Chapter VI: The English Pastoral Drama (1)

I

We have seen in an earlier chapter what had been achieved within the limits of the mythological drama proper, and also how it had fared with the attempts to introduce the Italian pastoral into England either by way of translation or of direct imitation. We have also seen how, in three notable compositions, three different and variously gifted artists had endeavoured to produce a form of pastoral drama suited to the requirements of the English stage, and how they had each in turn fallen short of complete success. We have now to consider a series of plays, less distinguished on the whole, though varying greatly in individual merit, which, amid the luxuriant growth of the romantic drama, tended, in a more spontaneous and less purposeful manner, towards the creation of something of a pastoral tradition. We shall find in thèse plays a considerable traditional influence, a groundwork, as it were, borrowed from the Arcadian drama of Italy, together with frequent elements owing their origin to plays of the mythological type. But in the great majority of cases we shall also find another influence, which will serve to differentiate these plays from those we have been hitherto concerned with. This is the influence of the so-called pastoral romances of the Spanish type, which manifests itself in the introduction of characters and incidents, warlike, courtly, or adventurous, borrowed more or less directly from the works of writers such as Sidney, Greene, and Lodge. Their influence was extended and enduring, and survived until, towards the middle of the seventeenth century, the fashionable tradition of the _Astrée_ was introduced from France[291]. It was evinced both in a general manner and likewise in direct dramatic adaptation. Since the romances thus dramatized lay claim to a pastoral character, it will be necessary for us to examine as briefly as may be these stage versions, however little of the pastoral element may survive, as a preliminary to considering other plays in which the debt is less specific.

There are extant at least seven plays founded upon Sidney's _Arcadia_.[292] Since these appear to be wholly independent of one another, it will be convenient to disregard chronology, and to consider first those which have for subject the main story of the romance, four in number, and then the remaining three founded upon various incidents. First, then, and most important, Shirley's play bearing the same title as the romance will claim our attention as the most full and faithful stage-rendering of Sidney's work. Although not printed till 1640 the play was, according to Mr. Fleay's plausible conjecture, performed on the king's birthdayas early as 1632. It cannot exactly be pronounced a good play, but the dramatization is effected in a manner which does justice to the very great abilities of the author, and the same measure of success would probably not have been attained by any other dramatist of the time.

At the opening of the play we find that Basilius, king of Arcadia, has, in consequence of a threatening oracle, committed the government of his kingdom into the hands of a nobleman Philanax, and retired into a rural 'desert' along with his wife Gynecia and his daughters Philoclea and Pamela. Here they live in company with the 'most arrant dotish clowne' Dametas, his wife Miso and daughter Mopsa, rustic characters which supply a coarsely farcical element in the plot, certainly no less out of place and inharmonious in the play than in the romance. There are also the cousins Pyrocles and Musidorus, son and nephew respectively to Euarchus, king of Thessaly, who have arrived in quest of the princesses' loves, and have obtained positions near the objects of their affection, the one disguised as an Amazon under the name of Zelmane, the other seeking service under Dametas and assuming the name of Dorus. Complications, moreover, have already arisen, Basilius falling in love with the supposed Amazon, while Gynecia sees through the disguise and falls in love with the concealed Pyrocles. The disguised lover, in order to allay suspicion, has to feign a return of love to the queen and also to humour the dotage of the king, in the meanwhile revealing himself and his love to Philoclea, whom her father employs to court the affections of the Amazon. Musidorus, on his part, while pretending to court Mopsa, takes the opportunity of addressing his suit to Pamela. At length all is arranged, the princesses consenting to accompany their lovers in flight, and the various guardians being cleverly duped. Pyrocles gives rendezvous both to Basilius and Gynecia in a dark and lonely cave, Dametas is sent to dig for hidden treasure, Miso to seek her maligned husband in the house of one of her female neighbours, and Mopsa to await the coming of Apollo in the wishing-tree. Musidorus and Pamela make for the coast, while Pyrocles goes to fetch his mistress Philoclea. While, however, he is endeavouring to persuade her to take the final and irrevocable step, they are both overcome by a strange drowsiness and are discovered by Dametas, who, disappointed of his treasure, has missed his charge Pamela and comes to give the alarm. Musidorus and his mistress on their side have been captured by outlaws, who, discovering their identity, bring them back, hoping thereby to secure their own pardons. In the meantime, in the cave Gynecia has given Basilius by mistake for Zelmane a love potion, which turns out apparently to be a strong narcotic, for the king at once falls into a death-like trance, and the queen, discovering her mistake and overcome by shame and remorse, accuses herself publicly of having poisoned her husband, and is consequently put under guard. At this juncture Euarchus happens to arrive in search of his son and nephew, and consents to act as judge in the case. The princes, who for no apparent reason assume false names, are brought up for judgement and sentenced to death by Euarchus, whom, unaccountably enough, they fail to recognize. They are about to be led off to execution when Basilius, who is lying on a bier in the judgement hall, suddenly rises, the potion having spent its force. Explanations and recognitions of course follow, the oracle is satisfactorily expounded, and all ends to the sound of marriage bells.

