence upon literature, the melodrame, usually called the Italian opera, belongs to the very last years of this century. Italy, long conspicuous for such musical science and skill as the Middle Ages possessed, had fallen, in the first part of the sixteenth century, very short of some other countries, and especially of the Netherlands, from which the courts of Europe, and even of the Italian princes, borrowed their performers and their instructors. A revolution in church music, which had become particularly dry and pedantic, was brought about by the genius of Palestrina about 1560; and the art, in all its departments, was cultivated with an increased zeal for all the rest of the century.[1247] In the splendour that environed the houses of Medici and Este, in the pageants they loved to exhibit, music, carried to a higher perfection by foreign artists, and by the natives that now came forward to emulate them, became of indispensable importance; it had already been adapted to dramatic representation in choruses; interludes and pieces written for scenic display were now given with a perpetual accompaniment, partly to the songs, partly to the dance and pantomime which intervened between them.[1248] Finally, Ottavio Rinuccini, a poet of considerable genius, but who is said to have known little of musical science, by meditating on what is found in ancient writers on the accompaniment to their dramatic dialogue, struck out the idea of recitative. This he first tried in the pastoral of Dafne, represented privately in 1594; and its success led him to the composition of what he entitled a tragedy for music, on the story of Eurydice. This was represented at the festival on the marriage of Mary of Medicis in 1600. “The most astonishing effects,” says Ginguéné, “that the theatrical music of the greatest masters has produced, in the perfection of the science, are not comparable to those of this representation, which exhibited to Italy the creation of a new art.”[1249] It is, however, a different question whether this immense enhancement of the powers of music, and consequently of its popularity, has been favourable to the development of poetical genius in this species of composition; and in general it may be said that, if music has, on some occasions, been a serviceable handmaid, and even a judicious monitress, to poetry, she has been apt to prove but a tyrannical mistress. In the melodrame, Corniani well observes, poetry became her vassal, and has been ruled with a despotic sway.

[1247] Ranke, with the musical sentiment of a German, ascribes a
wonderful influence in the revival of religion after the middle of
the century to the compositions of Palestrina. Church music had
become so pedantic and technical that the council of Trent had some
doubts whether it should be retained. Pius IV. appointed a
commission to examine this question, who could arrive at no
decision. The artists said it was impossible to achieve what the
church required, a coincidence of expression between the words and
the music. Palestrina appeared at this time, and composed the mass
of Marcellus, which settled the dispute for ever. Other works by
himself and his disciples followed, which elevated sacred music to
the highest importance among the accessories of religious worship.
Die Päpste, vol. i. p. 498. But a large proportion of the
performers, I apprehend, were Germans, especially in theatrical
music.

[1248] Ginguéné, vol. vi., has traced the history of the melodrame
with much pains.

[1249] P. 474. Corniani, vii. 31, speaks highly of the poetical
abilities of Rinuccini. See also Galluzzi, Storia del Gran Ducato,
v. 547.

|The national taste revives in the Spanish drama.|

6. The struggle that seemed arduous in the earlier part of this century between the classical and national schools of dramatic poetry in Spain, proved of no long duration. The latter became soon decisively superior; and before the end of the present period, that kingdom was in possession of a peculiar and extensive literature, which has attracted the notice of Europe, and has enriched both the French theatre and our own. The spirit of the Spanish drama is far different from that which animated the Italian writers; there is not much of Machiavel in their comedy, and still less of Cinthio in their tragedy. They abandoned the Greek chorus, which still fettered their contemporaries, and even the division into five acts, which later poets, in other countries, have not ventured to renounce. They gave more complication to the fable, sought more unexpected changes of circumstance, were not solicitous in tragedy to avoid colloquial language or familiar incidents, showed a preference to the tragi-comic intermixture of light with serious matter, and cultivated grace in poetical diction more than vigour. The religious mysteries, once common in other parts of Europe, were devoutly kept up in Spain; and under the name of Autos Sacramentales, make no inconsiderable portion of the writings of their chief dramatists.[1250]

[1250] Bouterwek.

7. Andrès, favourable as he is to his country, is far from enthusiastic in his praises of the Spanish theatre. Its exuberance has been its ruin; no one, he justly remarks, can read some thousand plays in the hope of finding a few that are tolerable. Andrès, however, is not exempt from a strong prejudice in favour of the French stage. He admits the ease and harmony of the Spanish versification, the purity of the style, the abundance of the thoughts, and the ingenious complexity of the incidents. This is peculiarly the merit of the Spanish comedy, as its great defect, in his opinion, is the want of truth and delicacy in the delineation of the passions, and of power to produce a vivid impression on the reader. The best work, he concludes rather singularly, of the comic poets of Spain has been the French theatre.[1251]

[1251] Vol. v. p. 138.

