Lectures chiefly on the dramatic literature of the age of Elizabeth. Delivered at the Surry institution

Contents

LECTURE I.

PAGE

Introductory. — General View of the Subject .... 1

Act III. Scene 2

This does not look as if in those days " it snowed of meat and drink," as a matter of course throughout the year !— The distinctions of dress, the badges of different professions, the very signs of the shops, which we have set aside for written inscriptions over the doors, were, as Mr. Lamb observes, a sort of visible language to the imagination, and hints for thought. Like the costume of different foreign nations, they had an immediate striking and picturesque effect, giving

D scope to the fancy. The surface of society was embossed with hieroglyphics, and poetry existed " in act and complement extern." The poetry of former times might be directly taken from real life, as our poetry is taken from the poetry of former times. Finally, the face of nature, which was the same glorious object then that it is now, was open to them ; and coming first, they gathered her fairest flowers to live for ever in their verse : — the movements of the human heart were not hid from them, for they had the same passions as we, only less disguised, and less subject to controul. Deckar has given an admirable description of a mad-house in one of his plays. But it might be perhaps objected, that it was only a literal account taken from Bedlam at that time : and it might be answered, that the old poets took the same method of describing the passions and fancies of men whom they met at large, which forms the point of communion between us : for the title of the old play, u A Mad World, my Masters," is hardly yet obsolete ; and we are pretty much the same Bedlam still, perhaps a little better managed, like the real one, and with more care and humanity shewn to the patients !

Lastly, to conclude this account ; what gave a unity and common direction to all these causes, was the natural genius of the country, which was strong in these writers in proportion to their strength, We are a nation of islanders, and we cannot help it; nor mend ourselves if we would. We are something in ourselves, nothing when we try to ape others. Music and painting are not our forte : for what we have done in that way has been little, and that borrowed from others with great difficulty. But we may boast of our poets and philosophers. That's something. We have had strong heads and sound hearts among us. Thrown on one side of the world, and left to bustle for ourselves, we have fought out many a battle for truth and freedom. That is our natural style ; and it were to be wished we had in no instance departed from it. Our situation has given us a certain cast of thought and character; and our liberty has enabled us to make the most of it. We are of a stiff clay, not moulded into every fashion, with stubborn joints not easily bent. We are slow to think, and therefore impressions do not work upon us till they act in masses. We are not forward to express our feelings, and therefore they do not come from us till they force their way in the most impetuous eloquence. Our language is, as it were, to begin anew, and we make use of the most singular and boldest combinations to explain ourselves. Our wit comes from us, " like birdlime, brains

d2 and all." We pay too little attention to [form and method, leave our works in an unfinished state, but still the materials we work in are solid and of nature's mint ; we do not deal in counterfeits. We both under and over-do, but we keep an eye to the prominent features, the main chance. We are more for weight than show ; care only about what interests ourselves, instead of trying to impose upon others by plausible appearances, and are obstinate and intractable in not conforming to common rules, by which many arrive at their ends with half the real waste of thought and trouble. We neglect all but the principal object, gather our force to make a great blow, bring it down, and relapse into sluggishness and indifference again. Materiam superabat opus, cannot be said of us. We may be accused of grossness, but not of flimsiness; of extravagance, but not of affectation; of want of art and refinement, but not of a want of truth and nature. Our literature, in a word, is Gothic and grotesque ; unequal and irregular ; not cast in a previous mould, nor of one uniform texture, but of great weight in the whole, and of incomparable value in the best parts. It aims at an excess of beauty or power, hits or misses, and is either very good indeed, or absolutely good for nothing. This character applies in particular to our literature in the age of Elizabeth, which is its best period, before the introduction of a rage for French rules and French models; for whatever may be the value of our own original style of composition, there can be neither offence nor presumption in saying, that it is at least better than our second-hand imitations of others. Our understanding (such as it is, and must remain to be good for any thing) is not a thoroughfare for common places, smooth as the palm of one's hand, but full of knotty points and jutting excrescences, rough, uneven, overgrown with brambles ; and I like this aspect of the mind (as some one said of the country), where nature keeps a good deal of the soil in her own hands. Perhaps the genius of our poetry has more of Pan than of Apollo ; " but Pan is a God, Apollo is no more !"

LECTURE II.

ON THE DRAMATIC WRITERS CONTEMPORARY WITH SHAKESPEAR, LYLY, MARLOW, HEYWOOD, MIDDLETON, AND ROWLEY.

