9. During the best years of Shakespeare's life as a dramatist, William Alexander, of Menstrie, afterwards Sir William Alexander and first Earl of Stirling, wrote four weak plays, — “Darius," first printed in 1603; "Cræsus," in 1604; "The Alexandræan, Tragedy," in 1605, and "Julius Cæsar," in 1607, when the series was published together as "The Monarchic Tragedies." William Alexander was then a Gentleman of the Chamber to Prince Henry, and a Scotchman in much favor with King James.

10. Cyril Tourneur, a dramatic poet with real tragic power, of whose life little is known, and whose extant plays are "The Revenger's Tragedy," "The Atheist's Tragedy," and "The Nobleman," wrote only in the reign of James I.

11. William Rowley, who during the last three years of Shakespeare's life was at the head of the Prince of Wales's company of comedians, wrote, or took part in writing, many plays, chiefly comedies, during the reign of James I. He published also, in 1609, a lively picture of London life, called "A Search for Money; or, the Lamentable Complaint for the Loss of the Wandering Knight, Monsieur l'Argent."

12. Nathaniel Field was one of the Children of the Revels who, in 1601, played in Ben Jonson's "Poetaster." He became known as a very good actor in the Blackfriars Company, also as a dramatist. Before 1611 he wrote two plays of his own, "Woman is a Weathercock," and a second part, called "Amends for Ladies." He lived until about 1641.

13. John Webster and Philip Massinger, true poets both, and dramatists of higher mark than those just named, were nearly of like age. Philip Massinger was born at Salisbury, in 1584. His father was in the household of Henry, Earl of Pembroke. In the last year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Massinger became a commoner of St. Albans Hall, Oxford; but the death of his father, in 1606, obliged him to leave the university and support himself as he could. Many of his plays are lost, and there is slight record of work of his earlier than 1622, when "The Virgin Martyr" was printed. "The Duke of Milan" was printed in 1623. In December, 1623, Massinger's name first appeared in the officebook of the Master of the Revels, when his "Bondman was acted. That play was first printed in 1624. Twelve of Massinger's plays were printed in his lifetime, but only these three in the reign of James I. Massinger lived until 1640, writing many plays, of which only eighteen remain. The public stage under Charles I. was not strongly supported by the king and court, and it was strongly contemned by the Puritans. Good plays were often ill received, and then good poets might hunger. In 1633, when Ben Jonson made his last struggle to please a playhouse audience, Massinger printed that one of his plays which has held the stage to our own time, "A New Way to Pay Old Debts."

John Webster, a master poet in the suggestion of tragic horror, produced in the reign of James I. two of his finest plays,—“The White Devil; or, Vittoria Corombona," printed in 1612; and “The Duchess

of Malfi," first acted about the time of Shakespeare's death, but printed in 1623. Webster also wrote in the reign of Charles I. He lived on into the time of the Commonwealth, and died about 1654.

14. John Ford, born in 1586, at Ilsington, in Devonshire, and bred to the law, began to write plays only two or three years before the acces sion of Charles I., and was one of the chief dramatists of Charles's reign, until his death about 1639. In Ford, as in Massinger, men born in Elizabeth's reign, with grandeur of poetical conception, there is still the ring of Elizabethan poetry.

There is enough of it also in James Shirley, who was only seven years old when Elizabeth died, and who lived into Charles II.'s reign, to justify his place among Elizabethan-Stuart dramatists. The reign

of Charles I. was Shirley's work-time as a dramatist. He was a Londoner born, educated at Merchant-Tailors' School, and at St. John's College, Oxford, when Laud was its president. He removed to Cambridge, took orders, had a cure near St. Albans, left that because he turned Romanist, and taught, in 1623, at the St. Albans Grammar School. Then Shirley came to London, became a dramatist, and was not unprosperous; his genius and his Catholicism recommended him to Charles's queen. He went to Ireland in 1637, the year of Ben Jonson's death, and wrote plays for a theatre then newly built, the first in Dublin. When he came back, a clever dramatist, and blameless gentleman, James Shirley took part on the king's side in the Civil War; and when the stage would no longer support his wife and family he taught boys again.

In the versification of many Elizabethan-Stuart dramatists, and noticeably in Massinger and Shirley, there is further development of the ten-syllabled blank-verse into a free measure, with frequent use of additional syllables, often monosyllables. The breaks of lines also are often so made as to compel such running of two lines together as deprives the verse of some of its character. We have begun the descent from poetical blank-verse to a loosely metrical form of dialogue, when we find writing like this in Massinger:

"Speak thy griefs.

