English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History Part 14

THE INTERLUDE.--While the moralities were slowly dying out, another form of the drama had appeared as a connecting link between them and the legitimate drama of Shakspeare. This was the _interlude_, a short play, in which the _dramatis personae_ were no longer allegorical characters, but persons in real life, usually, however, not all bearing names even a.s.sumed, but presented as a friar, a curate, a tapster, etc. The chief characteristic of the interlude was, however, its satire; it was a more outspoken reformer than the morality, scourged the evils of the age with greater boldness, and plunged into religious controversy with the zeal of opposing ecclesiastics. The first and princ.i.p.al writer of these interludes was John Heywood, a Roman Catholic, who wrote during the reign of Henry VIII., and, while a professed jester, was a great champion of his Church.

As in all cases of progress, literary and scientific, the lines of demarcation cannot be very distinctly drawn, but as the morality had superseded the mystery, and the interlude the morality, so now they were all to give way before the regular drama. The people were becoming more educated; the greater spread of cla.s.sical knowledge had caused the dramatists to study and a.s.similate the excellences of Latin and Greek models; the power of the drama to instruct and refine, as well as to amuse, was acknowledged, and thus its capability of improvement became manifest. The forms it then a.s.sumed were more permanent, and indeed have remained almost unchanged down to our own day.

What is called the _first_ comedy in the language cannot be expected to show a very decided improvement over the last interludes or moralities, but it bears those distinctive marks which establish its right to the t.i.tle.

THE FIRST COMEDY.--This was _Ralph Roister Doister_, which appeared in the middle of the sixteenth century: (a printed copy of 1551 was discovered in 1818.) Its author was Nicholas Udall, the master of Eton, a clergyman, but very severe as a pedagogue; an ultra Protestant, who is also accused of having stolen church plate, which may perhaps mean that he took away from the altar what he regarded as popish vessels and ornaments. He calls the play "a comedy and interlude," but claims that it is imitated from the Roman drama. It is regularly divided into acts and scenes, in the form of our modern plays. The plot is simple: Ralph, a gay Lothario, courts as gay a widow, and the by-play includes a designing servant and an intriguing lady's-maid: these are the stock elements of a hundred comedies since.

Contemporary with this was _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, supposed to be written, but not conclusively, by John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells, about 1560. The story turns upon the loss of a steel needle--a rare instrument in that day, as it was only introduced into England from Spain during the age of Elizabeth. This play is a coa.r.s.er piece than Ralph Roister Doister; the buffoon raises the devil to aid him in finding the lost needle, which is at length found, by very palpable proof, to be sticking in the seat of Goodman Hodge's breeches.

THE FIRST TRAGEDY.--Hand in hand with these first comedies came the earliest tragedy, _Gorboduc_, by Sackville and Norton, known under another name as _Ferrex and Porrex_; and it is curious to observe that this came in while the moralities still occupied the stage, and before the interludes had disappeared, as it was played before the queen at White Hall, in 1562. It is also to be noted that it introduced a chorus like that of the old Greek drama. Ferrex and Porrex are the sons of King Gorboduc: the former is killed by the latter, who in turn is slain by his own mother. Of Gorboduc, Lamb says, "The style of this old play is stiff and c.u.mbersome, like the dresses of the times. There may be flesh and blood underneath, but we cannot get at it."

With the awakened interest of the people, the drama now made steady progress. In 1568 the tragedy of _Tancred and Gismunda_, based upon one of the stories of Boccaccio, was enacted before Elizabeth.

A license for establishing a regular theatre was got out by Burbage in 1574. Peele and Greene wrote plays in the new manner: Marlowe, the greatest name in the English drama, except those of Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, gave to the world his _Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus_, which many do not hesitate to compare favorably with Goethe's great drama, and his _Rich Jew of Malta_, which contains the portraiture of Barabas, second only to the Shylock of Shakspeare. Of Marlowe a more special mention will be made.

