Chapter I: Before the Great Rebellion (3)

The really explanatory factors are (1) the economic, (2) the trend of popular culture. Shakespeare alone of the dramatists of his day made anything like a good income; and he did so in virtue of being an actor and a prudent partner in the proprietorship of his theatre. Kyd, Greene, and Peele all died in misery; and Marlowe must have lived his short life from hand to mouth. Jonson subsisted chiefly by his masques and by the gifts of patrons, and by his own avowal was always poor. Chapman can have fared no better. The concurrence of the abnormal genius of Shakespeare with his gift of commercial management is one of the rarest things in literary history: take that away, and the problem of the "decadence" is seen to be merely part of the statement of the "rise." When men of superior power, taught by the past, ceased to defy poverty by writing for the theatre--and even the vogue of Fletcher and Massinger represented no solid monetary success--plays could less than ever appeal to the "serious" and sectarian sections of the London public. Popular culture ran on the sterile lines of pietism, Puritanism, and the strifes engendered between these and sacerdotalism. All this had begun long before James, though he may have promoted the evolution. Literary art perforce turned to other forms. A successful national war could no more have regenerated the drama than the wars of Henry V could generate it. There was plenty of "national enthusiasm" later, in the periods of Marlborough and Chatham: there was no great drama; and the new fiction had as little to do with patriotism as had Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies. Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ was not inspired by his politics.

It is well to recognise, finally, that in the nature of things æsthetic, every artistic convention must in time be "played out," the law of variation involving deviations or recoils. Blank-verse drama is a specially limited convention, which only great genius can vitalise. Even in this connection, however, there is danger in _a priori_ theorising. Mr. Macaulay quotes from Schlegel the generalisation that "in the commencement of a degeneracy in the dramatic art, the spectators first lose the capability of judging of a play as a whole"; hence "the harmony of the composition, and the due proportion between all the various parts is apt to be neglected, and the flagging interest is stimulated by scenes of horror or strange and startling incidents." The implication is that the Jacobean drama degenerated in this way. Again the facts are opposed to the thesis. If we are to believe Shakespeare and Jonson and Beaumont, the audiences never appreciated plays as wholes. Scenes of "comic relief," utterly alien to the action, come in as early as _Locrine_. Scenes of physical and moral horror, again, abound in the pre-Shakespearean drama: in _The Spanish Tragedy_ and _Arden of Feversham_, in _David and Bethsabe_, in _Titus Andronicus_ (a pre-Shakespearean atrocity), in _Selimus_ and _Tancred and Gismunda_, and _Alphonsus Emperor of Germany_ (a Greene-Peele play wrongly ascribed to Chapman), they are multiplied _ad nauseam_. Rapes, assassinations, incest, tearing-out of eyes and cutting-off of hands, the kissing of a husband's excised heart by his wife, the unwitting eating of her children's flesh by a mother, the dashing out of a child's brains by its grandfather--such are among the flowers of the Elizabethan time. On Schlegel's theory, there was degeneration before there was success. Webster's "horrors" do not seem to have won him great vogue; and Ford's neurotic products had no great popularity. Doubtless weak performers tend to resort to violent devices; but they did so before Shakespeare; and Shakespeare did not stick at trifles in _Lear_ and _Othello_.

Decadence in art-forms, in short, is to be studied like other forms of decadence, in the light of the totality of conditions; and is not to be explained in terms of itself. Mr. Macaulay's thesis as a whole might be rebutted by simply citing the fact that the florescence of Spanish drama at the hands of Lope de Vega and Calderon occurred in a period of political decline, when "patriotic enthusiasm" had nothing to live upon. Vega began play-writing just after the defeat of the Armada; and his _Dragontea_, written in exultation over the death of Drake, is not a memorable performance. Velasquez, like Calderon, flourished under Philip IV, in a time of national depression and defeat.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 987: "The distinctive characteristics of the Saxon race--talents for agriculture, navigation, and commerce" (T. Colley Grattan, _The Netherlands_, 1830, p. 2).]

[Footnote 988: A.L. Smith, in _Social England_, i, 201, 202. When Alfred built ships he had to get "Frisian pirates" to man them. It was clearly the new agricultural facilities of England that turned the original pirates into thorough landsmen. Cp. Dr. Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, 3rd ed. 1896, App. E. pp. 640, 641.]