It will be seen that in spite of the description 'pastoral' which appears on the title-page of the play, there is little or nothing of this nature to be found in the plot, and in this it is typical of all the plays founded upon Sidney's romance. The only pastoral element indeed is a sort of show or masque, presented by the rustic characters in company with certain shepherds, and even here little of a pastoral nature is visible beyond the characters of the performers. As a play, the _Arcadia_ is distinctly pleasing; the action is bright and easy, the gulling scenes are very entertaining, and some of the love scenes, notably that in which Pyrocles endeavours to persuade Philoclea to escape with him, are charmingly written. Take for instance the following passage, in which the princess confesses her love:[293]

such a truth
Shines in your language, and such innocence
In what you call affection, I must
Declare you have not plac'd one good thought here,
Which is not answer'd with my heart. The fire
Which sparkled in your bosom, long since leap'd
Into my breast, and there burns modestly:
It would have spread into a greater flame,
But still I curb'd it with my tears. Oh, Pyrocles,
I would thou wert Zelmane again! and yet,
I must confess I lov'd thee then; I know not
With what prophetick soul, but I did wish
Often, thou were a man, or I no woman.

_Pyrocles._ Thou wert the comfort of my sleeps.

_Philoclea._ And you
The object of my watches, when the night
Wanted a spell to cast me into slumber;
Yet when the weight of my own thoughts grew heavy
For my tear dropping eyes, and drew these curtains,
My dreams were still of thee--forgive my blushes--
And in imagination thou wert then
My harmless bedfellow.

_Pyr._ I arrive too soon
At my desires. Gently, oh gently, drop
These joys into me! lest, at once let fall,
I sink beneath the tempest of my blessings. (III. iv.)

Or again when he urges her to escape:

I could content myself
To look on Pyrocles, and think it happiness
Enough; or, if my soul affect variety
Of pleasure, every accent of thy voice
Shall court me with new rapture; and if these
Delights be narrow for us, there is left
A modest kiss, where every touch conveys
Our melting souls into each other's lips.
Why should not you be pleas'd to look on me?
To hear, and sometimes kiss, Philoclea?
Indeed you make me blush. [_Draws a veil over her face_.]

_Pyr._ What an eclipse
Hath that veil made! it was not night till now.
Look if the stars have not withdrawn themselves,
As they had waited on her richer brightness,
And missing of her eyes are stolen to bed. (ib.)

These passages display the tenderer side of Shirley's gift at its best, and prove that, had he but set himself the task, he possessed the very style needed for a successful imitation of the Italian pastoral adapted to the temper of the English romantic drama.

But Shirley's, though the most complete, was not the earliest attempt at placing Sir Philip's romance upon the boards. As long before as 1605 was acted Day's _Isle of Gulls_, a farcical and no doubt highly topical play, which is equally founded on the _Arcadia_, though it follows the story far less closely. Day's title was probably suggested by Nashe's _Isle of Dogs_, a satirical play performed in 1597, which brought its author into trouble, but if it deserves Mr. Bullen's epithet of 'attractive,' it must be admitted that it is almost the only part of the play to which that epithet can be applied. Day was in no wise concerned to maintain the polished and artificial dignity of the original; his satiric purpose indeed called for a very different treatment. The _Isle of Gulls_ is a comedy of the broadest and lowest description, almost uniformly lacking in charm, notwithstanding a certain skill of dramatization, and the occurrence of passages which are good enough of their kind. It will easily be conceived that a highly ideal and romantic plot treated in the manner of the realistic farce of low life may offer great opportunities of satiric effect; but it must have made the courtly Sidney turn in his grave to see his gracious puppets debased into the vulgar rogues and trulls of the lower-class London drama. Day in no wise sought to hide his indebtedness, but on the contrary acknowledged in the Induction that his argument is but 'a little string or Rivolet, drawne from the full streine of the right worthy Gentleman, Sir Phillip Sydneys well knowne Archadea.' The chief differences between the play and its source are as follows. Basilius and Gynetia--as Day writes the name--are duke and duchess of Arcadia[294]--near which, apparently, the island is situated--Philoclea and Pamela become Violetta and Hipolita, Pyrocles and Musidorus appear as Lisander and Demetrius, Philanax and Calander from being lords of the court become captains of the castles guarding the island, and Dametas comes practically to occupy the post of Lord Chamberlain. Among the more important characters Euarchus disappears and Aminter and Julio, rivals of the princes in the ladies' loves, are added, as also Manasses, 'scribe-major' to Dametas. When the princes have at last prevailed upon their loves to elope with them, and tricked as before their various guardians into leaving the coast clear, they are in their turn persuaded to leave the ladies in the charge of their disguised rivals, who, of course, secure them as their prizes. Thus the gulling is singularly complete all round, not least among the gulled being the audience, whose sympathy has been carefully enlisted on the princes' behalf. The last scene, in which all the characters forgather from their various ludicrous occupations, is, as might be expected, one of considerable confusion, which is rendered all the more confounded by frequent errors in the speakers' names, which remain in spite of the labours of Day's editor.[295]

If we approach the play with Sir Philip's romance in our mind, the characters cannot but appear one and all offensive. In every case Day has indulged in brutal caricature. The courtly characters are represented from the point of view of a prurient-minded bourgeoisie; the rustic figures are equally gross in their vulgarity; while the traitor Dametas, who serves as a link between the two classes, is an upstart parasite, described with a satiric touch not unworthy of Webster as 'a little hillock made great with others' ruines.' But if we are content to forget the source of the play, we may take a rather more charitable view. Not all the characters are consistently revolting, several, including the princesses, having at times a fine flavour of piquant roguishness, at others a touch of easy sentiment. For a contemporary audience, of course, there were other points of attraction in the play, for the satirical intent is sufficiently obvious, though it is needless for us here to inquire into the personages adumbrated, that investigation belonging neither to pastoral nor to literary history properly speaking. By far the cleverest as well as the most pleasing scene in the play is that introducing a game of bowls,[296] during which Lisander courts Violetta in long-drawn metaphor. Part at least of this brilliant double-edged word-play must be quoted, even though the verse-capping may at times pass the bounds of strict decorum:

_Duke._ Doth our match hold?

