CHAPTER V. THE EARLIEST HISTORICAL DRAMA. WHEN the ancient pageants and mysteries | that." In the same pamphlet Nashe dehad been put down by the force of public opinion, when spectacles of a dramatic character had ceased to be employed as instruments of religious instruction, the professional players who had sprung up founded their popularity for a long period upon the old habits and associations of the people. Our drama was essentially formed by a course of steady progress, and not by rapid transition. We are accustomed to say that the drama was created by Shakspere, Marlow, Greene, Kyd, and a few others of distinguished genius; but they all of them worked upon a rough foundation which was ready for them. The superstructure of real tragedy and comedy had to be erected upon the moral plays, the romances, the histories, which were beginning to be popular in the very first days of Queen Elizabeth, and continued to be so, even in their very rude forms, beyond the close of her long reign. In the controversial writers who, about 1580, attacked and defended the early Stage, we find no direct mention of those Histories, "borrowed out of our English Chronicles, wherein our forefathers' valiant acts, that have been long buried in rusty brass and worm-eaten books, are revived, and they themselves raised from the grave of oblivion, and brought to plead their aged honours in open presence." This is a description of the early Chronicle Histories of the stage, as given by Thomas Nashe, in 1592. Nashe goes on to say "In plays, all cosenages, all cunning drifts, over-gilded with outward holiness, all stratagems of war, all the cankerworms that breed in the rust of peace, are most lively anatomised. They show the ill success of treason, the fall of hasty climbers, the wretched end of usurpers, the misery of civil dissention, and how just God is evermore in punishing murder. And to prove every one of these allegations could I propound the circumstances of this play and scribes the plays to the performance of which "in the afternoon" resorted "men that are their own masters, as gentlemen of the court, the inns of court, and the number of captains and soldiers about London." To this audience, then,-not the rudest or least refined, however idle and dissipated,-the representation of some series of events connected with the history of their country had a charm which, according to Nashe, was to divert them from grosser excitements. In another passage the same writer says, "What a glorious thing it is to have King Henry V. represented on the stage leading the French king prisoner, and forcing both him and the Dauphin to swear fealty." Something like this dramatic action is to be found in one of those elder historical plays which have come down to us, The Famous Victories of Henry V., containing the Honourable Battle of Agincourt. Nothing can be ruder or more inartificial than the dramatic conduct of 'The Famous Victories: nothing grosser than the taste of many of its dialogues. The old Coventry play of 'Hock Tuesday,' exhibited before Queen Elizabeth in Kenilworth Castle, in 1575, did not more essentially differ in the conduct of its action from the structure of a regular historical drama, than such a play as 'The Famous Victories' differed, in all that constitutes dramatic beauty and propriety, from the almost contemporary histories of Marlow and Shakspere. To understand what Shakspere especially did for English History, we may well bestow a little study upon this extraordinary composition. "The Famous Victories' is a regal story; its scenes changing from the tavern to the palace, from England to France; now exhibiting the wild Prince striking the representative of his father on the seat of justice, and then, after a little while, the same Prince a hero and a conqueror. A raised floor furnishes ample room for all these dis having this hint for a clown's licence, soon renders the Chief Justice a very insignificant personage. The real wit of Tarleton probably did much to render the dullness of the early stage endurable by persons of any refinement. Henry Chettle, in his curious production, 'Kind-Hartes Dreame,' written about four years after Tarleton's death, thus describes his appearance in a vision ;—"The next, by his suit of russet, his buttoned cap, his tabor, his standing on the toe, and other tricks, I knew to be either the body or resemblance of Tarleton, who, living, for his pleasant conceits was of all men liked, and, dying, for mirth left not his fellow." The Prince enters and demands the release of his servant, which the Chief Justice refuses. The scene which ensues when the Prince strikes the Chief Justice is a remarkable example of the poetical poverty of the early stage. In the representation, the action would of course be exciting, but the dialogue which accompanies it is beyond comparison bald and meaningless. The audience was, however, compensated by Tarleton's iteration of the scene:-"Faith, John, I'll tell thee what thou shalt be my lord chief justice, and thou shalt sit in the chair; and I'll be the young prince, and hit thee a box on the ear; and then thou shalt say, To teach you what prerogatives mean, I commit you to the Fleet.” The Prince is next presented really in prison, where he is visited by Sir John Oldcastle. The Prince, in his dialogue with Jockey, Ned, and Tom, again exhibits himself as the basest and most vulgar of ruffians ; but, hearing his father is sick, he goes to Court, and the bully, in the twinkling of an eye, becomes a saintly hypocrite: plays. A painted board leads the imagina- | bar to the