The period of which I shall have to treat (from the Reformation to the middle of Charles I.) was prolific in dramatic excel lence 5 even more than in any other. In approaching it, we seem to be approaching the rich strond described in Spenser, where treasures of all kinds lay scattered, or rather crowded together on the shore in inexhaustible but unregarded profusion, " rich as the oozy bottom of the deep in sunken wrack and sumless treasuries." We are confounded with the variety, and dazzled with the dusky splendour of names sacred in their obscurity, and works gorgeous in their decay, " majestic, though in ruin," like Guyon when he entered the Cave of Mammon, and was shewn the massy pillars and huge unwieldy fragments of gold, covered with- dust and cobwebs, and " shedding a faint shadow of uncertain light,

" Such as a lamp whose light doth fade away, Or as the moon clothed with cloudy night Doth shew to him that walks in fear and sad affright."

The dramatic literature of this period only wants exploring, to fill the enquiring mind with wonder and delight, and to convince us that we have been wrong in lavishing all our praise on u new-born gauds, though they are made and moulded of things past ;" and in " giving to dust, that is a little gilded, more laud than gilt o'er-dusted." In short, the discovery of such an unsuspected and forgotten mine of wealth will be found amply to repay the labour of the search, and it will be hard, if in most cases curiosity does not end in admiration, and modesty teach us wisdom. A few of the most singular productions of these times remain unclaimed ; of others the authors are uncertain ; many of them are joint-productions of different pens ; but of the best the writers' names are in general known, and obviously stamped on the productions themselves. The names of Ben Jonson, for instance, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher, are almost, though not quite, as familiar to us, as that of Shakespear ; and their works still keep regular possession of the stage.

Another set of writers included in the same general period (the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century), who are next, or equal, or sometimes superior to these in power, but whose names are now little known, and their writings nearly obsolete, are Lyly, Mario w, Marston, Chapman, Middleton, and Rowley, Heywood, Webster, Deckar, and Ford. I shall devote the present and two following Lectures to the best account I can give of these, and shall begin with some of the least known.

The earliest tragedy of which I shall take notice (I believe the earliest that we have) is that of Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc (as it has been generally called), the production of Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, afterwards created Earl of Dorset, assisted by one Thomas Norton. This was first acted with applause before the Queen in 1561, the noble author being then quite a young man. This tragedy being considered as the first in our language, is certainly a curiosity, and in other respects it is also remarkable ; though, perhaps, enough has been said about it. As a work of genius, it may be set down as nothing, for it contains hardly a memorable line or passage ; as a work of art, and the first of its kind attempted in the language, it may be considered as a monument of the taste and skill of the authors. Its merit is confined to the regularity of the plot and metre, to its general good sense, and strict attention to common decorum. If the poet has not stamped the peculiar genius of his age upon this first attempt, it is no inconsiderable proof of strength of mind and conception sustained by its own sense of propriety alone, to have so far anticipated the taste of succeeding times, as to have avoided any glaring offence against rules and models, which had no existence in his day. Or perhaps a truer solution might be, that there were as yet no examples of a more ambiguous and irregular kind to tempt him to err, and as he had not the impulse or resources within himself to strike out a new path, he merely adhered with modesty and caution to the classical models with which, as a scholar, he was well acquainted. The language of the dialogue is clear, unaffected, and intelligible without the smallest difficulty, even to this day ; it has " no figures nor no fantasies," to which the most fastidious critic can object, but the dramatic power is nearly none at all. It is written expressly to set forth the dangers and mischiefs that arise from the division of sovereign power ; and the several speakers dilate upon the different views of the subject in turn, like clever schoolboys set to compose a thesis, or declaim upon the fatal consequences of ambition, and the uncertainty of human affairs. The author, in the end, declares for the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance ; a doctrine which indeed was seldom questioned at that time of day. Eubulus, one of the old king's counsellors, thus gives his opinion —

" Eke fully with the duke my mind agrees, That no cause serves, whereby the subject may Call to account the doings of his prince ; Much less in blood by sword to work revenge : No more than may the hand cut off the head. In act nor speech, no nor in secret thought, The subject may rebel against his lord, Or judge of him that sits in Caesar's seat, With grudging mind to damn those he mislikes . Though kings forget to govern as they ought, Yet subjects must obey as they are bound."

