great proficient either in writing or reading, and he often makes sad work of the titles of the plays he mentions in his Diary. Chalmers states that Alleyn's 'Clodius, me thinks, lookes passing big of late, 'With Dunston's browes and Allen's Cutlack's gait. The same collection makes mention of an actor of the name of Gue, who must have been distinguished in the parts of clowns. I cannot refrain from lengthening this note by the following notices by the anonymous author of Skialetheia, of the poets of his day and earlier, as I am not aware that they have ever been quoted. They are from the Sixth Satire. 'For in these our times 'Some of opinion's gulls carp at the rimes 'Of reverend Chawcer: other some do praise them, 'Some blame deep Spencer for his grandam words, 'Others protest that in them he records 'His maister-peece of cunning, giving praise 'Daniel (as some hold) might mount if he list, 'Markham is censur'd for his want of plot, 'And Virgil his Gnats' unkind Tragedy, 'The wife was the daughter of Henslowe *,' but she was in fact the daughter of his wife, who had previously been married to a person of the name of Woodward. Henslowe, nevertheless, constantly terms Alleyn his son, and seems to have left the control of theatrical matters very much to him as the acting manager. Alleyn also now and then negociated with poets for their plays, and it is not at all clear that he was not himself an author. In August, 1602, he received 4l. from Henslowe for two books,' called Philip of Spain and Longshanks, which perhaps were revivals with additions; the last, of Peele's play of Edward I. called Longshanks by Henslowe on its first appearance. In October of the same year, we find a notice of a third production by Alleyn, called Tamberzan, perhaps a revival of Marlow's Tamburlaine. Henslowe's entry runs thus: Paid unto my sonne E. The double-volum'd Satyre praysed is, 6 Nay, even wits Cæsar, Sidney, for whose death Drayton was called 'golden-mouthed' by C. Fitzgeffrey, in his poem on the death of Sir F. Drake, 1596. The double-volumed Satire' was Marston, who entitled one of his satires' Re-actio. The entry by Henslowe, regarding the new poet Mr. Marstone,' has been inserted in the Annals of the Stage, vol. i. p. 335.' * Malone's Shakespeare by Boswell, iii. 504, 6 Alleyn at the apoyntment of the company, for his 'booke of Tamberzan, the 29th Oct. 1602, 40s.*' These circumstances are omitted by Malone. From the whole of the minute and authentic, though confused, details furnished by Henslowe, it appears that between Feb. 19th, 1591, and July 14th, 1597, upwards of one hundred and ten different plays were performed by the companies with which he was in that interval connected: viz., Lord Strange's, the Lord Admiral's, the Lord Chamberlain's, and Lord Pembroke's players. In the period between October, 1597, and March, 1603, the titles of not less than one hundred and sixty pieces are inserted by him, either as original compositions, or as revivals of older plays. Independently of individual testimony (like that of Thomas Heywood, an actor and an author under Henslowe in 1597, who claimed at a subsequent date† to have been concerned, more or less importantly, in no less than two hundred and twenty plays), we have here the most remarkable and unquestionable proof of the prolific talents of our old dramatists. No less than thirty different authors were in Henslowe's pay subsequent to 1597, and not a few of them, as has been already remarked, wrote for other companies There was also what I suppose to have been an extempore play, called Tamar Cam, the 'platform' of which was formerly preserved in Dulwich College: a copy of it is inserted in Malone's Shakespeare by Boswell, iii. 356. This, however, could scarcely be the book of Tamberzan,' bought by Henslowe of Alleyn. In the Address before his English Traveller, printed in 1633. besides those in which he was interested. Their names were: Anthony Munday. Michael Drayton. Rich. Hathwaye. John Day. John Singer. Thomas Middleton. Robinson. Ben Jonson. Thomas Downton. Will. Rankins. Pett. Hawkins. Antony Wadeson. Charles Massey. John Webster. Robert Shawe. Of these poets, and poet-players, (for many of them were actors as well as authors,) only two, Munday and Chettle, can be decisively stated to have been predecessors of Shakespeare; but the plays of such as had written for Henslowe, before what may be called the era of our great dramatist, are registered by him without the names of their authors. I shall now proceed to give an account of the extant works of those who, it can be distinctly ascertained, were the precursors of Shakespeare. Two of the most distinguished dramatists, Marlow and Greene, were dead anterior to the date when Shakespeare had acquired any reputation as an original poet. 107 CHRISTOPHER MARLOW, AND THE EMPLOYMENT OF BLANK-VERSE UPON THE PUBLIC STAGE. In the examination of dramatic productions which preceded any of Shakespeare's original works, I have somewhat anticipated an important event in the history of dramatic poetry-the first employment of blankverse in performances represented on the public stage. We have seen that in Love and Fortune, Arden of Feversham, A Knack to know a Knave, The Troublesome Reign of King John, The History of King Leir, The Taming of a Shrew, and some other plays, all written prior to 1592, and all acted at theatres frequented by popular audiences, blank-verse was employed. It will now be necessary to revert back a few years, in order to ascertain the date at which this change took place, (to the speedy and almost entire exclusion of rhyme and prose, which had been previously used,) and by whom it was effected. 6 Verses of ten syllables without rhyme were first composed in English by Lord Surrey, in his translation of parts of the Æneid, on the title-page of which it is termed a strange metre.' The earliest instance of its application to the purposes of the drama, was in the tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, by Sackville and Norton, acted before the Queen in 1561-2. The |