_Duchess._ Yes, whose part will you take?

_Duke._ Zelmanes.

_Duchess._ Soft, that match is still to make.

_Violetta._ Lets cast a choice, the nearest two take one.

_Lisander._ My choice is cast; help sweet occasion.

_Viol._ Come, heere's agood.

_Lis._ Well, betterd.

_Duch._ Best of all:

_Lis._ The Duke and I.

_Duke._ The weakest goe to the wall.

_Viol._ Ile lead.

_Lis._ Ile follow.

_Viol._ We have both one mind.

_Lis._ In what?

_Viol._ In leaving the old folke behinde.

_Duke._ Well jested, daughter; and you lead not faire,
The hindmost hound though old may catch the hare.

_Duch._ Your last Boule come?

_Viol._ By the faith a me well led.

_Lis._ Would I might lead you.

_Viol._ Whither?

_Lis._ To my bed.

_Viol._ I am sure you would not.

_Lis._ By this aire I would.

_Viol._ I hope you would not hurt me and you should.

_Lis._ Ide love you, sweet ...

_Duke._ Daughter, your bowle winnes one.

_Viol._ None, of my Maidenhead, Father; I am gone:
The Amazon hath wonne one.

_Lis._ Yield to that.

_Viol._ The cast I doe.

_Lis._ Yourselfe?

_Viol._ Nay scrape out that. (II. v.)[297]

The unprinted dramas founded on the _Arcadia_ need not detain us long. One is preserved in a volume of manuscript plays in the British Museum, and is entitled _Love's Changelings' Change_.[298] It is written in a hand of the first half of the seventeenth century, small and neat, but, partly on account of the porous nature of the paper, exceedingly hard to read. The dramatis personae include a full cast from the _Arcadia_; and somewhat more stress appears to be laid on the pastoral elements than is the case in either of the printed plays. From what I have thought it necessary to decipher, however, I see no reason to differ from Mr. Bullen, who dismisses it as 'a dull play.'[299] The prologue may serve as a specimen of the style of the piece.

This Scaene's prepar'd for those that longe to see
The crosse Meanders in Loves destinie;
To see the changes in a shatterd wit
Proove a man Changlinge in attemptinge it;
To change a noble minde t'a gloz'd intent
Beefore such change will let um see th' event.
This change our Famous Princes had, beefore
Their borrowed shape could speake um any more,
And nought but this our Poet feares will seize
Your liking fancies with that new disease.
Wee hope the best: all wee can say tis strange
To heare with patient eares Loves changelinges Change

--which, if this is a fair sample, is very likely true. Below the prologue the writer has added the couplet:

Th' old wits are gone: looke for noe new thing by us,
For _nullum est jam Dictum quod non sit dictum prius_.

The other play is preserved in a Bodleian manuscript,[300] and is entitled 'The Arcadian Lovers, or the Metamorphosis of Princes.' 'The name of the author,' writes Mr. Hazlitt following Halliwell, 'was probably Moore, for in the volume, written by the same hand as the play, is a dedication to Madam Honoria Lee from the "meanest of her kinsmen," Thomas Moore. A person of this name wrote _A Brief Discourse about Baptism_, 1649.' Mr. Falconer Madan, however, in his catalogue ascribes the manuscript to the early eighteenth century, a date certainly more in accordance with the character of the handwriting. If, therefore, the conjecture concerning the author's name is correct, he may be plausibly identified with the Sir Thomas Moore whose tragedy _Mangora_ was acted in 1717. The manuscript, which contains various poetical essays, includes not only the complete play, which is in prose, but also a verse paraphrase of a large portion of the same. Neither prose nor verse possesses the least merit.[301]

The earliest of the plays founded upon episodes in the _Arcadia_ is Beaumont and Fletcher's _Cupid's Revenge_, which was acted by the children of the Queen's Revels, and published in 1615.[302] A revision, possibly by another hand, has introduced considerable confusion into the titles of the personae, but need not otherwise concern us.[303] The plot of the play is based on two episodes in the romance, one relating to the vengeance exacted by Cupid on the princess Erona of Lycia for an insult offered to his worship, the other to the intrigue of prince Plangus of Iberia with the wife of a citizen, and the tragic complications arising therefrom. These two stories are combined by the dramatists, with no very conspicuous skill, into one plot. Plangus and Erona, under the names of Leucippus and Hidaspes, are represented as brother and sister, children of the old widowed duke of Lysia. They make common cause in seeking to abolish the worship of Cupid, and their tragedies are represented as alike due to his offended deity. No sooner has the old duke, yielding to his daughter's prayers, prohibited the worship of the god, than Hidaspes falls desperately in love with the deformed dwarf Zoilus, and begs him in marriage of her father. The duke, infuriated at such an exhibition of unnatural and disordered affection in his daughter, causes the dwarf to be beheaded, whereupon the princess languishes and dies.[304] In the meanwhile Leucippus has fallen in love with Bacha, the widow of a citizen, and frequents her house secretly, where being surprised by his father, he protests so strongly of her chastity--hoping thereby to save her credit and his own--that the old duke falls in love with her himself, and shortly afterwards marries her. Having now become duchess she seeks to renew her intercourse with the prince, and being repulsed resolves upon revenge. She makes the duke believe that his son is plotting against him, and so secures his arrest and condemnation, hoping thereby to obtain the crown for Urania, her daughter by a previous marriage. The citizens, however, rise in revolt and rescue Leucippus, who thereupon goes into voluntary exile. He is followed by Urania, a simple and innocent girl, who, knowing her mother's designs upon his life, hopes to counteract her malice by attending on the prince in the disguise of a page. The duchess in fact sends a man to murder the prince, the attempt being frustrated by Urania, who herself receives the blow and dies, the murderer being then slain by Leucippus. In the meanwhile the duke dies, and the friends of the prince hasten to him, bringing with them the duchess as a prisoner. She however, seeing her schemes doomed to failure, nurses revenge, and succeeds in stabbing Leucippus, then turning the dagger into her own heart.[305]

