ceived the audience would be animated by the number of the characters, and that this display would operate on the gaping fpectators like fome of our modern enormous play-bills; in which the length of the fhow fometimes conftitutes the principal merit of the entertainment. ་ Mr. Warton obferves that Moralities were become fo fashionable a fpectacle about the close of the reign of Henry the Seventh, that " John Rastall, a learned typographer, brother-in-law to Sir Thomas More, extended its province, which had been hitherto confined either to moral allegory, or to religion blended with buffoonery, and conceived a defign of making it the vehicle of fcience and philofophy. With this view he published A new INTERLUDE and a mery, of the nature of the iiij Elements, declaring many proper points of philofophy naturall, and dyvers firaunge landys, &c. In the cofmographical part of the play, in which the poet profeffes to treat of dyvers fraunge landys, and of the new-found landys, the tracts of America recently discovered, and the manners of the natives are defcribed. The characters are, a Meffenger, who fpeaks the prologue, Nature, Humanity, Studious Defire, Senfual Appetite, a Taverner, Experience, and Ignorance." As it is uncertain at what period of time the ancient Myfteries ceafed to be reprefented as an ordinary fpectacle for the amusement of the people, and Moralities were fubftituted in their room, it is • Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. II. p. 364. "Dr. Percy fuppofes this play to have been written about the year 1510, from the following lines: Within this xx yere • Weftwarde he found new landes That we never harde tell of before this." The Weft-Indies were difcovered by Columbus in 1492." Ibid. equally difficult to afcertain the precife time when the latter gave way to a more legitimate theatrical exhibition. We know that Moralities were exhibited occafionally during the whole of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and even in that of her fucceffor, long after regular dramas had been prefented on the scene; but I fufpect that about the year 1570 (the 13th year of Queen Elizabeth) this fpecies of drama began to lofe much of its attraction, and gave way to fomething that had more the appearance of comedy and tragedy. Gammer Gurton's Needle, which was written by Mr. Still, (afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells,) in the 23d year of his age, and acted at Chrift's College, Cambridge, in 1566, is pointed out by the ingenious writer of the tract entitled Hiftoria Hiftrionica, as the first piece "that looks like a regular comedy;" that is, the first play that was neither Mystery nor Morality, and in which fome humour and difcrimination of character may be found. In 1561-2 Thomas Sackville Lord Buckhurst, and Thomas Norton, joined in writing the tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, which was exhibited on the 18th of January in that year by the Students of the Inner Temple, before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall. Neither of these pieces appears to have been acted on a publick theatre, nor was there at that time any building in London constructed folely for the purpose of reprefenting plays. Of the latter piece, 5 The licence granted in 1603 to Shakspeare and his fellowcomedians, authorifes them to play comedies, tragedies, histories, interludes, morals, paftorals, &c. See alfo The Guls Hornbooke, 1609: if in the middle of his play, (bee it paftoral or comedie, morall or tragedie,) you rife with a fhrewd and difcontented face," &c. which, as Mr. Warton has obferved, is perhaps "the firft fpecimen in our language of an heroick tale written in verfe, and divided into acts and fcenes, and cloathed in all the formalities of a regular tragedy," a correct analyfis may be found in The HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY, and the play itself within these few years has been accurately reprinted. It has been justly remarked by the fame judicious writer, that the early practice of performing plays in fchools and univerfitics greatly contributed to the improvement of our drama. "While the people were amufed with Skelton's Trial of Simony, Bale's God's Promifes, and Christ's Defcent into Hell, the scholars of the times were compofing and acting plays on hiftorical fubjects, and in imitation of Plautus and Terence. Hence ideas of legitimate fable must have been imperceptibly derived to the popular and vernacular drama." În confirmation of what has been fuggefted, it may be obferved, that the principal dramatick writers, before Shakspeare appeared, were scholars. Greene, Lodge, Peele, Marlowe, Nafhe, Lily, and Kyd, had all a regular univerfity education. From whatever cause it may have arifen, the dramatick poetry about this period certainly affumed a better, though ftill an exceptionable, form. The example which had been furnished by Sackville was quickly followed, and a great number of tragedies and hiftorical plays was produced between the years 1570 and 1590; fome of which are ftill extant, though by far the greater part is loft. This, I apprehend, was the great era of thofe bloody and bombaftick pieces, which afforded fubfequent Vol. III. pp. 355, et feq. Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. II. p. 388. writers perpetual topicks of ridicule: and during the fame period were exhibited many Hiflories, or historical dramas, formed on our English Chronicles, and reprefenting a series of events fimply in the order of time in which they happened. Some have fuppofed that Shakspeare was the firft dramatick poet that introduced this fpecies of drama; but this is an undoubted error. I have elsewhere obferved that every one of the fubjects on which he conftructed his hiftorical plays, appears to have been dramatized, and brought upon the scene, before his time. The historical drama 8 See Vol. X. p. 450. Goffon in his Plays confuted in five Actions, printed about the year 1580, fays, "In playes either thofe things are fained that never were, as Cupid and Pfyche, plaied at Paules; [he means, in Paul's fchool,]-or if a true hiftorie be taken in hand, it is made like our shavelings, longeft at the rifing and falling of the funne." From the fame writer we learn, that many preceding dramatick poets had travelled over the ground in which the subjects of feveral of Shak fpeare's other plays may be found. "I may boldly fay it, (fays Goffon,) because I have feene it, that The Palace of Pleasure, The Golden Ale, The Ethiopian Hiftorie, Amadis of Fraunce, The Round Table, bawdie comedies in Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish, have beene thoroughly ranfackt to furnish the playe-houses in London. Signat. D 5. b. Lodge, his antagonist in this controverfy, in his Play of Plays and Paftimes, a work which I have never feen, urges us, as Prynne informs us, in defence of plays, that "they dilucidate and well explain many darke obfcure hiftories, imprinting them in men's minds in fuch indelible characters that they can hardly be obliterated." Hiftriomastix, p. 940. See alfo Heywood's Apology for Actors, 1612: “ Plays have made the ignorant more apprehenfive, taught the unlearned the knowledge of many famous histories; inftructed fuch as cannot reade, in the discovery of our English Chronicles: and what man have you now of that weake capacity that cannot difcourfe of any notable thing recorded, even from William the Conqueror, nay, from the landing of Brute, untill this day, being poffeft of their true ufe ?"-In Florio's dialogues in Italian and English, printed in 1591, we have the following dialogue: "G. After dinner we will go fee a play. is by an elegant modern writer fupposed to have owed its rife to the publication of The Mirrour for Magiftrates, in which many of the most diftinguished characters in English history are introduced, giving a poetical narrative of their own misfortunes. Of this book three editions, with various alterations and improvements, were printed between 1563 and 1587. At length (about the year 1591) the great luminary of the dramatick world blazed out, and our poet produced thofe plays which have now for two hundred years been the boaft and admiration of his countrymen. Our earliest dramas, as we have feen, were reprefented in churches or near them by ecclefiafticks: but at a very early period, I believe, we had regular and established players, who obtained a livelihood by their art. So early as in the year 1378, as has been already noticed, the finging-boys of St. Paul's reprefented to the King, that they had been at a confiderable expence in preparing a stage representation at Chriftmas. Thefe, however, cannot properly be called comedians, nor am I able to point out the time when the profeffion of a player became common and established. It has been fuppofed that the license granted by Queen Elizabeth to James Burbage and others, in 1574, was the first regular license ever granted to comedians in England; but this is a miftake, for Heywood informs "H. The plaies that they play in England are not right comedies. 7. Yet they do nothing elfe but plaie every daye. "H. Yea, but they are neither right comedies, nor right tra gedies. "G. How would you name them then? "H. Representations of hiftories, without any decorum." Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, Vol. I. p. 166. |