|Lope de Vega.|

|His extraordinary fertility.|

8. The most renowned of these is Lope de Vega, so many of whose dramas appeared within the present century, that although, like Shakspeare, he is equally to be claimed by the next, we may place his name, once for all, in this period. Lope de Vega is called by Cervantes a prodigy of nature; and such he may justly be reckoned; not that we can ascribe to him a sublime genius, or a mind abounding with fine original thought, but his fertility of invention and readiness of versifying are beyond competition. It was said foolishly, if meant as praise, of Shakspeare, and we may be sure untruly, that he never blotted a line. This may also be presumed of Vega. “He required,” says Bouterwek, “no more than four and twenty hours to write a versified drama of three acts in redondillas, interspersed with sonnets, tercets, and octaves, and from beginning to end abounding in intrigues, prodigies, or interesting situations. This astonishing facility enabled him to supply the Spanish theatre with upwards of 2000 original dramas, of which not more than 300 have been preserved by printing. In general the theatrical manager carried away what he wrote before he had even time to revise it; and immediately a fresh applicant would arrive to prevail on him to commence a new piece. He sometimes wrote a play in the short space of three or four hours.” ... “Arithmetical calculations have been employed in order to arrive at a just estimate of Lope de Vega’s facility in poetic composition. According to his own testimony, he wrote on an average five sheets a day; it has therefore been computed that the number of sheets which he composed during his life must have amounted to 133,225; and that, allowing for the deduction of a small portion of prose, Lope de Vega must have written upwards of 21,300,000 verses. Nature would have overstepped her bounds and have produced the miraculous, had Lope de Vega, along with this rapidity of invention and composition, attained perfection in any department of literature.”[1252]

[1252] P. 361-363. Montalvan, Lope’s friend, says that he wrote 1800
plays and 400 autos. In a poem of his own, written in 1609, he
claims 483 plays, and he continued afterwards to write for the
stage. Those that remain and have been collected in twenty-five
volumes are reckoned at about 300.

|His versification.|

9. This peculiar gift of rapid composition will appear more extraordinary when we attend to the nature of Lope’s versification, very unlike the irregular lines of our old drama, which it is not perhaps difficult for a practised hand to write or utter extemporaneously. “The most singular circumstance attending his verse,” says Lord Holland, “is the frequency and difficulty of the tasks which he imposes on himself. At every step we meet with acrostics, echoes, and compositions of that perverted and laborious kind, from attempting which another author would be deterred by the trouble of the undertaking, if not by the little real merit attending the achievement. They require no genius, but they exact much time; which one should think that such a voluminous poet could little afford to waste. But Lope made a parade of his power over the vocabulary: he was not contented with displaying the various order in which he could dispose the syllables and marshal the rhymes of his language; but he also prided himself upon the celerity with which he brought them to go through the most whimsical but the most difficult evolutions. He seems to have been partial to difficulties for the gratification of surmounting them.” This trifling ambition is usual among second-rate poets, especially in a degraded state of public taste; but it may be questionable, whether Lope de Vega ever performed feats of skill more surprising in this way than some of the Italian _improvisatori_, who have been said to carry on at the same time three independent sonnets, uttering, in their unpremeditated strains, a line of each in alternate succession. There is reason to believe, that their extemporaneous poetry, is as good as anything in Lope de Vega.

|His popularity.|

10. The immense popularity of this poet, not limited, among the people itself, to his own age, bespeaks some attention from criticism. “The Spaniards who affect fine taste in modern times,” says Schlegel, “speak with indifference of their old national poets; but the people retain a lively attachment to them, and their productions are received on the stage, at Madrid, or at Mexico, with passionate enthusiasm.” It is true that foreign critics have not in general pronounced a very favourable judgment of Lope de Vega. But a writer of such prodigious fecundity is ill appreciated by single plays; the whole character of his composition manifests that he wrote for the stage, and for the stage of his own country, rather than for the closet of a foreigner. His writings are divided into spiritual plays, heroic and historical comedies, most of them taken from the annals and traditions of Spain, and lastly, comedies of real life, or, as they were called, “of the hat and sword,” (capa y espada) a name answering to the _comœdia togata_ of the Roman stage. These have been somewhat better known than the rest, and have, in several instances, found their way to our own theatre, by suggesting plots and incidents to our older writers. The historian of Spanish literature, to whom I am so much indebted, has given a character of these comedies, in which the English reader will perhaps recognise much that might be said also of Beaumont and Fletcher.

