pistry, or any superstition 6;" which shows it to have been entirely distinct from a religious Mystery. But having been discontinued, and, as appears from the narrative, taken up of a sudden after the sports were begun, the players apparently had not been able to recover the old rhymes, or to procure new ones, to accompany the action; which, if it originally represented "the outrage and importable insolency of the Danes, the grievous complaint of Huna, King Ethelred's chieftain in wars7:" his counselling and contriving the plot to dispatch them; concluding with the conflicts above mentioned, and their final suppression, "expressed in actions and rhymes" after their manners, one can hardly conceive a more regular model of a complete drama, and if taken up soon after the event, it must have been the earliest of the kind in Europe9.

Whatever this old play, or "storial show 10,' was at the time it was exhibited to Queen Elizabeth, it had probably our young Shakspeare for a spectator, who was then in his twelfth year, and doubtless attended with all the inhabitants of the surrounding country at these "princely pleasures of Kenelworth1," whence Stratford is only a few miles distant. And as the queen was much diverted with the Coventry Play, "whereat Her Majesty laught well," and rewarded the performers with two bucks, and five marks in money: who, "what rejoicing upon their ample reward, and what triumphing upon the good acceptance, vaunted their Play was never so dignified, nor ever any Players before so beatified:" but especially if our young bard afterwards gained admittance into the castle to see a Play, which the same evening, after supper, was there "presented of a very good theme, but so set forth by the actors' well-handling, that pleasure and

6 Laneham, p. 33.

7 Ibid. p. 32.

8 Ibid. p. 33.

9 The rhymes, &c., prove this play to have been in English; whereas Mr. Thomas Warton thinks the Mysteries composed before 1328 were in Latin. Malone's Shaksp. vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 9.

mirth made it seem very short, though it lasted two good hours and more 2," we may imagine what an impression was made on his infant mind. Indeed, the dramatic cast of many parts of that superb entertainment, which continued nineteen days, and was the most splendid of the kind ever attempted in this kingdom; the addresses to the queen in the personated characters of a Sybille, a Savage Man, and Sylvanus, as she approached or departed from the castle; and, on the water, by Arion, a Triton, or the Lady of the Lake, must have had a very great effect on a young imagination, whose dramatic powers were hereafter to astonish the world.

But that the Historical Play was considered by our old writers, and by Shakspeare himself, as distinct from Tragedy and Comedy, appears from numberless passages of their works. "Of late days," says Stow, "instead of those Stage-Playes hath been used Comedies, Tragedies, Enterludes, and HISTORIES, both true and fayned.” — Survey of London 4. Beaumont and Fletcher, in the prologue to The Captain, say,

"This is nor Comedy, nor Tragedy,

Nor HISTORY."

Polonius in hamlet commends the actors, as the best in the world, "either for Tragedie, Comedie, Historie, Pastorall," &c. And Shakspeare's friends, Heminge and Condell, in the first folio edition of his Plays, in 16235, have not only entitled their book "Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, HISTORIES, and Tragedies," but in their table of contents have arranged them under those three several heads; placing in the class of Histories, "King John, Richard II., Henry IV. two parts, Henry V., Henry VI. three parts, Richard III., and Henry VIII.;" to which they might have added such of

be

2 Laneham, p. 38, 39. This was on Sunday evening, July 9.

3 The Creation of the World, acted at Skinners-well in 1409.

4 See Stow's Survey of London, 1603, 4to. p. 94, (said in the title page to 66 written in 1598.") See also Warton's Observations on Spenser, vol. ii.

p. 109.

5 The same distinction is continued in the 2d and 3d folios, &c.

his other Plays as have their subjects taken from the old Chronicles, or Plutarch's Lives.

Although Shakspeare is found not to have been the first who invented this species of drama6, yet he cultivated it with such superior success, and threw upon this simple inartificial tissue of scenes such a blaze of genius, that his HISTORIES maintain their ground in defiance of Aristotle and all the critics of the classic school, and will ever continue to interest and instruct an English audience.