Yet how little he was borne out in this inference by the unbiassed dictates of his own mind, may appear from the freedom and unguarded boldness of such lines as the following, addressed by a favourite to a prince, as courtly advice,

" Know ye that lust of kingdoms hath no law : The Gods do bear and well allow in kings The things that they abhor in rascal routs. When kings on slender quarrels run to wars, And then in cruel and unkindly wise

Command thefts, rapes, murder of innocents, The spoil of towns, ruins of mighty realms ; Think you such princes do suppose themselves Subject to laws of kind and fear of Gods? Murders and violent thefts in private men Are heinous crimes, and full of foul reproach ; Yet none offence, but deck'd with noble name Of glorious conquests in the hands of kings."

The principal characters make as many invocations to the names of their children, their conntry, and their friends, as Cicero in his Orations, and all the topics insisted upon are open, direct, urged in the face of day, with no more attention to time or place, to an enemy who overhears, or an accomplice to whom they are addressed ; in a word, with no more dramatic insinuation or bye-play than the pleadings in a court of law. Almost the only passage that I can instance, as rising above this didactic tone of mediocrity into the pathos of poetry, is one where Marcella laments the untimely death of her lover, Ferrex.

" Ah ! noble prince, how oft have I beheld

Thee mounted on thy fierce and trampling steed, Shining in armour bright before the tilt ; And with thy mistress' sleeve tied on thy helm, And charge thy staff to please thy lady's eye, That bowed the head-piece of thy friendly foe ! How oft in arms on horse to bend the mace, How oft in arms on foot to break the sword, Which never now these eyes may see again I"

There seems a reference to Chaucer in the wording of the following lines —

" Then saw I how he smiled with slaying knife Wrapp'd under cloke, then saw I deep deceit Lurk in his face, and death prepared for me*."

Sir Philip Sidney says of this tragedy: " Gorboduc is full of stately speeches, and well sounding phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca his style, and as full of notable morality ; which it doth most delightfully teach, and thereby obtain the very end of poetry." And Mr. Pope, whose taste in such matters was very different from Sir Philip Sidney's, says in still stronger terms : " That the writers of the succeeding age might have improved as much in other respects, by copying from him a propriety in the sentiments, an unaffected perspicuity of style, and an easy How in the numbers. In a word, that chastity, correctness, and gravity of style, which are so essential to tragedy, and which all the tragic poets who followed, not excepting Shakespear himself, either little understood, or perpetually neglected." It was well for us and them that they did so !

The Induction to the Mirrour for Magistrates

* " The smiler with the knife under his cloke."

Knight's Tale.

does his Muse more credit. It sometimes reminds one of Chaucer, and at others seems like an anticipation, in some degree, both of the measure and manner of Spenser. The following stanzas may give the reader an idea of the merit of this old poem, which was published in 1563.

" By him lay heauie Sleepe cosin of Death Flat on the ground, and still as any stone, A very corps, saue yeelding forth a breath. Small keepe tooke he whom Fortune frowned on, Or whom she lifted vp into the throne Of high renowne, but as a liuing death, So dead aliue, of life he drew the breath.

The bodies rest, the quiet of the hart, The trauailes ease, the still nights feere was he. And of our life in earth the better part, Reuer of sight, and yet in whom we see Things oft that tide, and oft that neuer bee. Without respect esteeming equally King Croesus pompe, and Irus pouertie.

And next in order sad Old Age we found, His beard all hoare, his eyes hollow and blind, With drouping cheere still poring on the ground, As on the place where nature him assign'd To rest, when that the sisters had vntwin'd His vitall thred, and ended with their knife The fleeting course of fast declining life.

There heard we him with broke and hollow plaint Rew with himselfe his end approching fast, And all for nought his wretched mind torment,

With sweete remembrance of his pleasures past, And fresh delites of lustic youth forewast.

Recounting which, how would he sob and shreek 1 And to be yong againe of Ioue beseeke.

But and the cruell fates so fixed be,

That time forepast cannot returne againe,

This one request of Ioue yet prayed he :

That in such withred plight, and wretched paine,

As eld (accompanied with lothsome traine)

Had brought on him, all were it woe and griefe, He might a while yet linger forth his life,

And not so soone descend into the pit : Where Death, when he the mortall corps hath slaine, With wretchlesse hand in graue doth couer it, Thereafter neuer to enioy againe The gladsome light, but in the ground ylaine, In depth of darknesse waste and weare to nought, As he had nere into the world been brought.