|Character of his comedies.|

11. “Lope de Vega’s comedies de Capa y Espada, or those which may properly be denominated his dramas of intrigue, though wanting in the delineation of character, are romantic pictures of manners, drawn from real life. They present, in their peculiar style, no less interest with respect to situation than his heroic comedies, and the same irregularity in the composition of the scenes. The language, too, is alternately elegant and vulgar, sometimes highly poetic, and sometimes, though versified, reduced to the level of the dullest prose. Lope de Vega seems scarcely to have bestowed a thought on maintaining probability in the succession of the different scenes; ingenious complication is with him the essential point in the interest of his situations. Intrigues are twisted and entwined together, until the poet, in order to bring his piece to a conclusion, without ceremony cuts the knots he cannot untie, and then he usually brings as many couples together as he can by any possible contrivance match. He has scattered through his pieces occasional reflections and maxims of prudence; but any genuine morality, which might be conveyed through the stage, is wanting, for its introduction would have been inconsistent with that poetic freedom on which the dramatic interest of the Spanish comedy is founded. His aim was to paint what he observed, not what he would have approved, in the manners of the fashionable world of his age; but he leaves it to the spectator to draw his own inferences.”[1253]

[1253] Bouterwek, p. 375.

|Tragedy of Don Sancho Ortiz.|

12. An analysis of one of these comedies from real life is given by Bouterwek, and another by Lord Holland. The very few that I have read appear lively and diversified, not unpleasing in the perusal, but exciting little interest and rapidly forgotten. Among the heroic pieces of Lope de Vega a high place appears due to the Estrella de Sevilla, published with alterations by Triquero, under the name of Don Sancho Ortiz.[1254] It resembles the Cid in its subject. The king, Sancho the Brave, having fallen in love with Estrella, sister of Don Bustos Tabera, and being foiled by her virtue,[1255] and by the vigilance of her brother, who had drawn his sword upon him, as in disguise he was attempting to penetrate into her apartment, resolves to have him murdered, and persuades Don Sancho Ortiz, a soldier full of courage and loyalty, by describing the attempt made on his person, to undertake the death of one whose name is contained in a paper he gives him. Sancho is the accepted lover of Estrella, and is on that day to espouse her with her brother’s consent. He reads the paper, and after a conflict which is meant to be pathetic, but in our eyes is merely ridiculous, determines, as might be supposed, to keep his word to his sovereign. The shortest course is to contrive a quarrel with Bustos, which produces a duel, wherein the latter is killed. The second act commences with a pleasing scene of Estrella’s innocent delight in her prospect of happiness; but the body of her brother is now brought in, and the murderer, who had made no attempt to conceal himself, soon appears in custody. His examination before the judges, who endeavour in vain to extort one word from him in his defence, occupies part of the third act. The king, anxious to save his life, but still more so to screen his own honour, requires only a pretext to pardon the offence. But the noble Castilian disdains to save himself by falsehood, and merely repeats that he had not slain his friend without cause, and that the action was atrocious, but not criminal.

Dice que fue atrocidad,
Pero que no fue delito.

[1254] In Lord Holland’s Life of Lope de Vega, a more complete analysis
than what I have offered is taken from the original play. I have
followed the _rifaccimento_ of Triquero, which is substantially the
same.

[1255] Lope de Vega has borrowed for Estrella the well-known answer of
a lady to a king of France, told with several variations of names,
and possibly true of none.

Soy (she says),
Para esposa vuestra poco,
Paro dama vuestra mucho.

13. In this embarrassment Estrella appears, demanding, not the execution of justice on her brother’s murderer, but that he should be delivered up to her. The king, with his usual feebleness, consents to this request, observing that he knows by experience it is no new thing for her to be cruel. She is, however, no sooner departed with the royal order, than the wretched prince repents, and determines to release Sancho, making compensation to Estrella by marrying her to a ricohombre of Castile. The lady meantime reaches the prison, and in an interview with her unfortunate lover, offers him his liberty, which by the king’s concession is in her power. He is not to be outdone in generous sentiments, and steadily declares his resolution to be executed. In the fifth act this heroic emulation is reported by one who had overheard it to the king. All the people of this city, he replies, are heroes, and outstrip nature herself by the greatness of their souls. The judges now enter, and with sorrow report their sentence that Sancho must suffer death. But the king is at length roused, and publicly acknowledges that the death of Bustos had been perpetrated by his command. The president of the tribunal remarks that, as the king had given the order, there must doubtless have been good cause. Nothing seems to remain but the union of the lovers. Here, however, the high Castilian principle once more displays itself. Estrella refuses to be united to one she tenderly loves, but who has brought such a calamity into her family; and Sancho himself, willingly releasing her engagement, admits that their marriage under such circumstances would be a perpetual torment. The lady therefore chooses, what is always at hand in Catholic fiction, the dignified retirement of a nunnery, and the lover departs to dissipate his regrets in the Moorish war.