More ink than was necessary has been spilt over the motive of this wildly melodramatic play. Seward expressed an opinion that there was nothing in the action of the brother and sister deserving such severe retribution. To him Mason retorted, with somewhat childish seriousness, that, the characters being supposed pagan, the speech of the princess must be held a sacrilegious blasphemy. So Sidney no doubt intended it, and so Beaumont, who was evidently the author of the scene in question, intended it too, and he would possibly, if left to himself, have executed the rest in a manner consonant with this intention. But his collaborator took the opportunity of adding a scene between certain of the lords of the court, in which, with characteristic coarseness, he represented the condemned worship in the light of mere vulgar licence. The fact is that not only the playwrights, but, no doubt, the majority of the audience as well, were interested chiefly in the extravagance of the plot, and cared little or nothing for the adequacy of the motive. As a drama the piece is decidedly poor, and the construction which ends the sister's part of the tragedy in the second act leaves much to be desired. There is, moreover, something particularly and unnecessarily revolting in Hidaspes' passion for the deformed dwarf, and something forced in the contrast between Leucippus' licentious relations with Bacha at the beginning of the play and the self-righteousness of his later attitude. Both faults are unfortunately rather typical, one of the extravagant colouring affected by the dramatists, the other of the coarse and hasty characterization to which Fletcher in particular is apt to condescend. There are, however, some good passages in the play, though it is not always easy to assign them to their author. The scenes in which Urania appears are pretty, though inferior to the very similar ones in the nearly contemporary _Philaster_. The song of the maidens as they watch by their dying mistress, palinode and dirge in one, is striking in the blending of diverse modes:

Cupid, pardon what is past,
And forgive our sins at last!
Then we will be coy no more,
But thy deity adore;
Troths at fifteen we will plight,
And will tread a dance each night,
In the fields or by the fire,
With the youths that have desire.

* * * * *

Thus I shut thy faded light,
And put it in eternal night.
Where is she can boldly say,
Though she be as fresh as May,
She shall not by this corpse be laid,
Ere to-morrow's light do fade? (II. v.)

There is a suggestion of better things, too, in the lines:

he is like
Nothing that we have seen, yet doth resemble
Apollo, as I oft have fancied him,
When rising from his bed he stirs himself,
And shakes day from his hair. (I. iii.)

The authors, or one of them, had also learned something of Shakespeare's quaint humour, as appears in the remark:

What should he be beheaded? we shall have it grow so base shortly,
gentlemen will be out of love with it. (II. iii.)

The main plot of the above reappears in _Andromana_, a play which was published in 1660 as 'By J. S.' It had probably never been performed when it was printed, and though the initials were possibly intended to suggest Shirley's authorship, there can be little doubt that he was wholly innocent of its parentage. An allusion to Denham's _Sophy_ places the date of composition after 1642.[306] The plot is taken direct from the _Arcadia_, the names being retained, and there is nothing to show that the author, whoever he may have been, knew anything of _Cupid's Revenge_. The story, however, is practically the same except for the addition of the episode of Plangus defeating the Argive rebels, and the omission of the character which appears as Urania in Beaumont and Fletcher's play and as Palladius in the original romance. The end is also slightly different. After the prince has been rescued by the citizens, Andromana, the queen, plots a general massacre. Plangus overhears her conversation with her instrument and confidant, and runs him through with his sword on the spot. At Andromana's cries the king enters, and she forthwith accuses the prince of attempting violence towards her; the king stabs his son, Andromana stabs the king, next the prince's friend Inophilus, and finally herself. She seems on the whole satisfied with this performance, and with her last breath exclaims:

I have lived long enough to boast an act,
After which no mischief shall be new.

Little need be said of this play. It is wholly lacking in distinction of any sort or kind, and the last act with the catastrophe is a mere piece of extravagant botching. There are, however, here and there passages which are worth rescuing from the general wreck. One of these is the opening of the first scene between Plangus and Andromana:

_Plangus._ It cannot be so late.

_Andromana._ Believe 't, the sun
Is set, my dear, and candles have usurp'd
The office of the day.

_Plan._ Indeed, methinks
A certain mist, like darkness, hangs on my eye-lids.
But too great lustre may undo the sight:
A man may stare so long upon the sun
That he may look his eyes out; and certainly
'Tis so with me: I have so greedily
Swallow'd thy light that I have spoil'd my own.

_And._ Why shouldst thou tempt me to my ruin thus?
As if thy presence were less welcome to me
Than day to one who, 'tis so long ago
He saw the sun, hath forgot what light is. (I. v.)

Occasional touches, too, are not without flavour:

You can create me great, I know, sir,
But good you cannot. You might compel,
Entice me too, perhaps, to sin. But
Can you allay a gnawing conscience,
Or bind up bleeding reputation? (II. v. end.)

or, again:

Shall I believe a dream?
Which is a vapour borne along the stream
Of fancy. (V. iii.)