[Footnote 989: H. Hall, in _Social England_, i, 464. Cp. ii, 101; Prof. Ashley, _Introduction to English Economic History_, 1888-93, i, 111; Hallam, _Middle Ages_, 11th ed. iii, 327; Schanz, _Englische Handelspolitik_, 1889, i, 1. When the Jews were expelled by Edward I, Lombards were installed in their place. Later, as we shall see, the Hansards seem to have tutored natives up to the point of undertaking their own commerce.]

[Footnote 990: Cp. A.L. Smith, as cited, p. 203.]

[Footnote 991: Seebohm, _The English Village Community_, 3rd ed. 1884, pref. p. ix. Cp. Prof. Ashley, _Introduction to English Economic History_, i, 13-16.]

[Footnote 992: Prof. Maitland, the most circumspect opponent of the "serf" view, did not consider this when he asked (_Domesday Book and Beyond_, ed. 1907, p. 222) how either the Saxon victors could in the mass have sunk to serfdom or the conquered Britons, whose language had disappeared, could be so numerous as to constitute the mass of the population.]

[Footnote 993: That the serf or villein was not necessarily an abject slave is noted by Kemble (_Saxons in England_, as cited, i, 213) and Stubbs (_Const. Hist._ 4th ed. i, 466).]

[Footnote 994: Maitland, _Domesday Book_, pp. 43, 46.]

[Footnote 995: This seems a more probable etymology than the derivation by spelling from _Knabe_.]

[Footnote 996: Cp. the Rev. G. Hill, _Some Consequences of the Norman Conquest_, 1904, pp. 60-61.]

[Footnote 997: Green, _History_ (the longer), 1885, i, 79.]

[Footnote 998: Thierry, _Histoire de la Conquête de l'Angleterre_, édit. 9e, 1851, i, 152-55; Duruy, _Hist. de France_, ed. 1880, i, 289.]

[Footnote 999: Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, 1907, pp. 3-5.]

[Footnote 1000: Cp. Buckle, 3-vol. ed. ii, 116, 1-vol. ed. p. 351; Stubbs, _Const. Hist._ i, 280; Sharon Turner, _History of England during the Middle Ages_, 2nd ed. i, 213. "The princes who lived upon the worst terms with their barons seem accordingly to have been the most liberal in grants ... to their burghs." Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, bk. iii, ch. iii.]

[Footnote 1001: The Conqueror himself not only took pains to protect and attach native freemen who accepted his rule, but sought to retain their laws and usages. Cp. Stubbs, i, 281, 290, 298. The statement that he aimed specially at the manumission of serfs (Sharon Turner, as last cited, i, 135, 136) proceeds on a fabricated charter. That, however, is not later than Henry I.]

[Footnote 1002: Cp. Milman, _Latin Christianity_, bk. xiv, ch. i.]

[Footnote 1003: _E.g._ the rivalries of mendicant friars and secular priests and monks, and of the different orders of monks and friars with each other. Cp. Milman, _Latin Christianity_, 4th ed. ix, 145, 146, 155, 156; Sharon Turner, _History of England during the Middle Ages_, iii, 123-26, 137, etc. The strifes between popes and prelates are innumerable, in all countries.]

[Footnote 1004: As to this see Dr. Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, 3rd ed. 1896, Appendix E. Cp. Green, _Short History_, ch. ii, § 6, p. 88.]

[Footnote 1005: As to which see Earle, _Philology of the English Tongue_, 3rd ed. pp. 54-66.]

[Footnote 1006: This is explicitly admitted by Buckle (3-vol. ed. ii, 118; 1-vol. ed. p. 352), though he does not thereafter speak consistently on the subject.]

[Footnote 1007: Cp. Buckle, as last cited; Green. _History_ (the larger), 1885, i. 300.]

[Footnote 1008: Stubbs, iii, 606.]

[Footnote 1009: Karl Hegel notes (_Städte und Gilden der germanischen Völker im Mittelalter_, pp. 33-34) that the Anglo-Saxon gilds seem to have had no connection with towns or communes, and that their societies might serve as a type for any class-association.]

[Footnote 1010: Cp. Green, _Short History_, ch. iv, § 4, pp. 192, 193; ch. vi, § 3, p. 285; Prof. Ashley, _Introd. to English Economic History_, 1888-93, i, 71, 75, 85, 87, 89; ii, 12, 14, 19, 49. Prof. Ashley notes a great change for the better in the fifteenth century (work cited, ii, 6), and a further advance in the sixteenth (ii, 42).]

[Footnote 1011: Cp. J.H. Round, _The Commune of London_, 1899, p. 224.]