14. Notwithstanding all in the plan and conduct of this piece, which neither our own state of manners, nor the laws of any sound criticism can tolerate, it is very conceivable that, to the factitious taste of a Spanish audience in the age of Lope de Vega, it would have appeared excellent. The character of Estrella is truly noble, and much superior in interest to that of Chimene. Her resentment is more genuine, and free from that hypocrisy which, at least in my judgment, renders the other almost odious and contemptible. Instead of imploring the condemnation of him she loves, it is as her own prisoner that she demands Sancho Ortiz, and this for the generous purpose of setting him at liberty. But the great superiority of the Spanish play is at the close. Chimene accepts the hand stained with her father’s blood, while Estrella sacrifices her own wishes to a sentiment which the manners of Spain, and we may add, the laws of natural decency required.

|His spiritual plays.|

15. The spiritual plays of Lope de Vega abound with as many incongruous and absurd circumstances as the mysteries of our forefathers. The Inquisition was politic enough to tolerate, though probably the sternness of Castilian orthodoxy could not approve, these strange representations which, after all, had the advantage of keeping the people in mind of the devil, and of the efficacy of holy water in chasing him away. But the regular theatre, according to Lord Holland, has always been forbidden in Spain by the church, nor do the kings frequent it.

|Numancia of Cervantes.|

16. Two tragedies by Bermudez, both on the story of Ines de Castro, are written on the ancient model, with a chorus, and much simplicity of fable. They are, it is said, in a few scenes impressive and pathetic, but interrupted by passages of flat and tedious monotony.[1256] Cervantes was the author of many dramatic pieces; some of which are so indifferent as to have been taken for intentional satires upon the bad taste of his times, so much of it do they display. One or two, however, of his comedies have obtained some praise from Schlegel and Bouterwek. But his tragedy of Numancia stands apart from his other dramas, and, as I conceive, from anything on the Spanish stage. It is probably one of his earlier works, but was published for the first time in 1784. It is a drama of extraordinary power, and may justify the opinion of Bouterwek that, in different circumstances, the author of Don Quixote might have been the Æschylus of Spain. If terror and pity are the inspiring powers of tragedy, few have been for the time more under their influence than Cervantes in his Numancia. The story of that devoted city, its long resistance to Rome, its exploits of victorious heroism, that foiled repeatedly the consular legions, are known to every one. Cervantes has opened his tragedy at the moment when Scipio Æmilianus, enclosing the city with a broad trench, determines to secure its reduction by famine. The siege lasted five months, when the Numantines, exhausted by hunger, but resolute never to yield, setting fire to a pile of their household goods, after slaying their women and children, cast themselves into the flame. Every circumstance that can enhance horror, the complaints of famished children, the desperation of mothers, the sinister omens of rejected sacrifice, the appalling incantations that reanimate a recent corpse to disclose the secrets of its prison-house, are accumulated with progressive force in this tremendous drama. The love-scenes of Morando and Lira, two young persons whose marriage had been frustrated by the public calamity, though some incline to censure them, contain nothing beyond poetical truth, and add, in my opinion, to its pathos, while they somewhat relieve its severity.

[1256] Bouterwek, 296.

17. Few, probably, would desire to read the Numancia a second time. But it ought to be remembered that the historical truth of this tragedy, though, as in the Ugolino of Dante, it augments the painfulness of the impression, is the legitimate apology of the author. Scenes of agony, and images of unspeakable sorrow, when idly accumulated by an inventor at his ease, as in many of our own older tragedies, and in much of modern fiction, give offence to a reader of just taste, from their needlessly trespassing upon his sensibility. But in that which excites an abhorrence of cruelty and oppression, or which, as the Numancia, commemorates ancestral fortitude, there is a moral power, for the sake of which the sufferings of sympathy must not be flinched from.

18. The Numancia is divided into four jornadas or acts, each containing changes of scene, as on our own stage. The metre, by a most extraordinary choice, is the regular octave stanza, ill-adapted as that is to the drama, intermixed with the favourite redondilla. The diction, though sometimes what would seem tame and diffuse to us, who are accustomed to a bolder and more figurative strain in tragedy than the southern nations require, rises often with the subject to nervous and impressive poetry. There are, however, a few sacrifices to the times. In a finely imagined prosopopœia, where Spain, crowned with towers, appears on the scene to ask the Duero what hope there could be for Numancia, the river-god, rising with his tributary streams around him, after bidding her despair of the city, goes into a tedious consolation, in which the triumphs of Charles and Philip are specifically, and with as much tameness as adulation, brought forward as her future recompense. A much worse passage occurs in the fourth act, where Lira, her brother lying dead of famine, and her lover of his wounds before her, implores death from a soldier who passes over the stage. He replies that some other hand must perform that office; he was born only to adore her.[1257] This frigid and absurd line, in such a play by such a poet, is an almost incredible proof of the mischief which the Provençal writers, with their hyperbolical gallantry, had done to European poetry. But it is just to observe that this is the only faulty passage, and that the language of the two lovers is simple, tender, and pathetic. The material accompaniments of representation on the Spanish theatre seem to have been full as defective as on our own. The Numancia is printed with stage directions, almost sufficient to provoke a smile in the midst of its withering horrors.