But who had seene him, sobbing how he stood Vnto himselfe, and how he would bemone His youth forepast, as though it wrought him good To talke of youth, all were his youth foregone, He would haue musde and maruail'd much whereon This wretched Age should life desire so faine, And knowes ful wel life doth but length his paine.

Crookebackt he was, toothshaken, and blere eyde, Went on three feete, and sometime crept on foure, With old lame bones, that ratled by his side, His scalpe all pil'd, and he with eld forelore : His withred fist still knocking at Deaths dore, Fumbling and driueling as he drawes his breath, For briefe, the shape and messenger of Death."

John Lyly ( born in the Weold of Kent about the year 1553), was the author of Midas and Endymion, of Alexander and Campaspe, and of the comedy of Mother Bombie. Of the last it may be said, that it is very much what its name would import, old, quaint, and vulgar. — I may here observe, once for all, that I would not be understood to say, that the age of Elizabeth was all of gold without any alloy. There was both gold and lead in it, and often in one and the same writer. In our impatience to form an opinion, we conclude, when we first meet with a good thing, that it is owing to the age ; or, if we meet with a bad one, it is characteristic of the age, when, in fact, it is neither ; for there are good and bad in almost all ages, and one age excels in one thing, another in another: — only one age may excel more and in higher things than another, but none can excel equally and completely in all. The writers of Elizabeth, as poets, soared to the height they did, by indulging their own unrestrained enthusiasm : as comic writers, they chiefly copied the manners of the age, which did not give them the same advantages over their successors. Lyly's comedy, for instance, is " poor, unfledged, has never winged from view o'th' nest," and tries in vain to rise above the ground with crude conceits and clumsy levity. Lydia, the heroine of the piece, is silly

4S ON LYLY, MARLOW,

enough, if the rest were but as witty. But the author has shewn no partiality in the distribution of his gifts. To say truth, it was a very common fault of the old comedy, that its humours were too low, and the weaknesses exposed too great to be credible, or an object of ridicule, even if they were. The affectation of their courtiers is passable, and diverting as a contrast to present manners ; but the eccentricities of their clowns are " very tolerable, and not to be endured." Any kind of activity of mind might seem to the writers better than none : any nonsense served to amuse their hearers ; any cant phrase, any coarse allusion, any pompous absurdity, was taken for wit and drollery. Nothing could be too mean, too foolish, too improbable, or too offensive, to be a proper subject for laughter. Any one (looking hastily at this side of the question only) might be tempted to suppose the youngest children of Thespis a very callow brood, chirping their slender notes, or silly swains " grating their lean and flashy jests on scrannel pipes of wretched straw." The genius of comedy looked too often like a lean and hectic pantaloon; love was a slip-shod shepherdess ; wit a parti-coloured fool like Harlequin, and the plot came hobbling, like a clown, after all. A string of impertinent and farcical jests (or rather blunders), was with great formality ushered into the world as (c a right pleasant, and conceited comedy." Comedy could not descend lower than it sometimes did, without glancing at physical imperfections and deformity. The two young persons in the play before us, on whom the event of the plot chiefly hinges, do in fact turn out to be no better than changelings and natural idiots. This is carrying innocence and simplicity too far. So again, the character of Sir Tophas in Endymion, an affected, blustering, talkative, cowardly pretender, treads too near upon blank stupidity and downright want of common sense, to be admissible as a butt for satire. Shakespear has contrived to clothe the lamentable nakedness of the same sort of character with a motley garb from the wardrobe of his imagination, and has redeemed it from insipidity by a certain plausibility of speech, and playful extravagance of humour. But the undertaking was nearly desperate. Ben Jonson tried to overcome the difficulty by the force of learning and study; and thought to gain his end by persisting in error; but he only made matters worse ; for his clowns and coxcombs (if we except Bobadil), are the most incorrigible and insufferable of all others. — The story of Mother Bombie is little else than a tissue of absurd mistakes, arising from the confusion of the different characters one with another, like another Comedy of Errors, and ends in their being (most of them), married in a game at cross-purposes to the persons they particularly dislike.