[Footnote 1012: "After Crécy and Calais, Edward felt himself strong enough to disregard the Commons.... His power was for the most part great or small, as his foreign policy was successful or disastrous" (Pearson, _English History in the Fourteenth Century_, pp. 224, 225). See also Stubbs, iii, 608; and compare the case of Henry V.]

[Footnote 1013: Cp. Prof. Ashley, i, 88.]

[Footnote 1014: As to Flemish influence on early English progress, see Prof. Thorold Rogers, _Industrial and Commercial History of England_, 1892, pp. 10, 11, 301-303.]

[Footnote 1015: Hallam. _Middle Ages_, iii. 321, 322.]

[Footnote 1016: Gardiner, _Student's History of England_, p. 69; Gneist, as cited above, p. 376. Cp. Gardiner's _Introduction to the Study of English History_, p. 91: "Even the House of Commons, which was pushing its way to a share of power, was comparatively an aristocratic body. The labouring population in town and country had no share in its exaltation. Even the citizens, the merchants and tradesmen of the towns, looked down upon those beneath them without trust or affection." Magna Carta itself was a protection only for "freemen."]

[Footnote 1017: Cp. Gibbins. _Industrial History of England_, pp. 36, 37; Pearson, _History of England during the Early and Middle Ages_, ii, 378.]

[Footnote 1018: See Pearson's _English History in the Fourteenth Century_, pp. 23, 228, 253, etc.; cp. p. 225. In the thirteenth century Frederick II had enfranchised all the serfs on his own domains (Milman, _Latin Christianity_, vi, 153); and a similar policy had become general in the Italian cities. Louis VI and Louis VII of France had even enfranchised many of their serfs in the twelfth century, and Louis X carried out the policy in 1315. Cp. Duruy, _Hist. de France_, i, 291, _note_. England in these matters was not forward, but backward.]

[Footnote 1019: Froissart, liv. ii, ch. 106, éd. Buchon, 1837. The southern counties, however, were perhaps then as now less democratic, less "free," than the northern.]

[Footnote 1020: Compare Mackintosh's rhetoric as to Magna Carta constituting "the immortal claim of England on the esteem of mankind" (_History of England_, 1830, i, 222), and as to Simon de Montfort, whom he credits with inventing the idea of representation in Parliament for cities (p. 238).]

[Footnote 1021: Duruy, _Hist. de France_, i, 289.]

[Footnote 1022: Cp. Guizot, _Essais sur l'histoire de France_, 7e édit. p. 322.]

[Footnote 1023: This had, however, been employed as early as 1246.]

[Footnote 1024: Cp. Pearson, as last cited, p. 8.]

[Footnote 1025: As to what traffic actually took place in the Dark Ages, cp. Heyd, _Histoire du commerce de Levant_, Fr. tr. 1886, i, 94-99.]

[Footnote 1026: Cox, _The Crusades_, p. 146.]

[Footnote 1027: Pignotti, _History of Tuscany_, Eng. trans. 1823, iii, 256-62.]

[Footnote 1028: _Hist. de la Civ. en France_, ed. 13e, iii, 6e leçon.]

[Footnote 1029: Down even to the points of chastity and "training."]

[Footnote 1030: This is now pretty generally recognised. Among recent writers compare Green, _Short History_, ch. iv, § 3; Pearson, as last cited, p. 220; Gardiner, _Student's History of England_, p. 235; and _Introduction to the Study of English History_, p. 91. See also Buckle, 3-vol. ed. ii, 133; 1-vol. ed. p. 362. The sentimental view is still extravagantly expressed by Ducoudray, _Histoire sommaire de la civilisation_, 1886.]

[Footnote 1031: Pignotti, as cited, iii, 279; G. Villani, _Cronica_, xii, 54-56.]

[Footnote 1032: Cp. Thierry, _Histoire de la Conquête_, iv, 210. As Thierry notes (p. 247), John Ball's English is much less Gallicised than that which became the literary tongue.]

[Footnote 1033: "Depuis les dominateurs de l'Orient jusqu'aux maîtres de Rome asservie ... quiconque détient la liberté d'autrui dans la servitude, perd la sienne...." (Morin, _Origines de la démocratie_, pp. 137-38).]

[Footnote 1034: Cp. Busch, _England unter den Tudors_, 1892, i, 6.]

[Footnote 1035: Stubbs, _Const. Hist._, iii, 632, 633; Busch, _England unter den Tudors_, i, 81; Green, ch. vi, § 3, pp. 267, 268, 287, 288.]

