it to the people at the door of the church, and to the rich in the interior of the church itself. Every one contributed his money, presence, provisions, and mirth to the festival; the joy of good works was augmented by the pleasures of good cheer, and the piety of the rich rejoiced to exceed, by their gifts, the price demanded. It often happened that several parishes united to hold the Church-ale by turns for the profit of each. The ordinary games followed these meetings; the minstrel, the morris-dance, and the performance of Robin Hood, with Maid Marian and the Hobby-horse, were never absent. The seasons of confession, Easter and Whitsuntide, also furnished the Church and the people with periodical opportunities for common rejoicings. Thus familiar with the popular manners, the English clergy, when offering new pleasures to the people, thought less of modifying them than of turning them to account; and when they perceived the fondness of the people for dramatic performances, whatever the subject might be, they had no idea of renouncing so powerful a means of gaining popularity. In 1378, the choristers of St. Paul's complained to Richard II. that certain ignorant fellows had presumed to perform histories from the Old Testament, "to the great prejudice of the clergy." After this period, the Mysteries and Moralities never ceased to be, both in churches and convents, a favorite amusement of the nation, and a leading occupation of the ecclesiastics. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, an Earl of Northumberland, who was a great protector of literature, established, as a rule of his household, that the sole business of one of his chaplains should be to compose interludes. Toward the end of his reign, Henry VIII. forbade the Church to continue these performances, which, in the wavering state of his belief, were displeasing to the king,

and offended him sometimes as a Catholic and sometimes as a Protestant. But they reappeared after his death, and were sanctioned by such high authority, that the young king, Edward VI., himself composed a piece against the Papists, entitled "The Whore of Babylon ;" and Queen Mary, in her turn, commanded the performance, in the churches, of popular dramas favorable to Popery. Finally, in 1569, we find the choristers of St. Paul's "clothed in silk and satin," playing profane pieces in Elizabeth's chapel, in the different royal houses; and they were so well skilled in their profession, that, in Shakspeare's time, they constituted one of the best and most popular troops of actors in London.

Far, therefore, from opposing or seeking to change the taste of the people for theatrical representations, the English clergy hastened to gratify it. Their influence, it is true, gave to the works which they brought on the stage a more serious and moral character than was possessed in other countries by compositions dependent upon the whims of the public, and cursed by the anathemas of the Church. Notwithstanding its coarseness of ideas and language, the English drama, which became so licentious in the reign of Charles II., appears chaste and pure in the middle of the sixteenth century, when compared to the first essays of dramatic composition in France. But it did not the less continue to be popular in its character, ignorant of all scientific regularity, and faithful to the national taste. The clergy would have lost much by endeavoring to suppress theatrical performances. They possessed no exclusive privilege; and numerous competitors vied with them for applause and success. Robin Hood and Maid Marian, the Lord of Misrule and the Hobby-Horse, had not yet disappeared. Traveling actors, attached to the service of the

powerful nobles, traversed the counties of England under their auspices, and obtained, by favor of a gratuitous performance before the mayor, aldermen, and their friends, the right of exercising their profession in the various towns, the court-yards of inns usually serving as their theatre. As they were in a position to give greater pomp to their exhibitions, and thus to attract a larger number of spectators, the clergy struggled successfully against their rivals, and even maintained a marked predominance, but always upon condition of adapting their representations to the feelings, habits, and imaginative character of the people, who had been formed to a taste for poetry by their own festivals and by the songs of the minstrels.

Such were the condition and tendency of dramatic po- ❤ etry, when, at the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth, it appeared threatened by a two-fold danger. As it daily became more popular, it at last awakened the anxiety of religious severity and fired the ambition of literary pedantry. The national taste found itself attacked, almost simultaneously, by the anathemas of the Reformers and the pretensions of men of letters.

If these two classes of enemies had united in their opposition to the drama, it would, perhaps, have fallen a victim to their attacks. But while the Puritans wished to destroy it, men of letters only desired to get it into their own hands. It was, therefore, defended by the latter when the former inveighed against its existence. Some influential citizens of London obtained from Elizabeth the temporary suppression of stage-plays within the jurisdiction of the civic authorities; but, beyond that jurisdiction, the Blackfriars' Theatre and the court of the Queen still retained their dramatic privileges. The Puritans, by their sermons, may have alarmed some few consciences, and oc

casioned some few scruples; and perhaps, also, some sudden conversions may here and there have deprived the Mayday games of the performance of the Hobby-Horse, their greatest ornament, and the special object of the wrath of the preachers. But the time of the power of the Puritans had not yet arrived, and, to obtain decisive success, it was too much to have to overcome at once the national taste and the taste of the court.

Elizabeth's court would well have liked to be classical. Theological discussions had made learning fashionable. At that time it was an essential part of the education of a noble lady to be able to read Greek, and to distill strong waters. The known taste of the queen had added to these the gallantries of ancient mythology. "When she paid a visit at the house of any of her nobility," says Warton, "at entering the hall she was saluted by the Penates, and conducted to her privy-chamber by Mercury. The pages of the family were converted into wood-nymphs, who peeped from every bower; and the footmen gamboled over the lawns in the figure of Satyrs. When she rode through the streets of Norwich, Cupid, at the command of the mayor and aldermen, advancing from a group of gods who had left Olympus to grace the procession, gave her a golden arrow, which, under the influence of such irresistible charms, was sure to wound the most obdurate heart: 'a gift,' says Holinshed, 'which her majesty, now verging to her fiftieth year, received very thankfully.'"*

But the court may strive in vain; it is not the purveyor of its own pleasures; it rarely makes choice of them, invents them even less frequently, and generally receives them at the hands of men who make it their business to

provide for its amusement. The empire of classical lit

* Warton's "History of English Poetry," vol. iii., p. 492, 493.

erature, which was established in France before the foundation of the stage, was the work of men of letters, who derived protection from, and felt justly proud of, the exclusive possession of a foreign erudition which raised them above the rest of the nation. The court of France sub

mitted to the guidance of the men of letters; and the nation at large, undecided how to act, and destitute of those institutions which might have given authority to its habits and influence to its tastes, formed into groups, as it were, around the court. In England the drama had taken precedence of classic lore; ancient history and mythology found a popular poetry and creed in possession of the means of delighting the minds of the people; and the study of the classics, which became known at a late period, and at first only by the medium of French translations, was introduced as one of those foreign fashions by which a few men may render themselves remarkable, but which take root only when they fall into harmonious accordance with the national taste. The court itself sometimes affected, in evidence of its attainments, exclusive admiration for ancient literature; but as soon as it stood in need of amusement, it followed the example of the general public; and, indeed, it was not easy to pass from the exhibition of a bear-baiting to the pretensions of classical severity, even according to the ideas then entertained regarding it.

The stage, therefore, remained under the almost undisputed government of the general taste; and science attempted only very timid invasions of the prerogative. In 1561, Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, procured the representation, in presence of Elizabeth, of his tragedy of "Gorboduc," or "Forrex and Porrex," which critics have considered as the dramatic glory of the time preceding Shakspeare. This was, in fact, the first play which was