reign the first company of the kingdom, compared with which the fourteen companies of the great lords which existed at the same time, between the years 1586 and 1600, were completely thrown into the shade. King James was no less favourably disposed to players; soon after his accession he conferred upon the Lord Chamberlain's company the title of 'Servants to the King, and therewith the right of exhibiting, throughout England, comedies, tragedies, histories, interludes, morals, pastorals, and pageants. His example was imitated by Queen Anne and Prince Henry of Wales; the former taking under her protection the Company of the Earl of Worcester, the latter that of the Lord Admiral the Earl of Nottingham; the one being henceforth called the Queen's Servants,' the other the Prince's Servants.' Even the Chapel boys of Queen Elizabeth were called 'Children of her Majesty's Revels,' stood under her especial protection, and exhibited their popular representations on different stages, particularly in Blackfriars and Whitefriars.

These boys, who from early youth were trained and educated for the stage, in the course of time naturally became actors of the greatest excellence, unless they were quite destitute of talent and industry. Then the rivalry and emulation of the numerous companies, the members of which were by no means regarded as state servants, appointed and pensioned for life, but as hirelings liable to dismissal, and whose good or bad fortunes therefore depended upon the favour of their patrons and the approbation of the public, necessarily stimulated them to the greatest exertions, and could not fail to be of advantage to dramatic art. And in addition to this there was the general fondness of the people for theatrical performances; this and the esteem in which the better actors were held -such as Shakspeare, Burbage, Alleyn, Heywood and others must have tended to draw forth and encourage youthful talents. It is therefore not to be wondered at that histrionic art should have kept pace with the advance of dramatic poetry, even though in the twenty years between 1580 and 1600 it had made gigantic strides. As early as the time of Shakspeare's first appearance, actors must have arrived at a not inconsiderable degree of excellence; otherwise they could not have done justice to the

earlier works of the great poet, or even of his older contemporaries. Marlowe's 'Jew of Malta,' for instance, is so difficult a part to play, that the piece has been reproduced, within the first half of this century, on the London stage in order to test the powers of a famous actor. Equally difficult is the part of Tamburlaine,' a piece which Marlowe certainly produced about 1586. Shakspeare's Titus Andronicus,' and still more so his 'Henry VI.,' requires a number of experienced and skilful actors, and it may safely be assumed that poets, who were actors as well, would not have carried their requisitions beyond the powers of their colleagues. No doubt that extravagant, glaring colouring in the expression of passion and emotion, that empty, bombastic pathos, violent gesticulations and the making of grimaces, which Hamlet ridicules, may have still predominated because it corresponded with the character of the pieces as well as with the taste of the public in general. But that a consciousness of its absurdity was, nevertheless, soon arrived at, and that this false manner was abandoned, is evident from those excellent rules which Hamlet delivers to the actors. The parts in Shakspeare's later pieces require such fine, carefully studied and characteristic acting, his concise and thoughtful language which embraces all the different tones of sentiment and emotion, up to the expression of the highest pathos and of the wildest passion, demands an enunciation so perfect and frequently presupposes as much expressive play of the countenance as silent accompaniment of action, and connects the principal effect of the poem so closely and firmly with the actor's representative skill (as in Macbeth,' 'King Lear,' 'Hamlet,' and others), that we are forced to place the powers and capabilities of the latter on a level with the greatness and beauty of the compositions. In fact the fame of Burbage and Alleyn, the distinguished tragedians, and of Wilson and Tarlton, the excellent comedians, and of Nathaniel Field and John Underwood-the latter celebrated even as boys-was so great, that their names are still spoken of, and, supported by the immortal name of Shakspeare, will probably continue to be remembered throughout all ages.

This was about the condition of dramatic art and of

VOL. I.