[1257]
Otra mano, otro hierro ha da acabaros,
Que yo solo naciò por adoraros.

|French theatre; Jodelle.|

19. The mysteries which had delighted the Parisians for a century and a half were suddenly forbidden by the parliament as indecent and profane in 1548. Four years only elapsed before they were replaced, though not on the same stage, by a different style of representation. Whatever obscure attempts at a regular dramatic composition may have been traced in France at an earlier period, Jodelle was acknowledged by his contemporaries to be the true father of their theatre. His tragedy of Cleopatre, and his comedy of La Rencontre, were both represented for the first time before Henry II. in 1552. Another comedy, Eugene, and a tragedy on the story of Dido, were published about the same time. Pasquier, who tells us this, was himself a witness of the representation of the two former.[1258] The Cleopatre, according to Fontenelle, is very simple, without action or stage effect, full of long speeches, and with a chorus at the end of every act. The style is often low and ludicrous, which did not prevent this tragedy, the first-fruits of a theatre which was to produce Racine, from being received with vast applause. There is in reality, amidst these raptures that frequently attend an infant literature, something of an undefined presage of the future which should hinder us from thinking them quite ridiculous. The comedy of Eugene is in verse, and, in the judgment of Fontenelle, much superior to the tragedies of Jodelle. It has more action, a dialogue better conceived, and some traits of humour and nature. This play, however, is very immoral and licentious; and it may be remarked that some of its satire falls on the vices of the clergy.[1259]

[1258] Cette comedie, et la Cleopatre furent representées devant le roy
Henri à Paris en l’Hostel de Rheims, avec un grand applaudissement
de toute la compagnie: et depuis encore au college de Boncourt, ou
toutes les fenestres estoient tapissées d’une infinité de
personnages d’honneur, et la cour si pleine d’escoliers que les
portes du college en regorgeoient. Je le dis comme celuy qui y
estois present, avec le grand Tornebus en une mesme chambre. Et les
entreparleurs estoient tous hommes de nom. Car même Remy Belleau et
Jean de la Peruse jouoient les principaux roullets. Suard tells us,
that the old troop of performers, the Confrères de la Passion,
whose mysteries had been interdicted, availed themselves of an
exclusive privilege granted to them by Charles VI. in 1400, to
prevent the representation of the Cleopatre by public actors.
Jodelle was therefore forced to have it performed by his friends.
See Recherches de la France, l. vii. c. 6. Fontenelle, Hist. du
Theatre François (in Œuvres de Font. edit. 1776) vol. iii. p. 52.
Beauchamps, Recherches sur les Theatres de France. Suard, Melanges
de Literature, vol. iv. p. 59. The last writer, in what he calls
Coup d’Œil sur l’Histoire de l’Ancien Theatre Français (in the same
volume) has given an amusing and instructive sketch of the French
drama down to Corneille.

[1259] Fontenelle, p. 61.

|Garnier.|

20. The Agamemnon of Toutain, published in 1557, is taken from Seneca, and several other pieces about the same time or soon afterwards, seem also to be translations.[1260] The Jules Cesar of Grevin was represented in 1560.[1261] It contains a few lines that La Harpe has extracted, as not without animation. But the first tragedian that deserves much notice after Jodelle was Robert Garnier, whose eight tragedies were collectively printed in 1580. They are chiefly taken from mythology or ancient history, and are evidently framed according to a standard of taste which has ever since prevailed on the French stage. But they retain some characteristics of the classical drama which were soon afterwards laid aside; the chorus is heard between every act, and a great portion of the events is related by messengers. Garnier makes little change in the stories he found in Seneca or Euripides; nor had love yet been thought essential to tragedy. Though his speeches are immeasurably long, and overladen with pompous epithets, though they have often much the air of bad imitations of Seneca’s manner, from whom probably, if any one should give himself the pains to make the comparison, some would be found to have been freely translated, we must acknowledge that in many of his couplets the reader perceives a more genuine tone of tragedy, and the germ of that artificial style which reached its perfection in far greater men than Garnier. In almost every line there is some fault, either against taste or the present rules of verse; yet there are many which a good poet would only have had to amend and polish. The account of Polyxena’s death in La Troade is very well translated from the Hecuba. But his best tragedy seems to be Les Juives, which is wholly his own, and displays no inconsiderable powers of poetical description. In this I am confirmed by Fontenelle, who says that this tragedy has many noble and touching passages; in which he has been aided by taking much from scripture, the natural sublimity of which cannot fail to produce an effect.[1262] We find, however, in Les Juives a good deal of that propensity to exhibit cruelty, by which the Italian and English theatres were at that time distinguished. Pasquier says, that every one gave the prize to Garnier above all who had preceded him, and after enumerating his eight plays, expresses his opinion that they would be admired by posterity.[1263]

[1260] Beauchamps. Suard.

