1601, 'The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey,' by Munday, Drayton, Chettle, and Wentworth Smith. In 1602, 'Two Harpies,' by Dekker, Drayton, Middleton, Webster, and Munday. This is a most extraordinary record of the extent of dramatic associations in those days; and it is more remarkable as it regards Drayton, that his labours, which, as we see, were not entirely in copartnership, did not gain for him even the title of a dramatic poet in the next generation. Langbaine mentions him not at all. Philipps says nothing of his plays. Meres indeed thus writes of him: "We may truly term Michael Drayton Tragediographus, for his passionate penning the downfalls of valiant Robert of Normandy, chaste Matilda, and great Gaveston." But this praise has clearly reference to the 'Heroical Epistles' and the 'Legends.' If 'The Merry Devil of Edmonton' be his, the comedy does not place his dramatic powers in any very striking light; but it gives abundant proofs, in common with all his works, of a pure and gentle mind, and a graceful imagination. Meres is enthusiastic about his moral qualities; and his testimony also shows that the character for upright dealing which Shakspere won so early was not universal amongst the poetical adventurers of that day: "As Aulus Persius Flaccus is reported among all writers to be of an honest and upright conversation, so Michael Drayton (quem toties honoris et amoris causa nomino), among scholars, soldiers, poets, and all sorts of people, is held for a man of virtuous disposition, honest conversation, and well-governed carriage, which is almost miraculous among good wits in these declining and corrupt times, when there is nothing but roguery in villainous man, and when cheating and craftiness is counted the cleanest wit and soundest wisdom." The good wits, according to Meres, are only parcel of the corrupt and declining times. Yet, after all, his dispraise of the times is scarcely original: "You rogue, here's lime in this sack too. There is no thing but roguery to be found in villainous Jonson was an exception to the best of his contemporaries when he said of *Henry IV.,' Part I., Act II., Se. IV. Drayton that "he esteemed not of him." That Shakspere loved him we may readily believe. They were nearly of an age, Drayton being only one year his elder. They were born in the same county-they had each the same love of natural scenery, and the same attachment to their native soil. Drayton exclaims— "My native country then, which so brave spirits hath bred, If there be virtues yet remaining in thy earth, Or any good of thine thou bred'st into my birth, Accept it as thine own, whilst now I sing of Of all thy later brood th' unworthiest though It is his own Warwickshire which he invokes. They had each the same familiar acquaintance with the old legends and chronicles of English history; the same desire to present them to the people in forms which should associate the poetical spirit with a just patriotism. It was fortunate that they walked by different paths to the same object. However Drayton might have been associated for a few years with the minor dramatists of Shakspere's day, it may be doubted whether his genius was at all dramatic. Yet was he truly a great poet in an age of great poets. Old Aubrey has given us one or two exact particulars of his life :—“ He lived at the bay window house next the east end of St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street." Would that bay window house were standing! Would that the other house of precious memory close by it, where Izaak Walton kept his haberdasher's shop, were standing also! He "who has not left a rivulet (so narrow that it may be stepped over) mated hills and streams with life and passion without honourable mention; and has aniabove the dreams of old mythology ;”* and he who delighted to sit and sing under the honeysuckle hedge while the shower fell so gently upon the teeming earth,—they loved not the hills and streams and verdant meadows the less because they daily looked upon *Charles Lamb. the tide of London life in the busiest of her thoroughfares. The Cleopatra' of SAMUEL DANIEL places him amongst the dramatic poets of this period; but his vocation was not to the drama. He was induced, by the persuasion of the Countess of Pembroke, "To sing of state, and tragic notes to frame." After Shakspere had arisen he adhered to the model of the Greek theatre. According to Jonson, "Samuel Daniel was no poet." Jonson thought Daniel "envied him," as he wrote to the Countess of Rutland. He tells Drummond that "Daniel was at jealousies with him." Yet for all this even with Jonson he was a good man." Spenser formed the same estimate of Daniel's genius as the Countess of Pembroke did : "Then rouse thy feathers quickly, Daniel, And to what course thou please thyself ad vance: But most, meseems, thy accent will excel In tragic plaints, and passionate mischance."Daniel did wisely when he confined his 66 tragic plaints" to narrative poetry. He went over the same ground as Shakspere in his 'Civil Wars ;' and there are passages of resemblance between the dramatist and the descriptive poet which are closer than mere accident could have produced. The imitation, on whatever side it was, was indicative of respect. JOHN MARSTON, a man of original talent, took his Bachelor's degree at Oxford in 1592. There is very little known with any precision about his life; but a pretty accurate opinion of his character may be collected from the notices of his contemporaries, and from his own writings. He began in the most dangerous path of literary ambition, that of satire, bitter and personal : "Let others sing, as their good genius moves, *Colin Clout's come Home again.' Quake, guzzle-dogs, that live on spotted lime, Scud from the lashes of my yerking rhyme."