PLAYWRIGHTS AND MORALS.--It was to the great advantage of the English regular drama, that the men who wrote were almost in every case highly educated in the cla.s.sics, and thus able to avail themselves of the best models. It is equally true that, owing to the religious condition of the times, when Puritanism launched forth its diatribes against all amus.e.m.e.nts, they were men in the opposition, and in most cases of irregular lives. Men of the world, they took their characters from among the persons with whom they a.s.sociated; and so we find in their plays traces of the history of the age, in the appropriation of cla.s.sical forms, in the references to religious and political parties, and in their delineation of the morals, manners, and follies of the period: if the drama of the present day owes to them its origin and nurture, it also retains as an inheritance many of the faults and deformities from which in a more refined period it is seeking to purge itself. It is worthy of notice, that as the drama owes everything to popular patronage, its moral tone reflects of necessity the moral character of the people who frequent it, and of the age which sustains it.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.--Among those who may be regarded as the immediate forerunners and ushers of Shakspeare, and who, although they prepared the way for his advent, have been obscured by his greater brilliance, the one most deserving of special mention is Marlowe.

Christopher Marlowe was born at Canterbury, about the year 1564. He was a wild, irregular genius, of bad morals and loose life, but of fine imagination and excellent powers of expression. He wrote only tragedies.

His _Tamburlaine the Great_ is based upon the history of that _Timour Leuk_, or _Timour the Lame_, the great Oriental conqueror of the fourteenth century:

So large of limb, his joints so strongly knit, Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear Old Atlas' burthen.

The descriptions are overdrawn, and the style inflated, but the subject partakes of the heroic, and was popular still, though nearly two centuries had pa.s.sed since the exploits of the historic hero.

_The Rich Jew of Malta_ is of value, as presenting to us Barabas the Jew as he appeared to Christian suspicion and hatred in the fifteenth century.

As he sits in his country-house with heaps of gold before him, and receives the visits of merchants who inform him of the safe arrival of his ships, it is manifest that he gave Shakspeare the first ideal of his Shylock, upon which the greater dramatist greatly improved.

_The Tragicall Life and Death of Doctor John Faustus_ certainly helped Goethe in the conception and preparation of his modern drama, and contains many pa.s.sages of rare power. Charles Lamb says: "The growing horrors of Faustus are awfully marked by the hours and half-hours which expire and bring him nearer and nearer to the enactment of his dire compact. It is indeed an agony and b.l.o.o.d.y sweat."

_Edward II._ presents in the a.s.sa.s.sination scene wonderful power and pathos, and is regarded by Hazlitt as his best play.

Marlowe is the author of the pleasant madrigal, called by Izaak Walton "that smooth song":

Come live with me and be my love.

The playwright, who had led a wild life, came to his end in a tavern brawl: he had endeavored to use his dagger upon one of the waiters, who turned it upon him, and gave him a wound in the head of which he died, in 1593.

His talents were of a higher order than those of his contemporaries; he was next to Shakspeare in power, and was called by Phillips "a second Shakspeare."

OTHER DRAMATIC WRITERS BEFORE SHAKSPEARE.

Thomas Lodge, 1556-1625: educated at Oxford. Wrote _The Wounds of Civil-War_, and other tragedies. Rosalynd, a novel, from which Shakspeare drew in his _As You Like It_. He translated _Josephus_ and _Seneca_.

Thomas Kyd, died about 1600: _The Spanish Tragedy, or, Hieronymo is Mad Again_. This contains a few highly wrought scenes, which have been variously attributed to Ben Jonson and to Webster.

Robert Tailor: wrote _The Hog hath Lost his Pearl_, a comedy, published in 1614. This partakes of the character of the _morality_.

John Marston: wrote _Antonio and Mellida_, 1602; _Antonio's Revenge_, 1602; _Sophonisba, a Wonder of Women_, 1606; _The Insatiate Countess_, 1603, and many other plays. Marston ranks high among the immediate predecessors of Shakspeare, for the number, variety, and vigorous handling of his plays.

George Peele, born about 1553: educated at Oxford. Many of his pieces are broadly comic. The princ.i.p.al plays are: _The Arraignment of Paris_, _Edward I._ and _David and Bethsabe_. The latter is overwrought and full of sickish sentiment.