prisoner;" but what he adds, tion of the audience from one country to another; and when the honourable battle of Agincourt is to be fought, " two armies fly in, represented with four swords and bucklers, and then what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field?" (Sidney-Defence of Poesy.') The curtain is removed, and without preparation we encounter the Prince in the midst of his profligacy. Ned and Tom are his companions; and when the Prince says, "Think you not that it was a villainous part of me to rob my father's receivers ?" Ned very charitably answers, "Why no, my lord, it was but a trick of youth." Sir John Oldcastle, who passes by the familiar name of Jockey, joins this pleasant company, and he informs the Prince that the town of Deptford has risen with hue and cry after the Prince's man who has robbed a poor carrier. The accomplished Prince then meets with the receivers whom he has robbed; and, after bestowing upon them the names of villains and rascals, he drives them off with a threat that if they say a word about the robbery he will have them hanged. With their booty, then, will they go to the tavern in Eastcheap, upon the invitation of the Prince :-"We are all fellows, I tell you, sirs; an the king my father were dead, we would be all kings." The scene is now London, with John Cobbler, Robin Pewterer, and Lawrence Coster- | monger keeping watch and ward in the accustomed style of going to sleep. There is short rest for them; for Derrick, the carrier who has been robbed by the Prince's servant, is come to London to seek his goods. | Tarleton, the famous Clown, plays the Kentish carrier. It matters little what the author of the play has written down for him, for his "wondrous plentiful pleasant extemporal wit” will do much better for the amusement of his audience than the dull dialogue of the prompt-books. In the scene before us he has to catch the thief, and to take him before the Lord Chief Justice; and when the Court is set in order, and the Chief Justice cries, "Gaoler, bring the prisoner to the bar," Derrick speaks according to the book, -"Hear you, my lord, I pray you bring the | "Pardon me, sweet father, pardon me: good my lord of Exeter, speak for me; pardon me, pardon, good father: not a word: ah, he will not speak one word: ah, Harry, now thrice unhappy Harry. But what shall I do? I will go take me into some solitary place, and there lament my sinful life, and, when I have done, I will lay me down and die". The scene where the Prince removes the crown possesses a higher interest, when we recollect the great parallel scene of Shakspere's Henry IV. Part II., | Now trust me, my lords, I fear not but my son beginning Will be as warlike and victorious a prince As ever reigned in England." "I never thought to hear you speak again." "The Famous Victories' was printed in 1594. In that copy much of the prose is chopped up into lines of various lengths, in order to look like some kind of measure: Hen. V. Most sovereign lord, and well-beloved father, Henry IV. dies; Henry V. is crowned; the evil companions are cast off; the Chief Justice is forgiven; and the expedition to France is resolved upon. To trace the course of the war would be too much for the patience of our readers. The clashing of the four swords and bucklers might have rendered its I came into your chamber to comfort the melan- stage representation endurable. Soul of your body, and finding you at that time And after that, seeing the crown, I took it. After your death? but, seeing you live, I most humbly render it into your majesty's hands, And the happiest man alive that my father lives; Hen. IV. Stand up, my son; Thine answer hath sounded well in mine ears, And altogether unmindful of thy coming: And let me put thee in possession whilst I live, But it shall never touch my head so long as my 'The True Tragedy of Richard III.' is the only other History, of which we possess a printed copy, that we can assign to the period before the first real dramatists. This old play is a work of higher pretension than 'The Famous Victories.' Like that play, it contains many prose speeches which are printed to have some resemblance to measured lines; but, on the other hand, there are many passages of legitimate verse which are run together as prose. The most ambitious part of the whole performance is a speech of Richard before the battle: and this we transcribe : For God knows, my son, how hardly I came by it, The moon by night eclipseth for revenge; The stars are turn'd to comets for revenge; Hen. V. Howsoever you came by it I know The planets change their courses for revenge; not; And now I have it from you, and from you I will keep it: And he that seeks to take the crown from my head, Let him look that his armour be thicker than mine, Or I will pierce him to the heart, Hen. IV. Nobly spoken, and like a king. The birds sing not, but sorrow for revenge; And all, yea, all the world, I think, Cries for revenge, and nothing but revenge: Nay, who dare so much as once to think my death? Though enemies there be that would my body kill, Yet shall they leave a never-dying mind. But you, villains, rebels, traitors as you are, Where was our friends to intercept the foe? chance, Wild-fire, with whirlwinds, light upon your heads, That thus betray'd your prince by your untruth!" There is not a trace in the elder play of the character of Shakspere's Richard :-in that play he is a coarse ruffian only-an intellectual villain. The author has not even had the skill to copy the dramatic narrative of Sir Thomas More in the scene of the arrest of Hastings. It is