* His first performance, 'The Metamorphoses of Pygmalion's Image,' has been thought by Warton to have been written in ridicule of Shakspere's Venus and Adonis. The author says, "Know, I wrot These idle rhymes, to note the odious spot And blemish, that deforms the lineaments Of modern poesy's habiliments." In his parody, if parody it be, he has contrived to produce a poem, of which the licentiousness is the only quality. Thus we look upon a sleeping Venus of Titian, and see but the wonderful art of the painter; a dauber copies it, and then beauty becomes deformity. He is angry that his object is misunderstood, as well it might be: "O these same buzzing gnats That sting my sleeping brows, these Nilus rats, Half dung, that have their life from putrid slime, These that do praise my loose lascivious rhyme, For these same shades I seriously protest, To fish for fools, that stalk in goodly shape: What though in velvet cloak, yet still an ape!" He had the ordinary fate of satirists—to live in a state of perpetual warfare, and to have offences imputed to him of which he was blameless. The " galled jade" not only winces, but kicks. The comedy of 'The Malecontent,' written in 1600, appears to have been Marston's first play; it was printed in 1605. He says in the Preface, "In despite of my endeavours, I understand some have been most unadvisedly overcunning in misinterpreting me, and with subtilty (as deep as hell) have maliciously spread ill rumours, which springing from themselves, might to themselves have heavily returned." Marston says in the Preface to one of his later plays, "So powerfully have I been enticed with the delights of poetry, * 'Scourge of Villainy; Three Books of Satire:' 1598. Ramp up, my genius, be not retrograde; Magnificates his merit; and bespawls The conscious time with humorous foam, and brawls, Ignotus moritur sibi.' "-Seneca. He adds, "the over-vehement pursuit of these delights hath been the sickness of my youth." He unquestionably writes as one who is absorbed by his pursuit; over whom it has the mastery. In his plays, as well as in his satires, there is no languid task-work; but, as may be expected, he cannot go out of himself. It is John Marston who is lashing vice and folly, whatever character may fill the scene; and from first to last in his reproof of licentiousness we not only see his familiarity with many gross things, but The following advice is subsequently given 66 cannot feel quite assured that he looks upon them wholly with pure eyes. His temper was no doubt capricious. It is clear that Jonson had been attacked by him previous to the production of 'The Poetaster.' He endured the lash which was inflicted on him in return, and became again, as he probably was before, the friend of Jonson, to whom he dedicates 'The Malecontent' in 1605. Gifford has clearly made out that the Crispinus of "The Poetaster' was Marston. Tucca thus describes him, in addressing the player: Go, and be acquainted with him then; he is a gentleman, parcel poet, you slave; his father was a man of worship, I tell thee. Go, he pens high, lofty, in a new stalking strain, bigger than half the rhymers in the town again: he was born to fill thy mouth, Minotaurus, he was; he will teach thee to tear and rand. Rascal, to him, cherish his muse, go; thou hast forty-forty shillings, I mean, stinkard; give him in earnest, do, he shall write for thee, slave! If he pen for thee once, thou shalt not need to travel with thy pumps full of gravel any more, after a blind jade and a hamper, and stalk upon boards and barrel heads to an old cracked trumpet." Jonson, in the same play, has parodied Marston's manner, and has introduced many of his expressions, in the following verses, which are produced as those of Crispinus : As if his organons of sense would crack to him : "You must not hunt for wild outlandish terms, But let your matter run before your words. Rack your poor verse to give it entertainment, Marston, with all his faults, was a scholar "I was a scholar: seven useful springs Of cross'd opinions 'bout the soul of man ; Nay, mark, list! Delight, Delight, my spaniel, slept, whilst I bauz'd * leaves, Toss'd o'er the dunces, por❜d on the old print *Mr. Dilke, in his valuable' Selection from the Early Dramatic Writers,' prints three of Marston's plays. He says this word may be derived from baiser, to kiss; and that basse has been used by Chaucer in this sense. Of titled words, and still my spaniel slept. And still I held converse with Zabarell, At that they are at brain buffets, fell by the ears, Amain, pell-mell together; still my spaniel slept. Then whether 't were corporeal, local, fix'd, At length he wak'd, and yawn'd, and by yon sky, For aught I knew, he knew as much as I. How 'twas created, how the soul exists: One talks of motes, the soul was made of motes; Another fire, t' other light, a third a spark of star-like nature; Hippo, water; Anaximenes, air; Did eat my youth; and when I crept abroad, Stood banding factions, all so strongly propp'd, In the following Chapters of this Book we shall give a brief analysis