Thomas Nash, 1558-1601: a satirist and polemic, who is best known for his controversy with Gabriel Harvey. Most of his plays were written in conjunction with others. He was imprisoned for writing _The Isle of Dogs_, which was played, but not published. He is very licentious in his language.

John Lyly, born about 1553: wrote numerous smaller plays, but is chiefly known as the author of _Euphues, Anatomy of Wit_, and _Euphues and his England_.

Robert Greene, died 1592: educated at Cambridge. Wrote _Alphonsus, King of Arragon_, _James IV._, _George-a-Greene_, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, and other plays. After leading a profligate life, he left behind him a pamphlet ent.i.tled, "A Groat's-worth of Wit, bought with a Million of Repentance:" this is full of contrition, and of advice to his fellow-actors and fellow-sinners. It is mainly remarkable for its abuse of Shakspeare, "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers;" "Tygre's heart wrapt in a player's hide;" "an absolute Johannes factotum, in his own conceyt the onely _shakescene_ in the country."

Most of these dramatists wrote in copartnership with others, and many of the plays which bear their names singly, have parts composed by colleagues. Such was the custom of the age, and it is now very difficult to declare the distinct authorship of many of the plays.

CHAPTER XIV.

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

The Power of Shakspeare. Meagre Early History. Doubts of his Ident.i.ty.

What is known. Marries, and goes to London. "Venus" and "Lucrece."

Retirement and Death. Literary Habitudes. Variety of the Plays. Table of Dates and Sources.

THE POWER OF SHAKSPEARE.

We have now reached, in our search for the historic teachings in English literature, and in our consideration of the English drama, the greatest name of all, the writer whose works ill.u.s.trate our position most strongly, and yet who, eminent type as he is of British culture in the age of Elizabeth, was truly and pithily declared by his friend and contemporary, Ben Jonson, to be "not for an age, but for all time." It is also singularly true that, even in such a work as this, Shakspeare really requires only brief notice at our hands, because he is so universally known and read: his characters are among our familiar acquaintance; his simple but thoughtful words are incorporated in our common conversation; he is our every-day companion. To eulogize him to the reading public is

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To lend a perfume to the violet ...

The Bible and Shakspeare have been long conjoined as the two most necessary books in a family library; and Mrs. Cowden Clarke, the author of the Concordance to Shakspeare, has pointedly and truthfully said: "A poor lad, possessing no other book, might on this single one make himself a gentleman and a scholar: a poor girl, studying no other volume, might become a lady in heart and soul."

MEAGRE EARLY HISTORY.--It is pa.s.sing strange, considering the great value of his writings, and his present fame, that of his personal history so little is known. In the words of Steevens, one of his most successful commentators: "All that is known, with any degree of certainty, concerning Shakspeare, is--that he was born at Stratford upon Avon--married and had children there--went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote poems and plays--returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried."

This want of knowledge is in part due to his obscure youth, during which no one could predict what he would afterward achieve, and therefore no one took notes of his life: to his own apparent ignorance and carelessness of his own merits, and to the low repute in which plays, and especially playwrights, were then held; although they were in reality making their age ill.u.s.trious in history. The pilgrim to Stratford sees the little low house in which he is said to have been born, purchased by the nation, and now restored into a smart cottage: within are a few meagre relics of the poet's time; not far distant is the foundation--recently uncovered--of his more ambitious residence in New Place, and a mulberry-tree, which probably grew from a slip of that which he had planted with his own hand. Opposite is the old Falcon Inn, where he made his daily potations. Very near rises, above elms and lime-trees, the spire of the beautiful church on the bank of the Avon, beneath the chancel of which his remains repose, with those of his wife and daughter, overlooked by his bust, of which no one knows the maker or the history, except that it dates from his own time. His bust is of life-size, and was originally painted to imitate nature--eyes of hazel, hair and beard auburn, doublet scarlet, and sleeveless gown of black. Covered by a false taste with white paint to imitate marble, while it destroyed ident.i.ty and age: it has since been recolored from traditional knowledge, but it is too rude to give us the expression of his face.