'O fonde desire of princely dignitie! 'Who clymes too soone he oft repents too late. They fill (not feede) their uncontented eies, They reape such rest as doth beguile the night; Ne dread the dint of proud usurping swords; Than sway 'Cease to aspire, then; cease to soare so hie, And shunne the plague that pierceth noble brestes. 'To glittring courts what fondnes is to flie 'When better state in baser towers restes!' Yelverton must have been a poet of some considerable note before 1560, for in that year he is mentioned in company with Sackville and Norton, by Jasper Heywood, in the introduction to his translation of Seneca's Thyestes: Heywood says of them, 'such yong men three, As weene thou mightst agayne Of mighty Jove his brayne.' Twenty years afterwards, the name of Christopher Yelverton again occurs, in connexion with a play got up and performed by the members of Gray's Inn, before the Queen at Greenwich. Another production, of about this period, requires observation, both on account of the early date at which it was originally written, and some peculiar circumstances attending it. It was presented before Elizabeth, at the Inner Temple, in 1568, and it was the work of five persons, probably all members of that Inn, each of whom contributed an act*. It is called The tragedy of Tancred and Gismund †, and it is founded upon the famous novel of Boccacio, forming the thirty-ninth of the series, in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, which had then only recently made its appearance. The tragedy does not seem to have been printed on its performance in 1568; but the author of the last act, Robert Wilmot, living until after 1592, published it in that year, when, as the title-page states, it was 6 newly revived, and polished according to the decorum of these days.' The meaning of this passage seems to be, that the piece was in the first instance composed in rhyme: in 1592 (as I shall have occasion to show hereafter more at large), rhyme had gone out of fashion, even on the public stage; and the reviving and polishing, by Robert Wilmot, consisted chiefly in cutting off many of the tags to the lines,' or turning them differently. Nevertheless, much yet remains in rhyme, even of the fifth act, of which Wilmot was the original author; and if the fragment quoted in the last edition of Dodsley's Old Plays be a part of the first draught of this tragedy, as it was performed in 1568, it confirms the conjecture I have drawn from the expression on the title-page, inasmuch *Their names are thus subscribed: Rod Staff at the close of act i. -Hen. No: at the end of act ii.-G. All.: at the termination of act iii. Ch. Hat.: after act iv., while R. W. follows the epilogue. Hen. No. is supposed to mean Henry Noel; Ch. Hat., Christopher Hatton; and R. W., Robert Wilmot. The other two are unappropriated. † See Dodsley's Old Plays, last edit., ii. 159. as that is wholly in alternate rhyme. Excepting in the important difference between rhyme and blank verse, the general structure of this tragedy resembles that of Ferrex and Porrex and Jocasta: it has dumbshows to commence, and choruses to terminate every act. Tancred and Gismund is the earliest English play extant, the plot of which is known to be derived from an Italian novel. A classical taste began to be generally apparent very soon after Elizabeth came to the crown, and it produced its effects upon our national drama. The translation of the Andria of Terence had been printed about thirty years before she ascended the throne; and at a distance of from ten to fifteen years, it was followed by the interlude called Jack Juggler, founded upon a play by Plautus. Jocasta, from the Phænissæ of Euripides, was acted, as has been mentioned, in 1566; but it was preceded by a series of translations of the tragedies of Seneca, for the commencement of which, we are indebted to an author already named-Jasper Heywood, son to the celebrated John Heywood. Most of these versions came out separately in octavo, between the years 1559 and 1566. The Troas, by Jasper Heywood, certainly appeared in 1559*, as it is mentioned in the prefatory matter to Thyestes, by the same hand, *It was printed by T. Powell without date; and in the Preface ' to Thyestes, Heywood complains bitterly of the errors of the press, though he had corrected the proofs himself. He states that he had sworn that Powell should never print another work by him, and he appears to have kept his word. printed in 1560 *. Hercules Furens, also by Hey wood, was published in 1561 †. Edipus, by Alexander Nevyle, came out in 1563 ‡, and Medea and Agamemnon, by John Studley, in 1566. Octavia, by Thomas Nuce, was entered on the Stationers' books in the same year; but I apprehend that no copy of so early a date is now known to exist. These seven, with the addition of Hippolytus and Hercules Oetœus by Studley, and the Thebais by Thomas Newton, were printed collectively in quarto, in 1581 §. Nine of the ten tragedies are in fourteen-syllable Alexandrines, (excepting the choruses, the measure of which is varied,) and the tenth, Octavia by Nuce, is partly in ten-syllable couplets, and partly in lines of eight syllables, rhyming alternately. *Imprinted in the house of the late Thomas Berthelettes.' Imprinted by H. Sutton, 1561;' so that, perhaps, the executors of Berthelet pleased Heywood as little as Powell had done. ‡ Warton (H. E. P., iv. 208) thought that this play was not printed until 1581: a copy, printed by Thomas Colwell, 1563, 28 Aprilis,' is in the Garrick Collection. Warton was also incorrect in asserting that the Medea, by John Studley, was not published until 1581. T. Colwell was the printer of that tragedy, as well as of the Agamemnon. § Under the following title: Seneca his tenne Tragedies, trans'lated into English. Mercurii nutrices hora. Imprinted at London, in Fleetstreete, neare unto Saincte Dunstons church, by Thomas 'Marshe, 1581. Thomas Newton, who was more celebrated as a Latin than as an English poet, undertook the office of editor, and very modestly did not substitute his own version of the Troas for that of Heywood. To Thomas Newton, who began writing as early as 1560, Warton, Ritson, and others attribute a collection of poems on the death of Queen Elizabeth, published in 1603, under the title of Atropoion Delion, or the Death of Delia. One of these poems is an acrostic to Lady Francis Had they all been mere translations, I should have dismissed them with greater brevity; but Heywood and Studley have some claim to be viewed in the light of original dramatic poets: they added whole scenes and choruses wherever they thought them necessary, and even Nevyle (who is certainly inferior to all his coadjutors *) tells the reader, that he hath sometymes boldly presumed to erre from his author, rovynge at ' random where he list, adding and subtracting at his ' pleasure.' This circumstance proves, as Warton has very justly remarked, that dramatic authors now began to think for themselves, and that they were 'not always implicitly enslaved to the prescribed ' letter of their models.' I shall speak briefly of each of these writers in succession. The tragedies by Jasper Heywood are reprinted in the quarto of 1581, as they had first appeared in the octavo editions of about twenty years' earlier date †. Of these, the first was Troas, published while he was · yet a lad at the University, and his additions were numerous, including a scene in stanzas, in which the [Strange?], in which these two lines occur, which are decisive that Newton of Chester was not the writer of them. 'Fainting with sorrow this my youngling Muse Requires as much of you for Delia's death.' If Newton began writing forty-three years before the date when this was printed, he would hardly have applied the epithet youngling to his Muse. * On this point I differ, with the greatest humility, from Warton. H. E. P., iv. 208, edit. 8vo. With the omission, however, of the curious introductory matter. |