of several of the plays belonging to this period, which have CHAPTER II. SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE. PART I. THE mode in which some of the German critics have spoken of this play is a rebuke to dogmatic assertions and criticism. Schlegel says-putting 'Sir John Oldcastle,' Thomas Lord Cromwell,' and 'The Yorkshire Tragedy' in the same class-"The last three pieces are not only unquestionably Shakspere's, but in my opinion they deserve to be classed among his best and maturest works. . . . Thomas Lord Cromwell' and 'Sir John Oldcastle' are biographical dramas, and models in this species; the first is linked, from its subject, to 'Henry VIII.,' and the second to 'Henry V.'" Tieck is equally confident in assigning the authorship of this play to Shakspere. Ulrici, on the contrary, takes a more sober view of the matter. He says "The whole betrays a poet who endeavoured to form himself on Shakspere's model, nay, even to imitate him, but who stood far below him in mind and talent." Our own critics, relying upon the internal evidence, agreed in rejecting it. Malone could "not perceive the least trace of our great poet in any part of this play." He observes that it was originally entered on the Stationers' registers without the name of Shakspere; but he does not mention the fact, that of two editions printed in 1600 one bears the name of Shakspere, the other not. The one which has the name says-“ As it hath bene lately acted by the Right honorable the Earle of Notingham, Lord High Admirall of England, his Seruants." In 1594 a play of Shakspere's might have been acted, as, we believe, 'Hamlet' was, at Henslowe's theatre, which was that of the Lord High Admiral his servants, but in 1600 a play of Shakspere's would have unquestionably been acted by the Lord Chamberlain his servants. However, this evidence is quite unnecessary. conjectural | glutton." In our opinion, there was either Henslowe, another play besides 'The Famous Victories' the head of the Lord Admiral's company, as in which the name of Oldcastle was introwe learn by his diary, on the 16th of October, duced, or the remarks of contemporary 1599, paid "for The first part of the Lyfe of writers applied to Shakspere's Falstaff, who Sir Jhon Ouldcastell, and in earnest of the had originally borne the name of Oldcastle. Second Pte, for the use of the company, ten The following passage is from Fuller's pound;" and the money was received by 'Church History:'-"Stage-poets have them"Thomas Downton" "to pay Mr. Monday, selves been very bold with, and others very Mr. Drayton, Mr. Wilson, and Hathaway." merry at, the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, We might here dismiss the question of the whom they have fancied a boon companion, authorship of this play, did it not furnish a a jovial royster, and a coward to boot. The very curious example of the imperfect man- best is, Sir John Falstaff hath relieved the ner in which it was attempted to imitate the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, and of late is excellence and to rival the popularity of substituted buffoon in his place." This deShakspere's best historical plays at the time scription of Fuller cannot apply to the Sir of their original production. It is not the John Oldcastle of "The Famous Victories.' least curious also of the circumstances con- The dull dog of that play is neither a jovial nected with 'The First Part of Sir John companion nor a coward to boot. Whether Oldcastle,' that, whilst the bookseller affixed or not Falstaff was originally called Oldthe name of Shakspere to the performance, castle, Shakspere was, after the character it has been supposed that the Falstaff of his was fairly established as Falstaff, anxious to 'Henry IV.' was pointed at in the following vindicate himself from the charge that he prologue :had attempted to represent the Oldcastle of history. In the epilogue to 'The Second Part of Henry IV.' we find this passage :"For anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man." The Second Part of Henry IV.,' the epilogue of which contains this passage, was entered in the Stationers' registers in 1600, and was published in that year. When 'The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle' was published in the same year, Falstaff is distinctly recognised as the companion of Prince Henry. In that play Henry V. is represented as robbed by the parson of Wrotham, a very queer hedgepriest indeed, bearing the name of Sir John, as if in rivalry of another Sir John; and the following dialogue takes place : "The doubtful title, gentlemen, prefix'd Upon the argument we have in hand, The line in the prologue which we have just quoted "Since forg'd invention former time defac'd,” might appear to point to an earlier period of the stage than that in which Shakspere's 'Henry IV.' was produced. Indeed, the old play of 'The Famous Victories' contains the character of Sir John Oldcastle. He is a low, ruffianly sort of fellow, who may be called "an aged counsellor to youthful sin ;" but he is not represented as a pampered "Sir John. Sirrah, no more ado; come, come, cannot stand all day. give me the money you have. Despatch; I here it is. Just the proverb, one thief robs K. Henry. Well, if thou wilt needs have it, another. Where the devil are all my old thieves? Falstaff, that villain, is so fat, he cannot get on his horse; but methinks Poins and Peto should be stirring hereabouts. |