[1261] Suard, p. 73. La Harpe, Cours de Literature. Grevin also wrote
comedies which were very licentious, as those of the 16th century
generally were in France and Italy, and were not in England, or, I
believe, in Spain.

[1262] P. 71. Suard who dwells much longer on Garnier than either
Fontenelle or La Harpe, observes, as I think, with justice:
Les ouvrages de Garnier meritent de faire epoque dans l’histoire du
theatre, non par la beauté de ses plans; il n’en faut chercher de
bons dans aucune des tragedies du seizième siècle; mais les
sentimens qu’il exprime sont nobles, son style a souvent de
l’elevation sans enflure et beaucoup de sensibilité sa
versification est facile et souvent harmonieuse. C’est lui qui a
fixé d’une manière invariable la succession alternative des rimes
masculines et feminines. Enfin c’est le premier des tragiques
Français dont le lecture pût être utile à ceux qui voudraient
suivre la même carriere; on a même pretendu que son Hyppolite avait
beaucoup aidé Racine dans la composition de Phêdre. Mais s’il l’a
aidé, c’est comme l’Hyppolite de Seneque, dont celui de Garnier
n’est qu’une imitation, p. 81.

[1263] Ibid.

|Comedies of Larivey.|

21. We may consider the comedies of Larivey, published in 1579, as making a sort of epoch in the French drama. This writer, of whom little is known, but that he was a native of Champagne, prefers a claim to be the first who chose subjects for comedy from real life in France (forgetting in this those of Jodelle), and the first who wrote original dramas in prose. His comedies are six in number, to which three were added in a subsequent edition, which is very rare.[1264] These six are Le Laquais, La Veuve, Les Esprits, Le Morfondu, Les Jaloux, and Les Ecoliers. Some of them are partly borrowed from Plautus and Terence; and in general they belong to that school, presenting the usual characters of the Roman stage, with no great attempt at originality. But the dialogue is conducted with spirit; and in many scenes, especially in the play called Le Laquais, which, though the most free in all respects, appears to me the most comic and amusing, would remind any reader of the minor pieces of Molière, being conceived, though not entirely executed, with the same humour. All these comedies of Larivey are highly licentious both in their incidents and language. It is supposed in the Biographie Universelle that Molière and Regnard borrowed some ideas from Larivey; but both the instances alleged will be found in Plautus.

[1264] The first edition itself, I conceive, is not very common; for
few writers within my knowledge have mentioned Larivey. Fontenelle,
I think, could not have read his plays, or he would have give him a
place in his brief sketch of the early French stage, as the father
of comedy in prose. La Harpe was too superficial to know anything
about him. Beauchamps, vol. ii. p. 68, acknowledges his
pretensions, and he has a niche in the Biographie Universelle.
Suard has also done him some justice.

|Theatres in Paris.|

22. No regular theatre was yet established in France. These plays of Garnier, Larivey, and others of that class, were represented either in colleges or in private houses. But the Confrères de la Passion, and another company, the Enfans de Sans Souci, whom they admitted into a participation of their privilege, used to act gross and stupid farces, which few respectable persons witnessed. After some unsuccessful attempts, two companies of regular actors appeared near the close of the century; one, in 1598, having purchased the exclusive right of the Confrères de la Passion, laid the foundations of the Comedie Française, so celebrated and so permanent; the other, in 1600, established by its permission a second theatre in the Marais. But the pieces they represented were still of a very low class.[1265]

[1265] Suard.

|English stage.|

|Gammar Gurton’s Needle.|

23. England at the commencement of this period could boast of little besides the scripture mysteries, already losing ground, but which have been traced down to the close of the century, and the more popular moral plays, which furnished abundant opportunities for satire on the times, for ludicrous humour, and for attacks on the old or the new religion. The latter, however, were kept in some restraint by the Tudor government. These moralities gradually drew nearer to regular comedies, and sometimes had nothing but an abstract name given to an individual, by which they could be even apparently distinguished from such. We have already mentioned Ralph Royster Doyster, written by Udal in the reign of Henry VIII., as the earliest English comedy in a proper sense, so far as our negative evidence warrants such a position. Mr. Collier has recovered four acts of another, called Misogonus, which he refers to the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign.[1266] It is, like the former, a picture of London life. A more celebrated piece is Gammar Gurton’s Needle, commonly ascribed to John. Still, afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells. No edition is known before 1575, but it seems to have been represented in Christ’s College at Cambridge, not far from the year 1565.[1267] It is impossible for anything to be meaner in subject and characters than this strange farce; but the author had some vein of humour, and writing neither for fame nor money, but to make light-hearted boys laugh, and to laugh with them, and that with as little grossness as the story would admit, is not to be judged with severe criticism. He comes however below Udal, and perhaps the writer of Misogonus. The Supposes of George Gascoyne, acted at Gray’s Inn in 1566, is but a translation in prose from the Suppositi of Ariosto. It seems to have been published in the same year.[1268]

[1266] Hist. of Dramatic Poetry, ii. 464.

