base and minor sort of people. There is a rabble even among the gentry; a sort of plebeian heads whose fancy moves with the same wheel as these men, in the same level with mechanics though their fortunes do somewhat gild their infirmities, the vulgar.

I Compare the last half of this paragraph with Ben Jonson's Discoveries (1641,) "Nor think this only to be true in the sordid multitude, but the neater sort of our gallants. For all are the multitude only they differ in clothes not in judgment or understanding. "

CHAPTER IX

CLASSICISMS

A conspicuous feature of the Elizabethan Drama is its ultra-classicism. Professor Arber in his preliminary notes to The Return from Parnassus observes that this particular play is strewed with so many Latin quotations that it was "evidently only intended for a university audience." But this same exaggerated taste for Latin, and for French, Italian, and Spanish phrases is equally conspicuous in the plays dashed off for a living and for popular applause. The actors Kemp and Burbage, introduced among the characters of The Return from Parnassus, remark just as one would expect, that, "Few of the university pen plays well, they smell too much of that writer Ovid and that writer Metamorphosis, and talk too much of Proserpina and Jupiter:" yet, nearly all the drama as it has come down to us, whether the authors had had the advantage of a University training-such as it was or were merely unlettered actors, is saturated with classicisms. The following scene from The Brazen Age (1613) of Thomas Heywood is characteristically overloaded.

Jason. Alas! this Hercules?

This is some base effeminate groom, not he That with his puissance frighted all the earth:

This is some woman, some Hermaphrodite. Hercules. Hath Jason, Nestor, Castor, Telamon, Atreus, Pollux, all forgot their friend? We are the man.

Jason. Woman, we know thee not:

We came to seek the Jove-born Hercules, That in his cradle strangled Juno's snakes, And triumph'd in the brave Olympic games. He that the Cleonean lion slew,

The Erymanthian Boar, the Bull of Marathon, The Lernean Hydra, and the winged Hart. Telamon. We would see the Theban

That Cacus slew, Busiris sacrificed,

And to his horses hurl'd stern Diomed
To be devour'd.

Pollux. That freed Hesione

From the sea whale, and after ransack'd Troy, And with his own hand slew Laomedon.

Nestor. He by whom Dercilus and Albion fell;
He that calia and Betricia won.

Atreus. That monstrous Geryon with his three
[heads vanquish'd,
With Linus, Lichas that usurp'd in Thebes,
And captived there his beauteous Megara.
Pol. That Hercules by whom the Centaurs fell,
Great Achelous, the Stymphalides,

And the Cremona giants: where is he?
Tel. That traitorous Nessus with a shaft transfix'd,
Strangled Antheus, purged Augeas' stalls,
Won the bright apples of the Hesperides.
Jas. He that the Amazonian baldrick won;
That Achelous with his club subdued,
And won from him the pride of Caledon,
Fair Deianeira, that now mourns in Thebes
For absence of the noble Hercules !

This display of erudition may have been edifying to the classic tastes of the authors, but one is entitled to question whether it were not a little harassing to the impatient auditors who were certainly not persons of exalted sense. Dekker warns gallants against the perils of unpopularity on the stage "Though the scarecrows in the yard hoot at you, hiss at you, spit at you; yea, throw dirt even in your teeth, 'tis a most gentlemanlike patience to endure all this and to laugh at the silly animals. But if the rabble with a full throat cry Away with the fool,' you were worse than a madman to tarry by it. "1 Foreign observers describe the English of this period not as thirsting for the classics, but as being fierce and given to spectacle "fond of great ear-filling noises such as cannon firing, drum beating, and bell-ringing.

2

The author of Selimus, recognising this public taste for the horrible, concludes his Epilogue apologetically

If this part gentles, do not like you well
The second part shall greater murders tell.

The relentless doses from the classics which were administered so persistently and so methodically, one can only suppose, led frequently to disorder, falling off in revenue, and to the derisive taunt thrown at the stagekeeper in The Return from Parnassus : -"You may do better to busie yourself in providing beere; for the show will be pittifull dry, pittifull dry.

2

Whether plays were really staged in the 'pitti

1 Gull's Hornbook.

Meteren, see intro. to Goadby's Engl. of Shakespeare.

full dry' form in which some of them have come down to us; whether they flew far over the hearers' heads; or whether the acting versions were something very different, is a question which it is unnecessary to labour. Henslowe's Diary is sufficient proof that many productions answering to the titles of those published were actually acted and drew large and profitable crowds; it is however a legitimate surmise whether the severely classical portions were not reduced to a more familiar strain, and tempered by shrewd actor managers to the tastes and understandings of the penny knaves. "Our audience, says a player in The Hog bath lost his Pearl "commonly are very simple, idle headed people and if they should hear what they understand not they would quite forsake our house."

There are some scenes in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair which are seemingly apropos this point. Cokes, (an esquire of Harrow) interrogating Leatherhead, [an impresario,] enquires with regard to Hero and Leander :

But do you play it according to the printed book? I have read that.

Leatherhead. By no means, Sir.

Cokes. No! How then ?

Leatherhead. A better way, Sir. That is too learned and poetical for our audiences. What do they know what Hellespont is, or guilty of true love's blood? Or what Abydos is? or the other Sestos hight?

Cokes. Thou art in the right. I do not know myself.