Before Shakspeare wrote, Historical Plays do not appear to have attained this distinction, being not mentioned in Queen Elizabeth's licence, in 15747, to James Burbage and others, who are only empowered "to use, exercyse, and occupie the arte and facultye of playenge Comedies, Tragedies, Enterludes, Stage-Playes, and such other like." But when Shakspeare's HISTORIES had become the ornaments of the stage, they were considered by the public, and by himself, as a formal and necessary species, and are thenceforth so distinguished in public instruments. They are particularly inserted in the licence granted by King James I. in 16038 to W. Shakspeare himself, and the Players his fellows, who are authorised "to use and exercise the arte and faculty of playing Comedies, Tragedies, HISTORIES, Interludes, Morals, Pastorals, Stage-Plaies, and such like." The same merited distinction they continued to maintain after his death, till the theatre itself was extinguished; for they are expressly mentioned in a warrant in 1622, for licensing certain "late Comedians of Queen Anne deceased, to bring up children in the qualitie and exercise of playing Comedies, Histories, Interludes, Morals, Pastorals, StagePlaies, and such like 9." The same appears in an admoni

6 See Malone's Shaksp. vol. i. part ii. p. 31. 7 See Malone's Shaksp. vol. i. part ii. p. 37. 8 Ibid. vol. i. part ii. p. 40.

9 Ibid. p. 49. Here Histories, or Historical Plays, are found totally to have excluded the mention of Tragedies; a proof of their superior popularity. In an order for the king's comedians to attend King Charles I. in his summer's progress, 1636 (ibid. p. 144), Histories are not particularly men

tion issued in 163710, by Philip Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, then Lord Chamberlain, to the Master and Wardens of the Company of Printers and Stationers; wherein is set forth the complaint of His Majesty's servants the Players, that "diverse of their books of Comedyes and Tragedies, CHRONICLE-HISTORYES, and the like," had been printed and published to their prejudice, &c.

This distinction, we see, prevailed for near half a century; but after the Restoration, when the Stage revived for the entertainment of a new race of auditors, many of whom had been exiled in France, and formed their taste from the French theatre, Shakspeare's HISTORIES appear to have been no longer relished; at least the distinction respecting them is dropt in the patents that were immediately granted after the king's return.

This appears, not only from the allowance to Mr. William Beeston, in June 16601, to use the house in Salisbury Court "for a Play-house, wherein Comedies, Tragedies, Tragi-Comedies, Pastoralls, and Interludes, may be acted," but also from the fuller grant (dated August 21, 1670)2, to Thomas Killigrew, Esq. and Sir William Davenant, Knight, by which they have authority to erect two companies of players, and to fit up two theatres "for the representation of Tragydies, Comedyes, Playes, Operas, and all other entertainments of that nature."

But while Shakspeare was the favourite dramatic poet, his HISTORIES had such superior merit, that he might well claim to be the chief, if not the only historic dramatist that kept possession of the English stage; which gives a strong support to the tradition mentioned by Gildon3, that, in a conversation with Ben Jonson, our bard vindicated his Historical Plays, by urging, that as he had found "the nation

tioned; but so neither are Tragedies: they being briefly directed to "act Playes, Comedyes, and Interludes, without any lett," &c.

10 Ibid. p. 139.

1 This is believed to be the date by Mr. Malone, vol. ii. part ii. p. 239. 2 Malone, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 244. 8 Ibid. vol. vi. p. 427.

in general very ignorant of history, he wrote them in order to instruct the people in this particular." This is assigning not only a good motive, but a very probable reason for his preference of this species of composition; since we cannot doubt but his illiterate countrymen would not only want such instruction when he first began to write, notwithstanding the obscure dramatic chroniclers who precede him, but also that they would highly profit by his admirable Lectures on English History, so long as he continued to deliver them to his audience; and as it implies no claim to his being the first who introduced our chronicles on the stage, I see not why the tradition should be rejected.

Upon the whole, we have had abundant proof that both Shakspeare and his contemporaries considered his HISTORIES, or Historical Plays, as of a legitimate distinct species, sufficiently separate from Tragedy and Comedy; a distinction which deserves the particular attention of his critics and commentators, who, by not adverting to it, deprive him of his proper defence and best vindication for his neglect of the unities, and departure from the classical dramatic forms: for, if it be the first canon of sound criticism to examine any work by whatever rule the author prescribed for his own observance, then we ought not to try Shakspeare's HISTORIES by the general laws of Tragedy or Comedy. Whether the rule itself be vicious or not, is another inquiry; but certainly we ought to examine a work only by those principles according to which it was composed. This would save a deal of impertinent criticism.

V. We have now brought the inquiry as low as was intended, but cannot quit it without entering into a short description of what may be called the Economy of the ancient English Stage.

Such was the fondness of our forefathers for dramatic entertainments, that not fewer than nineteen play-houses had been opened before the year 1633, when Prynne published his Histriomastix 4. From this writer it should seem that

4 He speaks, in p. 492, of the Play-houses in Bishopsgate-street and on