[Footnote 1036: Cp. Gardiner, _Student's History_, p. 330.]

[Footnote 1037: The clergy and the Parliament seem to have applauded the project of an invasion of France instantly and without reservation (Sharon Turner, _History of England during the Middle Ages_, ii, 383). And already in the minority of Henry VI "the Parliament was fast dying down into a mere representation of the baronage and the great landowners" (Green, ch. vi, p. 265). "Never before and never again for more than two hundred years were the Commons so strong as they were under Henry IV" (Stubbs, iii, 73).]

[Footnote 1038: Pearson, _English History in the Fourteenth Century_, pp. 250, 251. Among the minor forms of oppression were local vetoes on the grinding of the people's own corn by themselves in their handmills. Thus "the tenants of St. Albans extorted a licence to use querns at the time of Tyler's rebellion" (Morgan, _England under the Normans_, 1858, p. 161).]

[Footnote 1039: As to the failure of these laws see Gasquet, _The Great Pestilence_, 1893, p. 196 sq.]

[Footnote 1040: _Id._ p. 200.]

[Footnote 1041: Lewis's _Life of Wiclif_, ed. 1820, pp. 224, 225; Lechler's _John Wycliffe and his English Precursors_, Eng. tr. 1-vol. ed. pp. 371-76; Prof. Montagu Burrows, _Wiclif's Place in History_, p. 19.]

[Footnote 1042: Green, _Short History_, ch. v, § 4; Gardiner, _Introduction_, pp. 94-98; Rogers, _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p. 272.]

[Footnote 1043: Cp. Sharon Turner, _England during the Middle Ages_, ii, 263; iii, 108; Milman, _Latin Christianity_, viii, 213, 215.]

[Footnote 1044: Green, ch. v, § 5, p. 255; Stubbs, iii, 609-10. He further refused the petition from the Commons in 1391, demanding that no "neif or villein" should be allowed to have his children educated. Cp. de Montmorency, _State Intervention in English Education_, 1902, p. 27.]

[Footnote 1045: Green, p. 258; Stubbs, iii. 32. It is plain that among the factious nobility, and even the courtiers, of the time there was a strong disposition to plunder the Church (Stubbs, iii, 43, 48, 53). Doubt is cast by Bishop Stubbs on Walsingham's story of the Lollard petition of 1410 for the confiscation of the lands of bishops and abbots, and the endowment therewith of 15 earls, 1,500 knights, 6,000 esquires, and 100 hospitals (Stubbs, iii, 65; cp. Milman, _Latin Christianity_, viii, 214; ix, 17-18); but in any case many laymen leant to such views, and the king's resistance was steadfast. Yet an archbishop of York, a bishop, and an abbot successively rebelled against him. On his hanging of the archbishop, see the remarkable professional reflections of Bishop Stubbs (iii, 53).]

[Footnote 1046: Act 2 Hen. IV, c. 15. Cp. de Montmorency, _State Intervention in English Education_, 1902, p. 36.]

[Footnote 1047: Stubbs, iii, 626; de Montmorency, p. 29; Act 7 Hen. IV, c. 17.]

[Footnote 1048: Schanz (_Englische Handelspolitik_, i, 349, 350) decides that the middle class was the only one which gained. The lower fared as ill as the upper. Cp. Stubbs, iii, 610.]

[Footnote 1049: Hallam (_Constitutional History_, 10th ed. 1, 10) doubts whether Henry VII carried the power of the Crown much beyond the point reached by Edward. Busch, who substantially agrees (_England unter den Tudors_, i, 8, _note_), misreads Hallam in criticising him, overlooking the "much." Edward had so incensed the London traders by his exactions that it was by way of undertaking to redress these and similar grievances that Richard III ingratiated himself (Green, pp. 293-94).]

[Footnote 1050: Cp. Green, pp. 285-86.]

[Footnote 1051: Stubbs, iii, 283; Hallam, _Middle Ages_, iii, 326, 328; Green, ch. vi, § 3, p. 282. This, however, did not mean the maintenance of English shipping, which declined. See Act 4 Hen. VII, c. 10; and cp. Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry_, § 121. "France seems to have had a considerable share of foreign commerce near a century before England was distinguished as a commercial country" (Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, bk. iii, ch. iv). Yet fishing and seafaring ranked as the main national industries (Busch, _England unter den Tudors_, i, 251).]

[Footnote 1052: See Stubbs, i, 675, as to the large foreign element in the London population, apart from the Hansa factory; and cp. Ashley, _Introd. to Economic History_, ii, 209.]

