ceived the audience would be animated by the number of the characters, and that this display would operate on the gaping spectators like some of our modern enormous play-bills; in which the length of the show sometimes constitutes the principal merit of the entertainment.

Mr. Warton observes that Moralities were become so fashionable a spectacle about the close of the reign of Henry the Seventh, that " John Rastall, a learned typographer, brother-in-law to Sir Thomas More, extended its province, which had been hitherto confined either to moral allegory, or to religion blended with buffoonery, and conceived a design of making it the vehicle of science and philofophy. With this view he published A new INTERLUDE and a mery, of the nature of the iiij Elements, declaring many proper points of philosophy naturall, and dyvers straunge landys, &c. In the cofmographical part of the play, in which the poet profeffes to treat of dyvers ftraunge landys, and of the new-found landys, the tracts of America recently discovered, and the manners of the natives are described. The characters are, a Messenger, who speaks the prologue, Nature, Humanity, Studious Defire, Senfual Appetite, a Taverner, Experience, and Ignorance."

4

As it is uncertain at what period of time the ancient Mysteries ceased to be represented as an ordinary spectacle for the amusement of the people, and Moralities were substituted in their room, it is

• History of English Poetry, Vol. II. p. 364. " Dr. Percy fupposes this play to have been written about the year 1510, from the following lines:

Within this xx yere

• Westwarde he found new landes

• That we never harde tell of before this.'

The West-Indies were discovered by Columbus in 1492." Ibid.

equally difficult to afcertain the precife time when the latter gave way to a more legitimate theatrical exhibition. We know that Moralities were exhibited occafionally during the whole of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and even in that of her fuccessor, long after regular dramas had been presented on the scene; but I suspect that about the year 1570 (the 13th year of Queen Elizabeth) this species of drama began to lose much of its attraction, and gave way to fomething that had more the appearance of comedy and tragedy. Gammer Gurton's Needle, which was written by Mr. Still, (afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells,) in the 23d year of his age, and acted at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1566, is pointed out by the ingenious writer of the tract entitled Historia Histrionica, as the first piece "that looks like a regular comedy;" that is, the first play that was neither Mystery nor Morality, and in which some humour and discrimination of character may be found. In 1561-2 Thomas Sackville Lord Buckhurst, and Thomas Norton, joined in writing the tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, which was exhibited on the 18th of January in that year by the Students of the Inner Temple, before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall. Neither of these pieces appears to have been acted on a publick theatre, nor was there at that time any building in London constructed solely for the purpose of representing plays. Of the latter piece,

5 The licence granted in 1603 to Shakspeare and his fellowcomedians, authorises them to play comedies, tragedies, histories, interludes, morals, pastorals, &c. See alfo The Guls Hornbooke, 1609: if in the middle of his play, (bee it pastoral or comedie, morall or tragedie,) you rife with a shrewd and discontented face," &c.

"

"

which, as Mr. Warton has observed, is perhaps "the first specimen in our language of an heroick tale written in verse, and divided into acts and scenes, and cloathed in all the formalities of a regular tragedy," a correct analysis may be found in The HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY, and the play itself within these few years has been accurately reprinted.

It has been justly remarked by the fame judicious writer, that the early practice of performing plays in schools and universities greatly contributed to the improvement of our drama. "While the people were amused with Skelton's Trial of Simony, Bale's God's Promises, and Christ's Descent into Hell, the scholars of the times were compofing and acting plays on historical fubjects, and in imitation of Plautus and Terence. Hence ideas of legitimate fable must have been imperceptibly derived to the popular and vernacular drama." "

7

In confirmation of what has been suggested, it may be observed, that the principal dramatick writers, before Shakspeare appeared, were scholars. Greene, Lodge, Peele, Marlowe, Nashe, Lily, and Kyd, had all a regular university education. From whatever cause it may have arifen, the dramatick poetry about this period certainly affumed a better, though ftill an exceptionable, form. The example which had been furnished by Sackville was quickly followed, and a great number of tragedies and historical plays was produced between the years 1570 and 1590; fome of which are still extant, though by far the greater part is loft. This, I apprehend, was the great era of those bloody and bombaftick pieces, which afforded subsequent

Vol. III. pp. 355, et seq.

1 History of English Poetry, Vol. II. p. 388.

writers perpetual topicks of ridicule: and during the fame period were exhibited many Histories, or historical dramas, formed on our English Chronicles, and reprefenting a series of events simply in the order of time in which they happened. Some have fuppofed that Shakspeare was the first dramatick poet that introduced this species of drama; but this is an undoubted error. I have elsewhere observed that every one of the subjects on which he constructed his historical plays, appears to have been dramatized, and brought upon the scene, before his time. The historical drama

* See Vol. X. p. 450.

Goffon in his Plays confuted in five Actions, printed about the year 1580, says, " In playes either those things are fained that never were, as Cupid and Psyche, plaied at Paules; [he means, in Paul's school,]- or if a true hiftorie be taken in hand, it is made like our shavelings, longest at the rifing and falling of the sunne." From the fame writer we learn, that many preceding dramatick poets had travelled over the ground in which the subjects of several of Shakspeare's other plays may be found. " I may boldly say it, (fays Goflon,) because I have feene it, that The Palace of Pleasure, The Golden Affe, The Æthiopian Historie, Amadis of Fraunce, The Round Table, bawdie comedies in Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish, have beene thoroughly ransackt to furnish the playe-houses in London. Signat. D 5. b.

Lodge, his antagonist in this controverfy, in his Play of Plays and Pastimes, a work which I have never feen, urges us, as Prynne informs us, in defence of plays, that "they dilucidate and well explain many darke obfcure hiftories, imprinting them in men's minds in fuch indelible characters that they can hardly be obliterated." Histriomastix, p. 940. See also Heywood's Apology for Actors, 1612: Plays have made the ignorant more apprehensive, taught the unlearned the knowledge of many famous hiftories; inftructed fuch as cannot reade, in the discovery of our English Chromicles: and what man have you now of that weake capacity that cannot difcourse of any notable thing recorded, even from William the Conqueror, nay, from the landing of Brute, untill this day, being poffeft of their true ufe?" - In Florio's dialogues in Italian and English, printed in 1591, we have the following dialogue : "G. After dinner we will go fee a play.

is by an elegant modern writer supposed to have owed its rise to the publication of The Mirrour for Magistrates, in which many of the most diftinguished characters in English history are introduced, giving a poetical narrative of their own misfortunes. Of this book three editions, with various alterations and improvements, were printed between 1563 and 1587.

At length (about the year 1591) the great luminary of the dramatick world blazed out, and our poet produced those plays which have now for two hundred years been the boast and admiration of his countrymen.

Our earliest dramas, as we have seen, were represented in churches or near them by ecclefiafticks: but at a very early period, I believe, we had regular and established players, who obtained a livelihood by their art. So early as in the year 1378, as has been already noticed, the finging-boys of St. Paul's represented to the King, that they had been at a confiderable expence in preparing a stage representation at Christmas. These, however, cannot properly be called comedians, nor am I able to point out the time when the profession of a player became common and established. It has been fupposed that the license granted by Queen Elizabeth to James Burbage and others, in 1574, was the first regular license ever granted to comedians in England; but this is a mistake, for Heywood informs

"H. The plaies that they play in England are not right comedies.

"T. Yet they do nothing else but plaie every daye.

"H. Yea, but they are neither right comedies, nor right tragedies.

"G. How would you name them then?

" H. Representations of hiftories, without any decorum."

9 Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, Vol. I. p. 166.