The last in this somewhat dreary catalogue is Glapthorne's _Argalus and Parthenia_, published in 1639 and acted probably the previous year. It is founded on the episode related in Books I and III of the _Arcadia_,[307] and possibly on Quarles' poem already noticed. The story is briefly as follows. Demagoras, finding his suit to Parthenia rejected in favour of Argalus, robs her of her beauty by means of a poisonous herb, an outrage for which he is slain by his rival. After a while Parthenia regains her beauty through the care and skill of the queen of Corinth, and returns to her lover. During the marriage festivities the king sends for Argalus to act as champion against a knight who has carried off his daughter, and Argalus, obeying the summons, finds himself opposed to his friend Amphialus. They fight, and Argalus is slain. Parthenia then appears disguised as a warrior in armour, challenges Amphialus, and suffers a like fate. With this inconsequent and unmotived tragedy is interwoven a slight and incongruous underplot of rustic buffoonery. As a whole Glapthorne's play is of inconsiderable merit. Here and there, however, we come upon a passage which might make us hope better things of the author.[308] Of Argalus it is said that

His gracions merit challenges a wife,
Faire as Parthenia, did she staine the East,
When the bright morne hangs day upon her cheeks
In chaines of liquid pearle. (I. i.)

Demagoras is a glorious warrior who would compel love as he has done fame. Though Parthenia reminds him that

Mars did not wooe the Queen of Love in Armes,

his fierce soul yet dwells on deeds of force:

I'll bring on
Well-manag'd troops of Souldiers to the fight,
Draw big battaliaes, like a moving field
Of standing Corne, blown one way by the wind
Against the frighted enemy; (ib.)

and, remembering former conquests:

This brave resolve
Vanquish'd my steele wing'd Goddesse, and ingag'd
Peneian Daphne, who did fly the Sun,
Give up to willing ravishment, her boughes
T' invest my awfull front. (ib.)

Parthenia, healed from the poison, returns

her right
Beauty new shining like the Queen of night,
Appearing fresher after she did shroud
Her gawdy forehead in a pitchy cloud:
Love triumphs in her eyes; (III, end.)

and the pastoral poetess Sapho promises an 'epithalamy' for the bridal pair,

Till I sing day from Tethis armes, and fire
With ayry raptures the whole morning quire,
Till the small birds their Silvan notes display
And sing with us, 'Joy to Parthenia!' (ib.)

Into her mouth, too, is put the following picture of the bride which has some kinship with contemporary baroque in Italian architecture and painting, and also occasionally anticipates in a remarkable manner the diction of the following century.

The holy Priest had joyn'd their hands, and now
Night grew propitious to their Bridall vow,
Majestick Juno, and young Hymen flies
To light their Pines at faire Parthenia's eyes;
The little Graces amourously did skip,
With the small Cupids, from each lip to lip;
Venus her selfe was present, and untide
Her virgine Zone;[309] when loe, on either side
Stood as her handmaids, Chastity and Truth,
With that immaculate guider of her youth
Rose-colour'd Modestie: These did undresse
The beauteous maid, who now in readinesse,
The Nuptiall tapers waving 'bout her head,
Made poore her garments, and enrich'd her bed. (IV. i.)

So again we find single expressions which are striking, as when Parthenia bids Amphialus, sooner than appease her wrath, to hope

To charme the Genius of the world to peace; (V.)

or when, dying, she commends herself to her dead lover:

take my breath
That flies to thee on the pale wings of death. (ib.)

And yet it would be scarcely unfair to describe these as for the most part the beauties of decay; they are as rich embroidery upon rotten cloth, and are achieved by careful elaboration of sensuous imagination, and the art of arresting the attention upon a commonplace thought by the use of some striking epithet or novel and daring turn of expression. For the wider and more essential beauties of conception, character, and construction we look in vain in Glapthorne's play.

Sidney's _Arcadia_, however, though the most important, was not the only so-called pastoral romance which left dramatic progeny. It has been customary to describe the _Thracian Wonder_, a play of uncertain authorship, as founded upon the story of Curan and Argentile in Warner's _Albion's England_, a metrical emporium of historical legend very popular at the close of the sixteenth century. The narrative in question was later expanded into a separate work by one William Webster, and published in 1617.[310] That Collier should have given a quite erroneous abstract of Warner's tale, and should then have proceeded to claim it as the source of the play in question, is perhaps no great matter for astonishment, nor need it particularly surprise us to find certain modern critics swallowing the whole fiction on Collier's authority. What is extraordinary is that a scholar of Dyce's ability and learning should have been misled. For it is quite evident that the _Thracian Wonder_ is based, though hardly closely, on no less famous a work than Greene's _Menaphon_.[311] This should of course have been apparent to critics even without the hint supplied by Antimon in the second scene of Act IV: 'She cannot choose but love me now; I'm sure old Menaphon ne'er courted in such clothes.' The dramatist, however, has not followed his source slavishly; the pastoral element is largely suppressed or at least subordinated, and the catastrophe somewhat altered. Instead of the siege of the castle by the shepherds when the heroine is carried off by her own son, we have the following ending. The king himself carries off his daughter, and her son and husband, ignorant of course of their mutual relationship, put themselves at the head of the shepherds in pursuit. At this moment the country is invaded by the king of Sicily, who comes to seek his son, the husband of the heroine, and by the king of Africa, who comes to avenge the banished brother of the king of Thrace. After much fighting it is resolved to decide the issue by single combat, in the course of which explanations ensue which lead to a general recognition and reconciliation. The pastoral element is represented by old Antimon an antic shepherd, a clown his son, his daughter a careless shepherdess and her despised lover, and a careless shepherd.