[Footnote 1053: The fact that the Scandinavian kings were eager to damage the Hansa by encouraging English and Dutch traders would be a special stimulus.]

[Footnote 1054: Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i, 392.]

[Footnote 1055: Busch, _England unter den Tudors_, i, 250-65. Edward had actually traded extensively on his own account, freighting ships to the Mediterranean with tin, wool, and cloth Green, p. 287; Henry, _History of Great Britain_, ed. 1823, xii, 309, 315-16; Act 4 Hen. VII, c. 10; Hall's _Chronicle_, under Henry VII.]

[Footnote 1056: Green, p. 295.]

[Footnote 1057: "Something like a fifth of the actual land in the kingdom was ... transferred from the holding of the Church to that of nobles and gentry" (Green, ch. vii, § 1, p. 342).]

[Footnote 1058: Cp. E. Armstrong, _Introduction_ to Martin Hume's _Spain_, 1898, pp. 13, 19, 29; Prescott, _History of Ferdinand and Isabella_, pt. i, ch. vi, _end_; Hallam, _Middle Ages_, iii, 331.]

[Footnote 1059: See Stubbs, iii, 626-28, as to the extent to which ability to read was spread among the common people. As to the general effect on mental life see the vigorous though uncritical panegyric of Hazlitt, _Lectures on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth_, ed. 1870, pp. 12-17.]

[Footnote 1060: As to the democratic element in Calvinism, which develops from Lollardism, see the interesting remarks of Buckle, 3-vol. ed. ii, 339; 1-vol. ed. p. 481. Prof. Gardiner sums up (_Introduction to the Study of English History_, pp. 97, 98) "that as soon as Lollardism ceased to be fostered by the indignation of the labouring class against its oppressors, it dwindled away." Compare the conclusions of Prof. Thorold Rogers, _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p. 272, and see above, p. 390. Prof. Rogers (p. 273) traces the success of the Reformation in the Eastern counties to the long work of Lollardism there. In the same district lay the chief strength of the Rebellion. Compare his _Economic Interpretation of History_, pp. 79-91.]

[Footnote 1061: Gardiner, _History of England, 1603-42_, ed. 1893, i, 45.]

[Footnote 1062: Cp. Pulszky, _The Theory of Law and Civil Society_, p. 206. "Theocracy in itself, being the hierarchical rule of a priestly class, is but a species of aristocracy." And see Buckle's chapter, "An Examination of the Scotch Intellect during the Seventeenth Century" (3-vol. ed. iii, 211, 212; 1-vol. ed. pp. 752-53; and notes 36, 37, 38) for the express claims of the Scotch clergy to give out "the whole counsel of God."]

[Footnote 1063: Dr. Gardiner writes:--"Nor was it indifference alone which kept these powerful men aloof; they had an instinctive feeling that the system to which they owed their high position was doomed, and that it was from the influence which the preachers were acquiring that immediate danger was to be apprehended to their own position" (last cit.). One is at a loss to infer how the historian can know of or prove the existence of such an instinct.]

[Footnote 1064: In her partialities she was fully as ill-judging as Mary of Scotland. To the eye of the Spanish ambassador Dudley was "heartless, spiritless, treacherous, and false" (Bishop Creighton, _Queen Elizabeth_, ed. 1899, p. 65). Essex in turn was a furious fool.]

[Footnote 1065: As to the change in English feeling between 1580, when the Catholic missionaries were widely welcomed, and the years after 1588, see _The Dynamics of Religion_, by "M.W. Wiseman" (J.M. R.). Cp. Gardiner, _History of England, 1603-42_, ed. 1893, i, 15: "Every threat uttered by a Spanish ambassador rallied to the national government hundreds who in quieter times would have looked with little satisfaction on the changed ceremonies of the Elizabethan Church."]

[Footnote 1066: Cp. Motley, _History of the United Netherlands_, 1867, i, 391 _sq._]

[Footnote 1067: In his _Introduction to the Study of English History_ (1881) Prof. Gardiner, through a dozen pages, discusses the action of Elizabeth's government solely in terms of her personality, never once mentioning her advisers. On this line he reaches the proposition that "the homage, absurd as it came to be, which was paid to the imaginary beauties of the royal person was in the main only an expression of the consciousness that peace and justice, the punishment of wickedness and vice, and the maintenance of good order and virtue, came primarily from the queen and secondarily from the Church." One is moved to suggest that the nonsense in question was not so bottomless as it is here virtually made out.]