sufficient for him to make Richard display the brute force of the tyrant. The affected complacency, the mock passion, the bitter sarcasm of the Richard of the historian, were left for Shakspere to imitate and improve. Rude as is the dramatic construction, and coarse the execution, of these two relics of the period which preceded the transition state of the stage, there can be no doubt that these had their ruder predecessors,dumb-shows, with here and there explanatory rhymes adapted to the same gross popular taste that had so long delighted in the Mysteries and Moralities which even still held a divided empire. The growing love of the people for "the storial shows," as Laneham calls the Coventry play of 'Hock Tuesday,' was the natural result of the energetic and inquiring spirit of the age. There were many who went to the theatre to be instructed. In the prologue to Henry VIII.' we find that this great source of the popularity of the early Histories was still active: "Such as give Their money out of hope they may believe, May here find truth too." Heywood, in his 'Apology for Actors,' thus writes in 1612" Plays have made the ignorant more apprehensive, taught the unlearned the knowledge of many famous histories, instructed such as cannot read in the discovery of our English Chronicles: and what man have you now of that weak capacity that cannot discourse of any notable thing recorded even from William the Conqueror, nay, from the landing of Brute, until this day, being possessed of their true use?" There is a tradition reported by Gildon, (which Percy believes, though Malone pronounces it to be a fiction,) that Shakspere, in a conversation with Ben Jonson upon the subject of his historical plays, said that, "finding the nation generally very ignorant of history, he wrote them in order to instruct the people in that particular." It is not necessary that we should credit or discredit this anecdote, to come to the conclusion that, when Shakspere first became personally interested in providing entertainment and instruction for the people, there was a great demand already existing for that species of drama, which subsequently became important enough to constitute a class apart from Tragedy or Comedy. The Legendary History of England was seized upon at an early period, as possessing dramatic capabilities; and in 'Ferrex and Porrex,' (sometimes called 'GORBoduc,') we have the work of two poetical minds, labouring, however, upon false principles. This drama was acted before Queen Elizabeth as early as 1562. Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, its joint author with Thomas Norton, was a man of real genius; yet the dramatic form overmastered his poetical capacity. Stately harangues stand in the place of earnest passion; rhetorical description thrusts out scenic action. Some of the lines, no doubt, are forcible and impressive, such as those on the causes and miseries of isle twenty-four years, died, and was buried civil war: 6 The subject of this tragedy was a favourite with the early poets. We find it in The Mirror of Magistrates,' in Spenser, and in Drayton; occupying seven stanzas of 'The Faery Queen' (Book II., Canto 10), and fifty lines of the 'Poly-Olbion.' The legend of Brutus is circumstantially related in Milton's "History of England,' where the story of Locrine is told with the power of a poet : "After this, Brutus, in a chosen place, builds Troja Nova, changed in time to Trinovantum, now London, and began to enact laws, Heli being then high priest in Judæa; and, having governed the whole in his new Troy. His three sons, Locrine, Albanact, and Camber, divide the land by consent. Locrine has the middle part, Loegria; Camber possessed Cambria, or Wales; Albanact, Albania, now Scotland. But he in the end, by Humber, king of the Hunns, who with a fleet invaded that land, was slain in fight, and his people drove back into Loegria. Locrine and his brother go out against Humber; who, now marching onwards, was by them defeated, and in a river drowned, which to this day retains his name. Among the spoils of his camp and navy were found certain young maids, and Estrildis above the rest, passing fair, the daughter of a king in Germany; from whence Humber, as he went wasting the sea coast, had led her captive; whom Locrine, though before contracted to the daughter of Corineus, resolves to marry. But being forced and threatened by Corineus, whose authority and power he feared, Guendolen the daughter he yields to marry, but in secret loves the other: and ofttimes retiring, as to some private sacrifice, through vaults and passages made under ground, and seven years thus enjoying her, had by her a daughter equally fair, whose name was Sabra. But when once his fear was off by the death of Corineus, not content with secret enjoyment, divorcing Guendolen, he made Estrildis now his queen. Guendolen, all in rage, departs into Cornwall, where Madan, the son she had by Locrine, was hitherto brought up by Corineus, his grandfather. And gathering an army of her father's friends and subjects, gives battle to her husband by the river Sture; wherein Locrine, shot with an arrow, ends his life. But not so ends the fury of Guendolen; for Estrildis, and her daughter Sabra, she throws into a river; and, to leave a monument of revenge, proclaims that the stream be thenceforth called after the damsel's name, which, by length of time, is changed now to Sabrina, or Severn." In Comus' Milton lingers with delight about the same story: "There is a gentle nymph not far from hence, That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream, |