The play was printed in 1661 by Francis Kirkman, who ascribed it on the title-page to John Webster and William Rowley. All critics are agreed that the former at least had nothing to do with the composition; but beyond that it is difficult to go. Perhaps the mention of 'old Menaphon' might be taken to indicate that the romance was at least not new at the time of the composition of the play, for Menaphon himself was not an old man. In spite of the small merit of the play from a poetical point of view, and of occasional extraordinary oversights in the plot--for instance, we are never told how the infant who is shipwrecked on the shore, presumably of Arcadia, comes to be a young man in the service of the king of Africa--its badness has perhaps been exaggerated, and it is undoubtedly from the pen of an experienced stage-hack. I do not know, however, that any passage is worth quotation.[312]

Any argument in favour of an early date for the _Thracian Wonder_, based on its being founded on Greene's romance, is sufficiently answered by Thomas Forde's _Love's Labyrinth_, which is a much closer dramatization of the same story, retaining the names and characters almost unchanged, but which cannot have been written very long before its publication in 1660. One episode, the death of Sephistia's mother, a character unknown to Greene, is apparently borrowed from Gomersall's _Lodovick Sforza_.[313] The play, which lies somewhat beyond our limits, represents in its worst form the _débâcle_ of the old dramatic tradition, continued past its date by writers who had no technical familiarity with the stage. It is equally without poetic merit, except in a few incidental songs. Of these, some are borrowed from Greene, one is a translation from Anacreon also printed in the author's _Poetical Diversions_, some are original. Of the last, one may be worth quoting.[314]

Fond love, no more
Will I adore
Thy feigned Deity;
Go throw thy darts
At simple hearts
And prove thy victory.

Whilst I do keep
My harmless sheep
Love hath no power on me;
'Tis idle soules
Which he controules,
The busy man is free.

(II. i.)

Readers of Suckling will recognize the inspiration of the following lines:

Why so nice and coy, fair Lady,
Prithee why so coy?
If you deny your hand and lip
Can I your heart enjoy?
Prithee why so coy?

(IV. iii.)

There is one obvious omission from the above list of plays founded on pastoral romances, but it has been made intentionally. The interest which from our present point of view attaches to _As You Like It_ lies less in the relation of that play to its source in Lodge's romance than to the fact that in it Shakespeare summed up to a great extent, and by implication passed judgement upon, pastoral tradition as a whole. It will therefore be more convenient and more appropriate to postpone consideration of the piece until we have followed out the influence of that tradition, and watched its effect in the wide field of the romantic drama, and come at the end ourselves to face the question of the meaning and the merits of pastoralism as a literary creed.

Looking back for a moment over the plays just passed in review, it is impossible not to be struck by the fact that they present in themselves but the slightest traces of pastoral. It is evident that it was not there that lay the dramatists' interest in the romances. This observation is important, for the tendency is not confined to those plays which are directly founded on works of the sort. The idea of pastoral current among the playwrights, and no doubt among the audience too, was largely derived from novels such as the _Arcadia_, and, as we have seen, the tradition of these works was one rather of polite chivalry and courtly adventure than of pastoralism proper. Had no other forces been at work the tradition of the stage influenced by the romances would have probably shown no trace of pastoral at all. As it was, something of a genuinely pastoral tradition arose out of the mythological plays and the attempts at imitating the Italian drama, and this combined with the more popular but less genuine pastoralism of the romances to produce the peculiar hybrid which we commonly find passing under the name of pastoral in this country.

II

The pastoral tradition, such as it was, that thus formed itself on the English stage remained to the end hesitating, tentative, and undefined. At no time did it become an enveloping atmosphere of artistic creation. Authors approached it as it were from the outside, from no sense of inner compulsion, but experimentally from the broader standpoint of the romantic drama, and with the air of pioneers and innovators, as if ignorant of what had been already achieved in the same line by their predecessors. Consequently, in spite of the considerable following it enjoyed, this romantic-pastoral tradition lacked vitality, and failed as a rule to attract authors of more pre-eminent powers. We have already seen how the three chief English experiments stand apart from it, and we shall find as we proceed that there are other plays as well which it is difficult to bring strictly into line, though they are not in themselves of sufficient importance to claim separate consideration. In some measure, indeed, it may be truly said that, like the history of the Senecan drama or of classical versification, the history of the dramatic pastoral in England is that of a long series of incoherent and more or less fruitless experiments. There is, however, an important difference between the two cases, for in the pastoral we are at least aware of a striving towards some new and but dimly apprehended form of artistic expression. It is true that this was never attained; and looking back from the vantage-ground of time we may doubt whether after all it was worth attaining, but it serves to differentiate the pastoral experiment from those others whose object was but the revival of a past for ever vanished. The English pastoral drama had one advantage at least over many other literary fopperies, in that it obeyed the fundamental law of literary progress, which is one with artistic evolution.

A chronological survey of the regular plays to be classed as pastorals will best serve the needs of our present inquiry, and for this purpose it is fortunate that in nearly all cases we possess evidence which enables us to date the work with tolerable accuracy, while the few which yet remain doubtful are themselves unimportant, and probably fall near the limit of our period. Even, however, were this not so, the singular independence of most of the pieces and the absence of any visible line of development would make uncertainty as to their order of far less consequence here than in many departments of literary history in which similar evidence is unhappily wanting.

