Plays pass to the period of the Norman Conquest. Hardicanute was acted at the Rose Theatre in 1597. William I appears in Faire Emm (anon. 1631), Henry I in Famous Wars (anon. 1598); Stephen is the title of a lost play. Then we have Richard I in Downfall of Huntingdon (anon. 1601), John in King John (anon. 1591, Shakespeare 1623), Henry III in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (Greene 1594). After these follows a sequence of plays of Edward I (Peele 1593), Edward II (Marlowe 1593-1598), Edward III (anon. 1596), Richard II (anon. 1597, Shakespeare 1598), Henry IV (Shakespeare 1598), Henry V (anon. 1598, Shakespeare 1600), Henry VI (Shakespeare 1623), Edward IV (Heywood 1600), Richard III (anon. 1594, Shakespeare 1597), Henry VII in Perkin Warbeck (Ford 1634), Henry VIII (Shakespeare 1623), of Edward VI and Mary in Sir Thomas Wyatt (Dekker and Webster 1607), and finally the times of Elizabeth in The troubles of Queen Elizabeth (Heywood 1605). Apart from this comprehensive English Chronicle Shakespeare and his fellows exhibited a wide range of Roman history, and revealed to their ignorant fellow countrymen flashes of contemporary life in foreign lands. English insularism 66 I With regard to this frequent anon Mr Woodward points out that all plays printed from 1584 until 1594 were anonymously published. No play was title paged to either Marlowe, Greene, Kyd, or Peele until after his death. Old Wives Tale 1595 with the initials "G. P." may be an exception, but as the year did not expire until March 25th and Peele was last heard of on the previous January 17th as seriously ill and destitute, he may have been dead at the date of publication. seems at this period to have been rampant, but the dramatists never pandered to the prevailing prejudice. Of Londoners in his time the Duke of Wurtemberg records, "They scoff and laugh at foreigners, and moreover one dares not oppose them, else the street boys and apprentices collect together in immense crowds, and strike to the right and left unmercifully without regard to person." Isaac Casaubon in the reign of James the First complained that he had never been so badly treated as by the people of London; they threw stones at his window; they pelted his children and himself with stones. The Venetian Ambassador of 1497 testified to the same effect ; 1557 his successor said it was inpossible to live in London on account of the insolence with which foreigners were treated. 1 1 in The better mannered and more tolerant playwrights were linguists, and extensive travellers. They constantly introduced Italian, French and Spanish quotations; Latin was so homely and familiar to them that it dropped almost unconsciously from their lips. Their knowledge of aristocratic life in Italy, France and Spain was equal to, if not more extensive than, that exhibited by Shakespeare. A point, trifling in itself but noteworthy as manifesting their intimate familiarity with detail unknown to their betters occurs in their treatment of Spanish consonants. "The Spaniards," says Bacon in De Augmentis Scientiarum, dislike thin letters and change them immediately into those of a middle tone. accordance with this knowledge he alters the I London in the Time of the Tudors Besant p. 203. In common English spelling of Madrid and writes Madrill. 1 2 3 Similarly, Middleton, Beaumont and Fletcher, " and Dekker, speak of Madrill; Middleton even changing Validolid into Validoly. 6 5 The hard d of "Bermudas" is carefully altered into "th," Shakespeare writing Bermoothes; Field, Barmuthoes; Webster, Bermoothes' and Barmotho, 8 and Beaumont and Fletcher, Bermoothees. 9 In no case does the erratic spelling countenance the thin letter d, though at that time, as today, the common and familiar form was Bermudas. Even Sir Walter Raleigh, who had visited the locality, refers in his Discovery of Guiana to "the Bermudas a hellish sea etc, >> 10 and Silvester Jourdan's tract published in 1610 is entitled "A Discovery of the Barmudas otherwise called the Ile of Divels. I With his customary insight Emerson observes, "There never was a writer who, seeming to draw every hint from outward history, the life of cities and courts, owed them so little. You shall never find in this world the barons or kings he depicted. "Tis fine for Observation on a Libel 1592. Spedding, Life and Works V. I, p. 194. 2 Spanish Gypsy. 1653. 3 4 Fair Maid of Inn IV. 2. 1626-1647. 5 Tempest I. 2. 1623. 6 Amends for Ladies III. 4. 1618. 7 Malfi 111. 2. 1616-1623. 8 Devils Laws Case 111. 2. 1623. Englishmen to say they only know history by Shakespeare. The palaces they compass earth and sea to enter, the magnificence and personnages of royal and imperial abodes, are shabby imitations and caricatures of his— clumsy pupils of his instruction. There are no Warwicks, no Talbots, no Bolingbrokes, no Cardinals, no Henry V's., in real Europe, like his. The loyalty and royalty he drew was all his own. The real Elisabeths, Jameses, and Louises were painted sticks before this magician. How true this is! and how equally true it is of the lesser Elizabethan writers! If ever there were cultured and fine minded gentlemen in those days they were to be sought among the canaille. Only those who have looked below the garish and misleading surface of History can appreciate the frowsiness of reality in comparison with the conceptions of the outcast Elizabethan playwrights. There is scarcely a branch of morality, or learning, in which they do not exhibit an innate aristocracy of mind. In the fragment entitled Filum Labyrinthi it was deplored by Bacon that "the ignominy of vanity had abated all greatness of mind. " At a later period of his life he pronounced the virtue to be almost extinct. 1 This is a perplexing assertion in view of the fact that even the skipping swaggerers' of the playhouses were not only displaying an exalted magnanimity in the slums but were blazing the I "I know his virtues and that namely that he hath much greatness of mind which is a thing almost lost among men. BACON (Letter to Tobie Mathew 1620.) fact broadcast. In the year 1594 at least four, if not five, possessors of kingly minds were simultaneously in evidence. I am kingly in my thoughts. SHAKESPEARE (2 Henry VI v. I.) 1594. Selim, thy mind in kingly thoughts attire. ANON (Selimus) 1594. We commend thy princely mind. GREENE (Orlando) 1594. This princely mind in thee, argues the height and honor of thy birth. PEELE (Alcazar) 1594. This kindness to thy king, argues thy noble mind and disposition. MARLOWE (Edward II) 1593-1598. Moral and mental attributes are not perceptible except to those who themselves possess them. Though Greene and his compeers were "notable braggarts and vainglorious vagabonds, the printed works of these writers are so pervaded with dignity, sweetness, and nobility, that they disallow any suggestion of megalomania. We have already quoted their kingly conception that the ambition of a monarch should be to bridle his own base tendencies. So far from forming their ideals upon the infamous surroundings of Elizabeth and James they rarely refer to a court without associating the word academy-or the more curious Greek word Academe coined, and first employed, by Shakespeare. Our court shall be a little academe. SHAKESPEARE (Love's Labour's Lost 1. 1.) 1598. |