[Footnote 1068: "There was no truth nor honesty in anything she said" (Bishop Creighton, _Queen Elizabeth_, p. 60; cp. pp. 76, 91, 112, 181, 216, 228-31).]

[Footnote 1069: Her practice of leaving her truest servants to bear their own outlays in her service, begun with Cecil (Creighton, p. 63), was copied from Charles V and Philip II, but was carried farther by her than ever by them. All the while she heaped gifts on her favourites.]

[Footnote 1070: _E.g._, Mr. Gibbins's _Industrial History of England_, pp. 84-89, 105. The point of view seems to have been set up by Cobbett's _History of the Reformation_.]

[Footnote 1071: Cp. Ashley, _Introd. to Economic History_, ii, 312-15.]

[Footnote 1072: Cp. More's _Utopia_, bk. i (Arber's ed. p. 41; Morley's, p. 64); and Bacon's _History of Henry VII_, Bohn ed. p. 369. More expressly charges certain Abbots with a share in the process of eviction.]

[Footnote 1073: Cp. Green, ch. vi, § 3. Green goes on to speak of the earlier Statutes of Labourers as setting up the "terrible heritage of a pauper class" (p. 286, also p. 250). This is a fresh error of the same sort as that above dealt with. A pauper class was inevitable, whatever laws were made.]

[Footnote 1074: Bishop Stubbs puts it (iii, 283) that the increase of commerce during the Wars of the Roses was "to some extent a refuge for exhausted families, and a safety-valve for energies shut out of their proper sphere." The proposition in this form is obscure.]

[Footnote 1075: On this see Stubbs, ch. xxi, §§ 470, 471.]

[Footnote 1076: Act 4 Hen. VII, c. 12, preamble, and c. 19.]

[Footnote 1077: Cp. Moreton on _Civilisation_, 1836, p. 106; Cunningham, _English Industry_, i, 392.]

[Footnote 1078: Cp. Cliffe Leslie, _Essays in Political and Moral Philosophy_, p. 267; Toynbee, _The Industrial Revolution_, pp. 63, 66; Gibbon's _Memoirs_, beginning.]

[Footnote 1079: Gardiner, _Introd. to Eng. Hist._ 1881, p. 118; Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i, 434.]

[Footnote 1080: Rogers, _Story of Holland_, p. 217, and _Six Centuries_, p. 184; W.T. McCullagh's _Industrial History of the Free Nations_, 1846, ii, 42, 272; Gibbins, pp. 104, 109.]

[Footnote 1081: Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, iv, 106, 108, citing Acts 6 Hen. VIII, c. 6, and 32 Hen. VIII, cc. 18, 19.]

[Footnote 1082: It is in the prologue to Act v, 11. 30-34. I affirm without hesitation that the prologues to all five Acts are non-Shakespearean, and plainly by one other hand. Compare the chorus prologues to Dekker's _Old Fortunatus_, which are in exactly the same style. In the latest biography, however (Lee's, p. 174), there is no recognition of any such possibility. It is surprising that Steevens and Ritson, who pronounced the prologue to _Troilus and Cressida_ non-Shakespearean, should not have suspected those to _Henry V_, which are so signally similar in style. Dekker's connection with _Troilus and Cressida_ is indicated by Henslowe's Diary. The style is a nearly decisive clue to his authorship of the _Henry V_ prologues.]

[Footnote 1083: Lee's _Life_, pp. 175, 176.]

[Footnote 1084: A theory of this is suggested in the author's _Montaigne and Shakespeare_.]

[Footnote 1085: Cp. Froude, _History of England_, ed. 1875, x, 500, 507, 508, 512, xi, 197; Spenser's _View of the Present State of Ireland_, Globe ed. of Works, p. 654; Lecky's _History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century_, i, 8; Gardiner, _History of England, 1603-42_, ed. 1893, i, 363, 427, 429, 430; J.A. Fox, _Key to the Irish Question_, 1890, ch. xxix; and the author's _The Saxon and the Celt_, pp. 148-54.]

[Footnote 1086: Compare the very just appreciation of Green, ch. vi, § 4, p. 311.]

[Footnote 1087: See Isaac Disraeli's study, "The Psychological Character of Sir Thomas More," in the _Amenities of Literature_.]

[Footnote 1088: Compared with Henry VIII, More might be pronounced a specifically "Celtic" as opposed to an aggressively "Saxon" type. Henry seems a typical English beef-eater. Yet he too was of Welsh descent!]