In substance, then, the romantic pastoral in England was a combination of the Arcadian drama of Italy with the chivalric romance of Spain, as familiarized through the medium of Sidney's work, and also, though less consistently, with the never very fully developed tradition of the mythological play. In form, again, it may be said to represent the mingling of the conventions of the Italian drama with the freer action and more direct and dramatic presentation of the romantic stage. The earliest play in which these characteristics are found is the anonymous _Maid's Metamorphosis_, printed and probably acted 'by the Children of Powles' in 1600.[315] The plot, which from the blending of different elements it presents is of considerable historical interest, is briefly as follows. Eurymine, of whose connexions we hear nothing but that she is supposed to be lowly born, and Ascanio, the duke's son, are in love. The duke, discovering this, orders two of his retainers to lead Eurymine secretly into the forest and there slay her. Her youth and beauty, however, touch their hearts, and they agree to spare her on condition that she shall live among the country folk, and never return to court. They have no sooner left her than she meets with a shepherd and a hunter, who both fall in love on the spot, and whose rivalry supplies her with the means of livelihood. Ascanio now appears in search of his love, and is directed by Morpheus, at the hest of Juno, to seek out a certain hermit, who will be able to advise him. In the meantime, however, an unexpected complication has arisen. Apollo, meeting Eurymine in her shepherdess' disguise, has fallen violently in love, and threatens mischief. To escape from his pursuit she craves a boon, and having extorted a promise from the infatuated god, demands that he shall change her into a man. Much regretting his rash promise, Apollo complies. The next thing that happens is that the lovers meet. This is distinctly unsatisfactory, but at the suggestion of the hermit 'three or four Muses' and the 'Charities' or Graces are called in to help, and by their prayers at length induce Apollo to relent and restore Eurymine to her original sex. No sooner is this performed than she is discovered to be the daughter of the hermit, and he the exiled prince of Lesbos. At this juncture arrives a messenger from the duke, begging Ascanio to return to court, and adding casually, as it seems, that should Eurymine happen to be still alive she too will be welcome.

Thus we see the threefold weft, Arcadian, courtly, and mythological, weaving the fantastic web of the earliest of the romantic pastorals. Of the influence of the drama of Tasso and Guarini there is, indeed, but little, the plot being in no wise that of orthodox tradition; but shepherd and ranger are true Arcadians, neither disguised courtiers nor rustic clowns, as in the Sidneian romance. The author, whoever he was, may have drawn a hint for his plot from Lyly's _Gallathea_, in which, it will be remembered, Venus promises to change one of the enamoured maidens into a man, or else, maybe, direct from the tale of Iphis in Ovid.[316] As to the sources of the other elements, it will be sufficient for our purpose to note that the verse portions of the play are rimed throughout in couplets, a fact that carries them back towards Peele's _Arraignment_ and the days previous to Marlowe. The slight comic business is in prose, and the characters of the three young rogues are directly traceable to the waggish pages of Lyly.[317]

The piece has the appearance of being a youthful work; the verse is often irregular and clumsy, and the rimes uncertain. On the whole, however, it contains not a little that is graceful and pleasing to the ear, while in description the unknown author shows himself a faithful and not unsuccessful disciple of Spenser in his idyllic mood. Here, for instance, are two passages which have been thought to reveal a study of the master:[318]

Within this ore-growne Forrest, there is found
A duskie Cave, thrust lowe into the ground:
So ugly darke, so dampie and so steepe,
As for his life the sunne durst never peepe
Into the entrance: which doth so afright
The very day, that halfe the world is night.
Where fennish fogges, and vapours do abound:
There Morpheus doth dwell within the ground,
No crowing Cocke, nor waking bell doth call,
Nor watchfull dogge disturbeth sleepe at all.
No sound is heard in compasse of the hill,
But every thing is quiet, whisht, and still.
Amid this Cave, upon the ground doth lie,
A hollow plancher, all of Ebonie
Cover'd with blacke, whereon the drowsie God,
Drowned in sleepe, continually doth nod. (II. i. 112.)

And again:

Then in these verdant fields al richly dide,
With natures gifts, and Floras painted pride:
There is a goodly spring whose christal streames
Beset with myrtles, keepe backe Phoebus beames:
There in rich seates all wrought of Ivory,
The Graces sit, listening the melodye:
The warbling Birds doo from their prettie billes
Unite in concord, as the brooke distilles,
Whose gentle murmure with his buzzing noates
Is as a base unto their hollow throates.
Garlands beside they weare upon their browes,
Made of all sorts of flowers earth allowes:
From whence such fragrant sweet perfumes arise,
As you would sweare that place is Paradise. (V. i. 104.)

The same influence may perhaps be traced in slighter sketches, such as the

grassie bed
With sommers gawdie dyaper bespred. (II. i. 55.)

Here is a passage in another strain, which culminates in a touch of haunting melody that Spenser himself might have envied:

I marvell that a rusticke shepheard dare
With woodmen thus audaciously compare?
Why, hunting is a pleasure for a King,
And Gods themselves sometime frequent the thing.
Diana with her bowe and arrowes keene,
Did often use the Chace, in Forrests greene.
And so alas, the good Athenian knight,
And swift Acteon herein tooke delight:
And Atalanta the Arcadian dame,
Conceiv'd such wondrous pleasure in the game,
That with her traine of Nymphs attending on,
She came to hunt the Bore of Calydon. (I. i. 318.)

We have also the introduction of an Echo scene--the earliest, I suppose, in English. A notable feature of the play, on the other hand, are the songs, which are in some cases of rare excellence, and certain of which bear a resemblance to those found in Lyly's plays. In the lines sung by Eurymine--

Ye sacred Fyres, and powers above,
Forge of desires working love,
Cast downe your eye, cast downe your eye
Upon a Mayde in miserie--(I. i. 131.)

there is a subtlety of sound rare even in the work of lyrists of acknowledged merit. Again, there is a fine swing in the song:

Round about, round about, in a fine Ring a:
Thus we daunce, thus we daunce, and thus we sing a.
Trip and go, too and fro[319], over this Greene a:
All about, in and out, for our brave Queene a. (II. ii. 105.)