To leave this, and proceed to something pleasanter, Midas and Endymion, which are worthy of their names and of the subject. The story in both is classical, and the execution is for the most part elegant and simple. There is often something that reminds one of the graceful communicativeness of Lucian or of Apuleius, from whom one of the stories is borrowed. Lyly made a more attractive picture of Grecian manners at second-hand, than of English characters from his own observation. The poet (which is the great merit of a poet in such a subject) has transported himself to the scene of action, to ancient Greece or Asia Minor; the manners, the images, the traditions are preserved with truth and delicacy, and the dialogue (to my fancy) glides and sparkles like a clear stream from the Muses' spring. I know few things more perfect in characteristic painting, than the exclamation of the Phrygian shepherds, who, afraid of betraying the secret of Midas's ears, fancy that " the very reeds bow down, as though they listened to their talk ;" nor more affecting in sentiment, than the apostrophe addressed by his friend Eumenides to Endymion, on waking from his long sleep, " Behold the twig to which thou laidest down thy head, is now become a tree." The narrative is sometimes a little wandering and desultory ; but if it had been ten times as tedious, this thought would have redeemed it ; for I cannot conceive of anv thing: more beautiful, more simple or touching, than this exquisitely chosen image and dumb proof of the manner in which he had passed his life, from youth to old age, in a dream, a dream of love. Happy Endymion! Faithful Eumenides! Divine Cynthia! Who would not wish to pass his life in such a sleep, a long, long sleep, dreaming of some fair heavenly Goddess, with the moon shining upon his face, and the trees growing silently over his head! — There is something in this story which has taken a strange hold of my fancy, perhaps " out of my weakness and my melancholy;" but for the satisfaction of the reader, I will quote the whole passage : " it is silly sooth, and dallies with the innocence of love, like the old age."

" Cynthia, Well, let us to Endymion. I will not be so stately (good Endymion) not to stoop to do thee good ; and if thy liberty consist in a kiss from me, thou shalt have it. And although my mouth hath been heretofore as untouched as my thoughts, yet now to recover thy life (though to restore thy youth it be impossible) I will do that to Endymion, which yet never mortal man could boast of heretofore, nor shall ever hope for hereafter. ( She kisses him).

Eumenides. Madam, he beginneth to stir. E2

Cynthia. Soft, Eumenides, stand still. Eumenides. Ah ! I see his eyes almost open. Cynthia. I command thee once again, stir not: I will stand behind him.

Panelion. What do I see ? Endymion almost awake ? Eumenides. Endymion, Endymion, art thou deaf or dumb? Or hath this long sleep taken away thy memory ? Ah ! my sweet Endymion, seest thou not Eumenides, thy faithful friend, thy faithful Eumenides, who for thy sake hath been careless of his own content ? Speak, Endymion ! Endymion ! Endymion !

Endymion. Endymion ! I call to mind such a name. Eumenides. Hast thou forgotten thyself, Endymion ? Then do I not marvel thou rememberest not thy friend. I tell thee thou art Endymion, and I Eumenides. Behold also Cynthia, by whose favour thou art awaked, and by whose virtue thou shalt continue thy natural course.

Cynthia. Endymion ! Speak, sweet Endymion ! Knowest thou not Cynthia?

Endymion. Oh, heavens ! whom do I behold ? Fair Cynthia, divine Cynthia ?

Cynthia. I am Cynthia, and thou Endymion. Endymion. Endymion! What do I hear? What! a grey beard, hollow eyes, withered body, and decayed limbs, and all in one night ?

Eumenides. One night ! Thou hast slept here forty years, by what enchantress, as yet it is not knowu : and behold the twig to which thou laidest thy head, is now become a tree. Callest thou not Eumenides to remembrance?

Endymion. Thy name I do remember by the sound, but thy favour I do not yet call to mind : only divine Cynthia, to whom time, fortune, death, and destiny are subject, I see and remember ; and in all humility, I regard and reverence.

Cynthia. You shall have good cause to remember Eumenides, who hath for thy safety forsaken his own solace.

Endymion. Am I that Endymion, who was wont in court to lead my life, and in justs, tourneys, aud arms, to exercise my youth? Am I that Endymion?

Eumenides. Thou art that Endymion, and I Eumenides : wilt thou not yet call me to remembrance?

Endymion. Ah! sweet Eumenides, I now perceive thou art he, and that myself have the name of Endymion; but that this should be my body, I doubt : for how could my curled locks be turned to gray hair, and my strong body to a dying weakness, having waxed old, and not knowing it?

Cynthia. Well, Endymion, arise : awhile sit down, for that thy limbs are stiff and not able to stay thee, and tell what thou hast seen in thy sleep all this while. What dreams, visions, thoughts, and fortunes: for it is impossible but in so long time, thou shouldst see strange things."