6 6 Queen. The specimens of the drama prior to her reign which have descended to us, either in print or in manuscript (John Heywood's Interludes' and one or two other productions of a similar description excepted) are all in the nature of Miracles or Morals. Edward VI. is said to have written an elegant comedy,' with not a very elegant title, called The Whore of Babylon, obviously of a religious and controversial character. Jube the Sane, so called in the MS. annals of that reign, was in all probability founded upon the book of Job; and we hear of the performance but of a single play anterior to the reign of Elizabeth, which, from its name, looks like an original composition of a profane kind: this was The Sack full of News*, which occasioned the interference of the Privy Council in September, 1557, in order to suppress it. From 1568 to 1580, both inclusive, the Court was entertained with Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, and Morals; and the names of many are preserved in the accounts of the Revels for the respective years. In the Annals of the Stage all the details that have reached us upon this interesting subject are furnished; but, in connexion with the progress of our aramatic poetry, it may be useful to arrange the pieces, as far as their titles will enable us to do so, in the classes to which they belong. It is, however, necessary to introduce them with this important re *A Sack full of News' is one of the ancient ballads enumerated by Laneham, in his Letter from Kenilworth, as in the possession of Captain Cox. The play might be founded upon it, mark-that although it sometimes happened that pieces were written expressly for performance before the Queen on particular occasions, yet the ordinary course was for the Master of the Revels to summon before him the players, who were ordered to exhibit at Christmas, Twelfth-tide, or Shrove-tide, in order that he might learn from them what pieces they could represent, and in order that they might rehearse them in his presence, and enable him to ascertain their fitness for the purpose. The plays they so rehearsed were such as they were in the habit of playing before popular audiences in London and elsewhere; so that an account of the plays represented at Court is in fact an account of the plays represented in public; and the list I am about to subjoin will, therefore, show the then state of the drama not only among the higher, but among the lower orders. It establishes also that the court followed, and did not in any material respect lead and guide the popular taste, which at this date had so greatly improved. The following were dramas upon classical subjects drawn from ancient history or fable, represented at Court in the twelve years between 1568 and 1580. 1. Orestes. 2. Iphigenia. 3. Ajax and Ulysses. 4. Narcissus. 5. Alcmæon. 6. Quintus Fabius. 7. Timoclea. 8. Perseus and Andromeda. 9. Mutius Scævola. 10. History of Cynocephali. 17. Pompey. 18. Mamillia. The plays founded upon modern history, romances, and stories of a more general kind, were still more numerous they were these : 1. King of Scots. 2. Lady Barbara. - 12. Pretestus. 13. Painter's Daughter. Under the head of Comedies the subsequent pieces may probably be enumerated, though perhaps some of them belong to other classes. Of these fifty-two dramatic productions not one can be said to have survived, although there may be reason to believe that some of them formed the foundation of plays acted at a later period. Thus Peele's reputed play of Mahomet and Hiren the fair Greek, may have been a revival and alteration, with additions and improvements, of what is named in the preceding list the History of a Greek Maid. Murderous Michael, perhaps, was an ancient version of the story of Arden of Feversham: the History of Error was possibly the true source of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors; and the History of the Collier there is ground to believe was the original of Grim the Collier of Croydon*. * One of the plays mentioned under the date of 1600, in Henslowe's Diary, preserved in Dulwich College (but omitted among various others by Malone), is called The Devil and his Dame, and it is there attributed to William Haughton; this is doubtless no other than Grim the Collier of Croydon, the second title of which is The Devil and his Dame. It bears evident marks of greater antiquity than the year 1600, when Haughton was engaged upon it; and the Collier there is the same personage who had figured in Edwards's Damon and Pythias, for both describe themselves as 'Colliers to the King's own Majesty's mouth.' It also contains an allusion, in Act iv. Scene 1, to Ulpian Fulwell's Like will to Like, first printed in 1568. It will be observed, that that part of the plot of Grim the Collier of Croydon which relates to Grim, Joan, Clack the Miller, and Parson Shorthose, has no connexion with the rest of the story, and is, besides, in its language and style, far older than the other parts of the piece, which are borrowed from Machiavel's Novel of Belphegor. This, I apprehend, was added by Haughton in 1600, when he also made some alterations in what relates to Grim and his companions, though he still preserved very many of the rhyming lines he found in the old copy, and which, as I have suggested, was perhaps the very same piece that had been performed before Queen Elizabeth, in 1576, by the Earl of Leicester's servants. This clue seems to explain all the difficulties arising out of the discordance, especially in point of date, of many parts of Grim the Collier of Croydon. It was not printed until 1662, when it was attributed to J. T., but this might be only a guess by the bookseller. 27 TRAGEDY AND COMEDY, THEIR RISE AND PROGRESS, (CONTINUED). A KNACK TO KNOW A KNAVE-THE MISFORTUNES OF ARTHUR-THE RARE TRIUMPHS OF LOVE AND FORTUNE-ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM, ONE fact we may consider decisively establishedthat between 1568 and 1580, the Morals represented bore but a small proportion to the Tragedies, Comedies, and Histories; but some time before the race of Morals was quite extinct, an attempt was made to unite in a five-act comedy, as had been previously done in interludes, the two species of performance. The title of this attempt is, A Knack to know a Knave; and although it was not printed until 1594 *, we are warranted in supposing that in the shape in which it now appears, it was written and acted prior to 1590: it is mentioned in Henslowe's accounts, not as a new piece, under the date of the 10th June, 1592. It was performed by his company (of which Edward Alleyn was the leader, and William Kemp a principal member) only three times anterior to June 1592; and that * Warton, who only seems to have been acquainted with its title, says that it was entered for publication on the Stationers' Books in January 1595 [H. E. P., iv. 305 edit. 8vo.], but the entry was, in fact, first made in September 1593. |