The best of these songs, however, and indeed the gem of the whole play, is undoubtedly the duet of the shepherd and the ranger, as they call upon Eurymine, with its striking crescendo of antiphonal effect:

_Gemulo._ As little Lambes lift up their snowie sides,
When mounting Larke salutes the gray-eyed morne--

_Silvio._ As from the Oaken leaves the honie glides,
Where Nightingales record upon the thorne--

_Ge._ So rise my thoughts--

_Sil._ So all my sences cheere--

_Ge._ When she surveyes my flocks--

_Sil._ And she my Deare.

_Ge._ Eurymine!

_Sil._ Eurymine!

_Ge._ Come foorth!

_Sil._ Come foorth!

_Ge._ Come foorth and cheere these plaines!

_Both._ Eurymine, come foorth and cheere these plaines--

_Sil._ The Wood-mans Love--

_Ge._ And Lady of the Swaynes[320] (IV. ii. 39.)

Not long after the appearance of the _Maid's Metamorphosis_ there was written a play entitled _The Fairy Pastoral, or the Forest of Elves_, which is preserved in a manuscript belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, and was printed as long ago as 1824 by Joseph Haslewood, for the Roxburghe Club. The author was William Percy, third son of Henry, eighth Earl of Northumberland, and the friend of Barnabe Barnes at Oxford, but of whose life, beyond the facts of its obscurity and seeming misery, little or nothing is known. He left several manuscript plays, of which the present at least, dated 1603[321] at 'Wolves Hill, my Parnassus,' possesses neither interest nor merit. It is an amateurish performance, partly in prose, partly in verse, either blank or rimed in couplets. Where the author adopts verse as a vehicle, his language becomes crabbed and ungrammatical in its endeavour to accommodate itself to the unwonted restraint of metre, which it nevertheless fails to do. It is also apt to be laden to the point of obscurity with strange verbal mintage of the author's own. The plot is not strictly pastoral at all, the only characters that supply anything traditional in this line being the fairy hunters and huntresses. Oberon, having heard that Hypsiphyle, the princess of Elvida or the Forest of Elves, neglects her charge and suffers the woods and quarry to decay, sends Orion to take over the government and reform the abuses. The princess refuses to resign her authority, and a hunting contest ensues, in which, though she is vanquished, she in her turn overcomes her victor, and finally shares with him the fairy throne. While this plot is in action three careless huntresses play tricks on their enamoured hunters, and, being fooled in their turn, at last consent to reward the service of their lovers. The scenes are spun out by a thread of broad farce, supported by the fairy children, their schoolmaster, and his wench. Some of the obscenity of this part may be elaborated from passages in the _Maid's Metamorphosis_. The piece has a prologue for representation at court, but it is most unlikely that it ever had that honour. It is from beginning to end a graceless and mirthless composition.

Passing over the _Faithful Shepherdess_ in 1609, we come to a play of a very different order from the last, namely, Phineas Fletcher's _Sicelides_, a piscatorial, written for presentation before King James at Cambridge in 1614-5, though he left without seeing it. It was acted before the University at King's College, on March 13, and printed, surreptitiously it would appear, in 1631[322]. It is not easy to account for the neglect which has usually fallen to the lot of this play at the hands of critics[323]. No doubt among writers generally it has shared the neglect commonly bestowed on pastorals, while among those more particularly concerned with our present subject it has possibly been overlooked as being piscatory. The fisher-poem, however, as we have already seen, is merely a variant of the pastoral, and must be included under the same general heading, while the play itself has no less poetic merit, and is certainly far more entertaining than the piscatory eclogues of the same author. The scene, as the title implies, is laid in Sicily, which was natural enough, or indeed inevitable, in the case of a writer who would himself in all confidence have pointed to Theocritus as the fountain-head of his inspiration.

Perindus loves Glaucilla, the daughter of Glaucus and Circe, and his affection is returned. In consequence, however, of an oracle he feigns indifference towards her, and though heart-sick when alone, meets her with mockery when she pleads her love. Meanwhile Perindus' sister, Olinda, is courted by Glaucilla's brother, Thalander, to whose suit, however, she turns a deaf ear, and at last bids him leave the country. He does so, but soon returns in disguise, resolved on winning her. She in the meantime has relented of her coldness, and is pining for his love. An opportunity soon offers itself for his purpose. By mistake or through ignorance she plucks the Hesperian apples in the sacred grove, an offence for which she is condemned to be offered as a sacrifice to a monster who inhabits a cave on the shore, and is known by the name of Maleorchus. Andromeda-like, she is bound to a rock, and the orc is in the very act of rushing upon its prey, when Thalander interposes and succeeds in slaying the monster. Meanwhile Cosma--'a light nymph of Messina,' who replaces the 'wanton nymph of Corinth' of the Arcadian cast--has fallen in love with Perindus, and, determining to get rid at a stroke both of his sister Olinda and his mistress Glaucilla, gives the former a poison under pretence of a love-cure. Glaucilla hearing of this, and suspecting the supposed philtre, mingles with it an antidote, so that when Olinda drinks it she only falls into a death-like trance. Hereupon Cosma accuses Glaucilla of substituting a poison for the philtre. She is condemned to be cast from the cliffs, but Perindus comes forward and claims to die in her place. He is actually cast from the rocks, but falling into the sea is rescued by two fishermen. These, we may notice, are borrowed from the twenty-first idyl of Theocritus, and supply, together with Cosma's page and lovers, a comic under-plot to the play. Olinda now revives, Thalander discovering her love for him reveals himself, and Perindus' oracle being fulfilled, all ends happily, the festivities being crowned by the entirely unexpected and uncalled-for return of Tyrinthus, the father of Perindus and Olinda, who had been carried off long before by pirates.