and tumble meter; and the dialogue, often coarse in strain, is, as a whole, in that southwestern dialect which became the conventional form of rustic speech on the Elizabethan stage. The plot turns on the complications produced in a small village society by the loss of the gammer's needle, and the characters are typically English, including Diccon, who combines the rôles of a Vice and a vagrant Tom of Bedlam. But, on closer examination, the effect of classical models is The comedy is divided into acts and scenes, and the plot has a real organic unity. The parts played by the different personages in the village community, from 'Master Bailey' and the curate downward, are neatly discriminated. The triumph of pastoral convention had not yet blurred for English humanists the outlines of genuine English country life."

seen.

An important development in another direction was that of plays with a didactic or satirical tendency. Some of these were neo-classical rather than strictly classical in tone, and more than one used in some way the theme of the Prodigal Son. In Nice Wanton (c. 1560) is portrayed the downward career of two spoiled children and the remorse of their mother. Thomas Ingeland's The Disobedient Child, printed in 1560, but probably written some years before, and largely adapted from an earlier original in Latin, shows some connection with the Continent, where the fashion of presenting biblical stories in classical form had become popular. It "is one of the earliest English plays undoubtedly modeled after the Christian drama of the German humanists. . . There is no division into acts and scenes, but the play shows a real advance in structural art,—a juster conception of plot as a progresF. S. Boas: "University Plays,” C. H. E. L., VI, 334.

5

sively developing unity." To the same general class (with influence from the Italian, or it may be from the Dutch humanists with whom he was possibly in contact) belongs George Gascoigne's The Glass of Government (1575). In this play the prodigal and the virtuous son appear in double guise. Two fathers are introduced, each with two sons, the elder in each case being very bad and the younger very good. All four are given in charge of a schoolmaster, who at great length instructs them in their duties. The older boys spend their time with coarse associates and rebel against their teacher, while the younger ones are diligent at their tasks. The younger ones grow to distinction and renown, while the older ones are finally saved from the consequences of their misdeeds only on the plea of their old schoolmaster. This play is of course mechanical in its moral scheme; at the same time its style and structure are interesting, and the prose used throughout makes the dialogue realistic. In other directions Gascoigne was less artificial. His Supposes (1566), adapted from Ariosto, further emphasizes prose as a comic medium, has the importance of presenting in English for the first time a characteristic Italian comedy of intrigue, and in theme has much affinity with The Taming of the Shrew, for which play by Shakespeare it was really the ultimate English source.

Interesting as representing the fusion of classical and native elements was Damon and Pithias, by Richard Edwards, a "tragical comedy" presented before the Queen in 1564. The plot is drawn from the annals of Syracuse, and the loyalty of the two friends to each other is well portrayed. The Syracusan court is really the Elizabethan, ' Wallace, 51.

and some of the characters, notably Grim the collier, are distinctly English. "Though lacking in metrical charm or verbal felicity, Damon and Pithias has merits which go some way towards accounting for the acclaim with which, as contemporary allusions show, it was received; and the play possesses an importance of its own in the development of romantic drama from a combination of forces and materials new and old."

16. First Regular Tragedies.-The beginnings of regular tragedy in English show on every hand interesting connections with the older dramatic forms of morality and interlude, and with the chronicle play, which last is so important as to demand further and special consideration. Stronger perhaps than any other influence was that of Seneca. Two plays might be remarked as representative of the transition from the earlier forms to regular tragedy.

One of these was the "lamentable tragedy of Cambises” (not later than 1569), telling the story of Cambises, King of Persia "from the beginning of his kingdom unto his death; his one good deed of execution; after that, many wicked deeds and tyrannous murders committed by and through him, and last of all, his odious death by God's justice appointed." The author of this production was Thomas Preston, fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and afterwards master of Trinity Hall. Cambises sets out upon his conquests, returns and executes his deputy Sisamnes, shoots the young son of the counselor Praxaspes; murders his own brother Smirdis; marries, against her own wish and the law of the Church, his cousin, only to execute her when she reproaches him for his crimes; and finally dies accidentally pierced by his own sword. Most

F. S. Boas: "Early English Comedy,” in C. H. E. L., V, 133-34.

of these horrors take place on the stage, and crime follows crime in mechanical or melodramatic fashion, so much so that Shakespeare in I Henry IV (II, 4) refers to “King Cambyses' vein" as something proverbial for rant. At the same time there is occasionally heard the voice of genuine feeling, as in the farewell of Praxaspes to his little son, and the play as a whole has the merit of clear construction. There are many signs of the survival of the old morality; the Vice Ambidexter is ingeniously woven into the play (he predicts the death of Cambises), and such figures as Huf and Ruf furnish the low comedy. Another play of the transition was the "tragical comedy" of Appius and Virginia, by one R. B. (1563), on a theme which was attractive to English dramatists from the days of the beginning of tragedy down to those of James Sheridan Knowles in the nineteenth century. In this we find portrayed the domestic happiness of Virginius and his wife and daughter, all of which is marred by the passion of Appius. There are numerous allegorical personages in the play, but they have little important part in the action. Haphazard the Vice makes mischief, and there are other such characters as Doctrine, Memory, Reward, and Fame, who inscribe the "honor of Virginia's name." "The Epilogue prays 'God save the Queen,' but makes no reference to what later Elizabethan poets would have joyed to find an occasion of celebrating, her renown for the virtue which is the subject of the play." Appius and Virginia has the merit of simplicity of theme, but it exhibits little genuine tragic emotion, and places most exaggerated emphasis on rant and alliteration, as in the line, "O curst and cruel cankered churl, O carl unnatural."

7

'Ward: English Dramatic Literature, I, 205.

Generally contemporary with both of these productions was Gorboduc (1562), commonly known as the first English tragedy. This play was first acted before Queen Elizabeth, and its authors were Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, Norton seeming to be in the main responsible for the first three acts and Sackville (afterwards Lord Buckhurst and the Earl of Dorset) for the others. The Argument furnishes the theme for the play: "Gorboduc, King of Brittaine, diuided his realme in his lifetime to his sonnes, Ferrex and Porrex; the sonnes fell to discention; the yonger killed the elder; the mother, that more dearely loued the elder, for revenge killed the younger; the people moved with the crueltie of the fact, rose in rebellion and slew both father and mother; the nobilitie assembled and most terribly destroyed the rebels; and afterwards, for want of issue of the prince, whereby the succession of the crowne became uncertain, they fell to ciuill warre, in which both they and many of their issues were slaine, and the land for a long time almost desolate and miserably wasted." Gorboduc was built primarily upon the model of Senecan tragedy, and yet it exhibits some very distinct differences from classical originals. In fact, because of what it does and what it does not do, the play might serve as the occasion of long discussion as to the theories of dramatic construction. Although the plot has with classic models the affinity just remarked, its immediate source was in English legend, in the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The play held to the idea of division into five acts, and of a chorus (in this case of "four ancient and sage men of Britain "); and, while it placed no emphasis on the unities, its deeds of violence are reported by messengers or witnesses rather than definitely set forth in