[1267] Mr. Collier agrees with Malone in assigning this date, but it is
merely conjectural, as one rather earlier might be chosen with
equal probability. Still is said in the biographies to have been
born in 1543; but this date seems to be too low. He became
Margaret’s professor of divinity in 1570. Gammar Gurton’s Needle
must have been written while the protestant establishment, if it
existed, was very recent, for the parson is evidently a papist.

[1268] Warton, iv. 304. Collier, iii. 6. The original had been first
published in prose, 1525, and from this Gascoyne took his
translation, adopting some of the changes Ariosto had introduced
when he turned it into verse; but he has invented little of his
own. Ibid.

|Gorboduc of Sackville.|

24. But the progress of literature soon excited in one person an emulation of the ancient drama. Sackville has the honour of having led the way. His tragedy of Gorboduc was represented at Whitehall before Elizabeth in 1562.[1269] It is written in what was thought the classical style, like the Italian tragedies of the same age, but more inartificial and unimpassioned. The speeches are long and sententious; the action, though sufficiently full of incident, passes chiefly in narration; a chorus, but in the same blank verse measure as the rest, divides the acts; the unity of place seems to be preserved, but that of time is manifestly transgressed. The story of Gorboduc, which is borrowed from our fabulous British legends, is as full of slaughter as was then required for dramatic purposes; but the characters are clearly drawn and consistently sustained; the political maxims grave and profound; the language not glowing or passionate, but vigorous; and upon the whole it is evidently the work of a powerful mind, though in a less poetical mood than was displayed in the Induction to the Mirror of Magistrates. Sackville, it has been said, had the assistance of Norton in this tragedy; but Warton has decided against this supposition from internal evidence.[1270]

[1269] The 18th of January, 1561, to which date its representation is
referred by Mr. Collier, seems to be 1562, according to the style
of the age; and this tallies best with what is said in the edition
of 1571, that it had been played about nine years before. See
Warton, iv. 179.

[1270] Hist. of Engl. Poetry, iv. 194. Mr. Collier supports the claim
of Norton to the first three acts, which would much reduce
Sackville’s glory, ii. 481. I incline to Warton’s opinion, grounded
upon the identity of style, and the superiority of the whole
tragedy to anything we can certainly ascribe to Norton, a coadjutor
of Sternhold in the old version of the Psalms, and a contributor to
the Mirror of Magistrates.

|Preference given to the irregular form.|

25. The regular form adopted in Gorboduc, though not wholly without imitators, seems to have had little success with the public.[1271] An action passing visibly on the stage, instead of a frigid narrative, a copious intermixture of comic buffoonery with the gravest story, were requisites with which no English audience would dispense. Thus Edwards treated the story of Damon and Pythias, which, though according to the notions of those times, it was too bloodless to be called a tragedy at all, belonged to the elevated class of dramatic compositions.[1272] Several other objects were taken from ancient history; this indeed became the usual source of the fable; but if we may judge from those few that have survived, they were all constructed on the model which the mysteries had accustomed our ancestors to admire.

[1271] The Jocasta of Gascoyne, translated with considerable freedom,
in adding, omitting, and transposing, from the Phœnissæ of
Euripides, was represented at Gray’s Inn in 1566. Warton, iv. 196.
Collier, iii. 7. Gascoyne had the assistance of two obscure poets
in this play.

[1272] Collier, iii. 2.

|First theatres.|

26. The office of Master of the Revels, in whose province it lay to regulate, among other amusements of the court, the dramatic shows of various kinds, was established in 1546. The inns of court vied with the royal palace in these representations, and Elizabeth sometimes honoured the former with her presence. On her visits to the universities, a play was a constant part of the entertainment. Fifty-two names, though nothing more, of dramas acted at court under the superintendence of the Master of the Revels, between 1568 and 1580, are preserved.[1273] In 1574 a patent was granted to the Earl of Leicester’s servants to act plays in any part of England, and in 1576 they erected the first public theatre in Blackfriars. It will be understood, that the servants of the Earl of Leicester were a company under his protection; as we apply the word, Her Majesty’s Servants, at this day, to the performers of Drury Lane.[1274]

[1273] Collier, i. 193, et post, iii. 24. Of these fifty-two plays
eighteen were upon classical subjects, historical or fabulous,
twenty-one taken from modern history or romance, seven may by their
titles, which is a very fallible criterion, be comedies or farces
from real life, and six may, by the same test, be moralities. It is
possible, as Mr. C. observes, that some of these plays, though no
longer extant in their integrity, may have formed the foundation of
others; and the titles of a few in the list countenance this
supposition.

