period of the drama when it had emerged from the semi-barbarism by which it was characterized, "from the commencement of Shakspere's boyhood, till about the earliest date at which his removal to London can be possibly fixed.” * This description has nothing in common with those accounts of the drama which have reference to this "semi-barbarism." Nor does the writer of it belong to the school which considered a violation of the unities of time and place as the great defect of the English theatre. Nor does he assert his preference of the classic school over the romantic, by objecting, as Sir Philip Sidney objects, that "plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns." There had been, according to Spenser, a state of the drama that would "Fill with pleasure The listeners' eyes, and ears with melody." Can any comedy be named, if we assume that Shakspere had, in 1590, not written any, which could be celebrated -and by the exquisite versifier of The Fairy Queen'--for its "melody"? Could any also be praised for "That goodly glee Which wont to be the glory of gay wits"? Could the plays before Shakspere be described by the most competent of judges -the most poetical mind of that age next to Shakspere-as abounding in "Fine Counterfesance, and unhurtful Sport, Delight, and Laughter, deck'd in seemly sort"? We have not seen such a comedy, except some three or four of Shakspere's, which could have existed before 1590. We do not believe there is such a comedy from any other pen. What, according to the Complaint' of Thalia, has banished such comedy? "Unseemly Sorrow," it appears, has been fashionable ;-not the proprieties of tragedy, but a Sorrow "With hollow brows and grissly countenance;" By the side of this the violent scenes of blood which were offered for the excitement of the multitude, before the tragedy of real art was devised. But this state of the drama is shortly passed over. There is something more defined. false tragic sit "ugly Barbarism and brutish Ignorance." barbarism and ignorance of the old stage ;-they are "Ycrept of late Out of dread darkness of the deep abysm." They now tyrannize;" they now These are not the disguise" the fair scene with rudeness." The Muse of Tragedy, Melpomene, had previously described the "rueful spectacles of "" the stage." It was a stage which had no "true tragedy." But i had possessed "Delight, and Laughter, deck'd in seemly sort." the trifling comedy flouteth the new ruffianism." The words of Gabriel * Edinburgh Review, vol. lxxi., p. 469. Harvey and Edmund Spenser agree in this. The bravos that "have the stage at commandment can furnish out vices and devils at their pleasure," says HarThis describes the Vetus Comedia-the old comedy-of which Nash boasts. Can there be any doubt that Spenser had this state of things in view when he denounced the vey. "Ugly Barbarism, And brutish Ignorance, ycrept of late Out of dread darkness of the deep abysm"? He denounced it in common with his friend Harvey, who, however he partook of the controversial violence of his time, was a man of learning and eloquence; and to whom only three years before he had addressed a sonnet, of which the highest mind in the country might have been proud. But we must return to the Thalia.' The four stanzas which quoted are immediately followed by these four others : "All these, and all that else the comic stage Was limned forth, are wholly now defaced; And those sweet wits, which wont the like to frame, And he, the man whom Nature self had made Instead thereof scoffing Scurrility, And scornful Folly, with Contempt, is crept, But that same gentle spirit, from whose pen Which dare their follies forth so rashly throw, Than so himself to mockery to sell." we have Here there is something even stronger than what has preceded it, in the direct allusion to the state of the stage in 1590. Comedy had ceased to be an exhibition of "seasoned wit" and "goodly pleasure;" it no longer showed "man's life in his likest image." Instead thereof there was "Scurrility"-" scornful Folly "--"shameless Ribaldry; "-and " each idle wit" "doth the Learned's task upon him take." It was the task of "the Learned" to deal with the high subjects of religious controversy-the "matters of state and religion," with which the stage had meddled. Harvey had previously said, in the tract quoted by us, it is a godly motion, when interluders leave penning their pleasureable plays to become zealous ecclesiastical writers." He calls Lyly more expressly, with reference to this meddling, "the foolmaster of the theatre." In this state of things the acknowledged head of the comic stage was silent for a time : ·-- The love of personal abuse had driven out real comedy; and there was one who for a brief season had left the madness to take its course. We cannot doubt that "HE, the man whom Nature self had made To mock herself, and Truth to imitate," 4 was William Shakspere. Mr. Collier, in his History of Dramatic Poetry,' says of Spenser's 'Thalia,'—" Had it not been certain that it was written at so early a date, and that Shakespeare could not then have exhibited his talents and acquired reputation, we should say at once that it could be meant for no other poet. It reads like a prophetic anticipation, which could not have been fulfilled by Shakspere until several years after it was published." Mr. Collier, when he wrote this, had not discovered the document which proves that Shakspere was a sharer in the Blackfriars Theatre at least a year before this poem was published. Spenser, we believe, described a real man, and real facts. He made no "prophetic anticipation; there had been genuine comedy in existence; the ribaldry had driven it out for a season. The poem has reference to some temporary degradation of the stage; and what this temporary degradation was is most exactly defined by the public documents of the period, and the writings of Harvey, Nash, and Lyly. The dates of all these proofs correspond with minute exactness. And who then is "our pleasant Willy," according to the opinion of those who would deny to Shakspere the title to the praise of the other great poet of the Elizabethan age? It is John Lyly, says Malone-the man whom Spenser's bosom friend was, at the same moment, denouncing as "the foolmaster of the theatre." We say, advisedly, that there is absolutely no proof that Shakspere had not written The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, The Taming of the Shrew, and All's Well that Ends Well, amongst his comedies, before 1590: we believe that he alone merited the high praise of Spenser; that it was meant for him.* * This argument was originally advanced by us in a small Life of Shakspere; and we here repeat it, with slight alteration. JOHN STANHOPE, one of the gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, writes thus to Lord Talbot, in December, 1589:-"The Queen is so well as, I assure you, six or seven galliards in a morning, besides music and singing, is her ordinary exercise."* This letter is dated from Richmond. The magnificent palace which the grandfather of Elizabeth erected upon the ruins of the old palace of the Plantagenets was a favourite residence of the Queen. Here, where she danced her galliards, and made the courts harmonious with her music, she closed her life some ten years after, not quite so deserted as was the great Edward upon the same spot, but the victim, in all probability, of blighted affections and unavailing regrets. Scarcely a vestige is now left of the second palace of Richmond. The splendid towers of Henry VII. have fallen, but the 'Lodge's Illustrations,' 4to., vol. ii., page 411. LIFE. 2 A 353 |