I

the English stage, at the time (about 1580) when a number of distinguished minds who, in addition to their profession as poets, were men of learned culture, began to devote themselves to the popular theatre. They are the immediate predecessors and earlier contemporaries of Shakspeare, and for this reason alone, deserve to be more particularly characterised, because it is only through them that we can judge how much Shakspeare's genius owed not merely to the past, but also to the present, which was more important for his development. But in addition to this, they have an independent and great significance as regards the history of the English drama. It is theya fact which has hitherto been quite overlooked-who endeavoured to obtain for the English drama the fruits of thorough classic and learned studies without defacing its own essential peculiarities; it was they who, with the shears of a higher culture, undertook to free the popular growth of the English drama of its excrescences, without injuring its roots, trunk or branches, to moderate the rude expression of its power, to regulate its development, and artistically to shape its formation; in short their object was to raise the popular theatre into one for the educated classes, without depriving it of its popular character, to polish the rough gem, to give it a proper setting, and to find the right form for the given substance without changing it. It was they who paved the way for Shakspeare in so far as they prepared men's minds for the great event of an appearance like Shakspeare, by directing their attention towards a higher and as yet unknown goal; they are Shakspeare's auxiliaries in so far, as they laid the first foundations upon which he could erect his edifice. Shakspeare's poems are directly connected with theirs, in being the fulfilment and completion of their endeavours. For the people had first to become accustomed to a drama, which no longer aimed merely at being an amusement and a diversion, but which, at the same time, had a higher object in view; the people had first of all to be incited to make higher demands; they had first of all to be raised above the popular mode of viewing the drama, and to be made to adopt a different standard for forming an opinion, if, in fact, the Shakspearean drama was to become a possibility.

CHAPTER IX.

THOMAS KYD AND THOMAS LODGE.

UNFORTUNATELY there exist, comparatively, but a very small number of the dramatic works of the poets of whom we are now about to speak. All of them were more or less prolific writers; they, however, did not write their plays for the press but merely for the stage, and moreover expressly for one or another special theatre. Their works consequently were never immediately printed, in fact they were frequently delayed and kept back intentionally. For every one of the numerous theatres, on account of competition, had to endeavour to form their own repertoires, and of course grudged other theatres the very works which met with most success. The plays accordingly existed at first in manuscript only, frequently perhaps merely in the separate parts which were copied out, and were not printed till they had served their time, that is, frequently not till some decades after their first appearance; or what was worse, some bookseller, greedy of gain, would get the play written down from the mouths of the actors, while the play was being performed, or procured it in some other underhand way, so as to be able to publish an edition on his own account for purely mercantile interests. There exist stolen prints of this kind, not merely of several of Shakspeare's dramas, but many of the old quartos evidently belong to this category. Of course in these circumstances little or no heed was paid to the author of the piece; he was frequently never mentioned at all on the print or when the piece was performed, hence the public often remained completely ignorant of his name. This in many respects had its advantages, for it encouraged that freedom and independence of poetic productions through which alone the highest perfection can be attained. However, it has done great injury to

the history of literature, for, not only have a number of dramas been entirely lost, but even as regards the extant pieces, we are often unable to ascertain with certainty the author's name, and more frequently the date of the origin of the plays, a misfortune which also renders the historical criticism of Shakspeare exceedingly difficult. Recent historians of literature and the representatives of Shakspearian literature in England have, it is true, made some extensive as well as thorough investigations en this subject which deserve great credit; but still no safe foundation has been arrived at in regard to this point.

6

The first whom we may here mention, because he is probably the oldest, is Thomas Kyd. We are entirely ignorant of the circumstances of his life even as to the year of his birth and that of his death. However, those works which are known with certainty to have proceeded from his pen prove that he had the education of a scholar, and also make it seem very likely that he was somewhat older than Lodge, Nash, Peele, Greene and Marlowe. The earliest of his writings, if indeed it is his, must be The Tragedy of Soliman and Perseda,' which was printed in 1599.* The piece still bears a striking resemblance to the old Moral Plays and even thereby proves its relatively early origin. A chorus' consisting of the allegorical figures of Love, Happiness and Death, not only opens the play itself, but every separate act also, ends with a controversy in which all of the three personified powers boast of their deeds and triumphs over the others, till at the end of the fifth act, Death remains the victor, and the whole concludes with a eulogy on Queen Elizabeth, the only mortal whom Death does not venture to approach. This framework alone, shows the popular character of the piece; it is in fact a genuine, popular tragedy with a great deal of action, short speeches, rapid events, everything described in sketches, the development being left to the actors, devoid of a high ideal character, poor in thoughts, the comic parts coarse and low, and the tragic parts nothing but a great and general butchery, in which men are slaughtered like sheep, so that at the end, in the *Reprinted in Hawkins, ii. 199-284.