[1274] See Mr. Collier’s excellent History of Dramatic Poetry to the
Time of Shakspeare, vol. i., which having superseded the earlier
works of Langbaine, Reid, and Hawkins, so far as this period is
concerned, it is superfluous to quote them.

|Plays of Whetstone and others.|

27. As we come down towards 1580, a few more plays are extant. Among these may be mentioned the Promos and Cassandra of Whetstone, on the subject which Shakspeare, not without some retrospect to his predecessors, so much improved in Measure for Measure.[1275] But in these early dramas there is hardly anything to praise; or, if they please us at all, it is only by the broad humour of their comic scenes. There seems little reason, therefore, for regretting the loss of so many productions, which no one contemporary has thought worthy of commendation. Sir Philip Sydney, writing about 1583, treats our English stage with great disdain. His censures indeed fall chiefly on the neglect of the classical unities, and on the intermixture of kings with clowns.[1276] It is amusing to reflect, that this contemptuous reprehension of the English theatre (and he had spoken in as disparaging terms of our general poetry) came from the pen of Sydney, when Shakspeare had just arrived at manhood. Had he not been so prematurely cut off, what would have been the transports of that noble spirit, which the ballad of Chevy Chase could “stir as with the sound of a trumpet,” in reading the Faery Queen or Othello!

[1275] Promos and Cassandra is one of the Six Old Plays reprinted by
Stevens. Shakspeare found in it not only the main story of Measure
for Measure, which was far from new, and which he felicitously
altered, by preserving the chastity of Isabella, but several of the
minor circumstances and names, unless even these are to be found in
the novels, from which all the dramatists ultimately derived their
plot.

[1276] “Our tragedies and comedies, not without cause, are cried out
against, observing rules neither of honest civility nor skilful
poetry;” and proceeds to ridicule their inconsistencies and
disregard to time and place. Defence of Poesy.

|Marlowe and his contemporaries.|

|Tamburlaine.|

|Blank verse of Marlowe.|

28. A better æra commenced not long after, nearly coincident with the rapid development of genius in other departments of poetry. Several young men of talent appeared, Marlowe, Peele, Greene, Lily, Lodge, Kyd, Nash, the precursors of Shakspeare, and real founders, as they may in some respects be called, of the English drama. Sackville’s Gorboduc is in blank verse, though of bad and monotonous construction; but his followers wrote, as far as we know, either in rhyme or in prose.[1277] In the tragedy of Tamburlaine, referred by Mr. Collier to 1586, and the production wholly or principally, of Marlowe,[1278] a better kind of blank verse is first employed; the lines are interwoven, the occasional hemistich and redundant syllables break the monotony of the measure, and give more of a colloquial spirit to the dialogue. Tamburlaine was ridiculed on account of its inflated style. The bombast, however, which is not so excessive as has been alleged, was thought appropriate to such oriental tyrants. This play has more spirit and poetry than any which, upon clear grounds, can be shown to have preceded it. We find also more action on the stage, a shorter and more dramatic dialogue, a more figurative style, with a far more varied and skilful versification.[1279] If Marlowe did not re-establish blank verse, which is difficult to prove, he gave it at least a variety of cadence, and an easy adaptation of the rhythm to the sense, by which it instantly became in his hands the finest instrument that the tragic poet has ever employed for his purpose, less restricted than that of the Italians, and falling occasionally almost into numerous prose, lines of fourteen syllables being very common in all our old dramatists, but regular and harmonious at other times as the most accurate ear could require.

[1277] It may be a slight exception to this that some portions of the
second part of Whetstone’s Promos and Cassandra are in blank verse.
This play is said never to have been represented. Collier, iii. 64.

[1278] Nash has been thought the author of Tamburlaine by Malone, and
his inflated style, in pieces known to be his, may give some
countenance to this hypothesis. It is mentioned, however, as
“Marlowe’s Tamburlaine” in the contemporary diary of Henslow, a
manager or proprietor of a theatre, which is preserved at Dulwich
College. Marlowe and Nash are allowed to have written “Dido Queen
of Carthage” in conjunction. Mr. Collier has produced a body of
evidence to show that Tamburlaine was written, at least
principally, by the former, which leaves no room, as it seems, for
further doubt, vol. iii. p. 113.

[1279] Shakspeare having turned into ridicule a passage or two in
Tamburlaine, the critics have concluded it to be a model of bad
tragedy. Mr. Collier, iii. 115-126, has elaborately vindicated its
dramatic merits, though sufficiently aware of its faults.

|Marlowe’s Jew of Malta,|

|and Faustus.|