once indicate their special "humours"; as, for instance, Downright, Morose, Wellbred, Subtle, Pertinax Surly, Sir Epicure Mammon. In Jonson's comedies intellect predominates; they are products rather of learning, skill, and conscientious effort than of creative power; and, though astonishingly clever and rich in detailed pictures of the life of the time, they are heavy and wanting in spontaneity and charm. Historically, however, they are extremely important, for Jonson was the real founder of what is known as the Comedy of Manners, and his influence on succeeding dramatists was very great.

34. Other Dramatists of Shakespeare's Age. Of the crowd of lesser playwrights whose work extends from the time of Shakespeare's prime to the close of the period, I will name only a few who may be said to occupy the foremost positions in the second rank. JOHN WEBSTER (1580 ?-1625?) was a dramatist of sombre cast of genius and great power, though his morbid love of the violent and the horrible led him too often to sheer sensationalism. His White Devil and Duchess of Malfi contain scenes of tragic passion unrivalled outside Shakespeare. In JOHN FORD (1586?-1639) a similar tendency towards repulsive subjects and unnatural emotions is apparent, but his pathos gives a distinction to his best work, like The Broken Heart. The names of FRANCIS BEAUMONT (15841616) and JOHN FLETCHER (1579-1625) are always associated, and they did much work in collaboration, though Fletcher continued to write with great fluency for the nine years between his partner's death and his own. Their moral tone is often relaxing, their sentiment strained, and their characterisation poor; but they have many redeeming features, and such plays as Philaster and The Maid's Tragedy successfully challenge comparison with anything in the romantic drama outside Shake

speare. PHILIP MASSINGER (1583-1640), a ready writer in various styles, reached a high level in his comedy A New Way to Pay Old Debts. JAMES SHIRLEY (15961666) belongs to the reign of Charles I., but we may mention him here as, in Charles Lamb's phrase," the last of a great race." In all these writers, and still more, in smaller men whom we need not pause to name, the decline of the drama is apparent. By the time we reach the end of the period we find that all the old creative power has gone, and that the stage has yielded completely to the fast-spreading immorality of the age; while even the formlessness of the blank verse employed gives one more sign of the general decay.

35. The Playhouses of Shakespeare's Time. It is desirable that the student of the drama should understand something of the theatrical conditions under which Shakespeare and his contemporaries did their work. In the early years of the regular drama plays had been performed in inn yards and other open spaces, where a scaffold could be erected and accommodation provided for the spectators. In 1576 two permanent playhouses were built-the Theatre and the Curtain-in what were then the open fields of Shoreditch. These were the only London playhouses when Shakespeare reached the metropolis; but by the end of Elizabeth's reign at least eleven were in existence. These were not in London, for the civic authorities would not permit their erection within their boundaries, but in the immediate outskirts, and chiefly on the banks, on the Surrey side, of the Thames. With two of these playhouses—the Globe in Southwark, and the Blackfriars, near the spot now occupied by the Times office-Shakespeare, as we have seen, was very closely connected. The theatrical profession had formerly been in very ill odour, and in order to avoid being treated

as rogues and vagabonds," actors had been forced to obtain licenses from peers and other influential patrons, and to enrol themselves in companies as their "servants.' Thus we read of Lord Leicester's Servants (afterwards the Lord Chamberlain's), to which company Shakespeare belonged, of the Lord Admiral's Servants, the Queen's Players, and so on. The playhouses were very small, were round or hexagonal, and were mainly of wood. There was nothing in the least luxurious about them, either in architecture or in appointments. The stage and the boxes, or "rooms," as they were called, were roofed in with thatch, but the rest of the building was open to the sky. The boxes were frequented by the wealthier and more aristocratic play-goers, some of whom, however, assumed the privilege of sitting on the stage. No seats were provided for the "groundlings" in the " yard" or pit. Into this yard ran the stage, a simple platform, the limited dimensions of which seem to our minds to turn into absurdity those scenes of marching armies and pitched battles in which the Elizabethans delighted. The stage arrangements present some features of great interest. Of movable scenery there was practically none; though it was just beginning to come in towards the end of the Shakespearean period, it was not regularly used till the re-opening of the theatres after the Commonwealth. Stage "properties," such as articles of furniture, were freely employed, and placards hung out bearing such legends as " This is Athens," and "This is a wood"to inform the audience where the scene was supposed to be laid. Two prominent characteristics of the Shakespearean drama may be referred directly to this absence of painted scenery: the continual change in the locality of the action, and the frequency of descriptive passages, in which appeal was made to the imagination of the

spectators. A small structure at the back of the stage, consisting of a balcony and an open space beneath, played an important part in the economy of the performance. The balcony itself stood for any elevated place, such as the walls of a city or the upper part of a house; the space beneath, which could be curtained off, was put to the most various uses when any sort of interior scene was required. Performances generally began about three in the afternoon, and lasted some two hours. There is every reason to believe that the art of acting was brought to a high pitch of perfection. But there were no actresses on the Shakespearean stage, women's parts being taken by boys and young men specially trained for the purpose. These "boy actresses" must have been very clever, and when after the Restoration, women began to appear on the English boards, there were those, like the diarist Pepys, who regretted the change. But it is difficult for us to think that Shakespeare's heroines can ever have been quite adequately interpreted by such male performers.

Note. For a Table of the Drama of the Age of Shakespeare, see pp. 89-92.

F

CHAPTER VIII.

THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (Concluded).

Prose.

36. Lyly and other Writers of Prose Fiction. While the Age of Shakespeare found its chief imaginative outlet in the drama, it was also active in the field of prose fiction. It did not indeed produce what we specifically call the novel, by which we mean the long story of contemporary life and manners. This was not established in English literature till more than a century after Shakespeare's death. But in other lines of fictitious narrative considerable progress was made.

Some stimulus in this direction was given by the work of the translators, who familiarised the reading public with Spanish and Italian romance and with Italian novelle, or short stories. The last named have a great secondary interest as the sources upon which the Elizabethan dramatists, including Shakespeare, often drew for the materials of their plots. They were also adapted and imitated, and various collections of stories appeared, such as William Painter's Palace of Pleasure, which enjoyed much popularity.

The most important prose romance of the period is the work of JOHN LYLY, whose comedies have already been mentioned--Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit, and its sequel, Euphues and his England. The former was published in