I shall, sir;
But in a perplexed form and method, which
You only can interpret: would you had not
A guilty knowledge in your bosom of

The language which you force me to deliver."

15. Thomas May, born in Sussex, in 1594 or 1595, came from Cambridge to Gray's Inn, and was the one among Elizabethan-Stuart dramatists whose work was least Elizabethan. His comedy of "The Heir" was printed in 1622, when he also published a translation of Virgil's "Georgics." In 1627 appeared his translation of Lucan's "Pharsalia,” which had been preceded, in 1614, by that of Sir Arthur Gorges. In 1633, May added, in seven books, his own "Continuation," down to the

death of Julius Cæsar. May's "Lucan" caused Charles I. to command of him two original historical poems. These were, "The Reigne of King Henry the Second, in Seven Bookes" (1633), and, also in seven books, "The Victorious Reigne of King Edward the Third" (1635). In the Civil War, May took part with the Parliament, and was made its secretary and historiographer. In this character he published, in 1647, in folio, "The History of the Parliament of England which began Nov. 3, M.DC.XL.; with a Short and Necessary View of some Precedent Years:" an abridgment of this, in three parts, appeared in 1650, the year of his death. May also translated a selection from Martial's "Epigrams" and Barclay's "Argenis" and "Icon Animarum.”

16. Stuart dramatists born within a year or two after the death of Elizabeth were Jasper Mayne, Thomas Randolph, and William Davenant. Jasper Mayne, born in 1604, at Hatherleigh, Devonshire, was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He held the livings of Cassington and Pyrton, in Oxfordshire, till he was deprived of them in 1648. He wrote in the time of Charles I. a comedy called "The City Match," printed in 1639, and the tragi-comedy of "The Amorous War," printed in 1648. After the Restoration he became Archdeacon of Chichester and chaplain to Charles II. He lived til 1672.

17. Thomas Randolph, born at Newnham, Northamptonshire, in 1605, was at Westminster School with Mayne. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge, became M. A. and Fellow of his College, was a good scholar and good wit, lived gayly, and died in 1634, before he was thirty. In honor of sack and contempt of beer, he wrote a lively dramatic show, called "Aristippus" (1630), in which the jovial philosopher — whose name was given to sack (sec) or dry sherry-lectured to scholars on the virtues of that source of inspiration, till the scholars sang:

"Your ale is too muddy, good sack is our study,

Our tutor is Aristippus."

Yet in another of Randolph's plays, "The Muses' Looking-Glass," there is a moralizing of the uses of the drama for the benefit of Puritan objectors; and after a dance of the seven sins, the opposite extremes which have a virtue in the mean — as servile Flattery and peevish Impertinence, extremes on either side of Courtesy; impious Confidence and overmuch Fear, extremes of Fortitude; swift Quarrelsomeness and the Insensibility to Wrong, extremes of Meekness - are cleverly illustrated in successive dialogues. The Golden Mean appears early in the play, with a masque of Virtues, replying to the Puritans who said that the stage lived by vice:

"Indeed, 'tis true,

As the physicians by diseases do,
Only to cure them."

Thomas Randolph wrote also a comedy, "The Jealous Lovers," acted,

in 1632, before Charles and his queen by the students of Trinity College; and a graceful pastoral play, "Amyntas," acted before the king and queen at Whitehall, and first printed in 1638. Among Randolph's songs and poems is one to Ben Jonson, who loved him and other of the bright young poets of the day, and called them sons. I was not born, he says, to Helicon;

"But thy adoption quits me of all fear,

And makes me challenge a child's portion there.

I am akin to heroes, being thine,

And part of my alliance is divine."

18. Sir William Davenant, who was born in 1606, and died in 1668, and who personally knew both Shakespeare and Dryden, may be regarded as the connecting link between the Elizabethan dramatists and the dramatists of the Restoration. He began to write plays in his youth, and he continued to write them in his old age. He will be more particu larly dealt with under the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century.

CHAPTER V.

FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: POETRY CHIEFLY NON-DRAMATIC.

1. Samuel Daniel. - 2. Michael Drayton.-3. William Browne.-4. Giles Fletcher; Phineas Fletcher.-5. George Wither.-6. William Drummond.-7. Later Euphuism in Poetry.-8. John Donne. -9. Thomas Coryat; John Taylor.10. Francis Quarles.-11. George Herbert. -12. Richard Crashaw. - 13. Character Poetry; Overbury; Habington; Earle.-14. The Translators; George Chapman; George Sandys; Barten Holyday.-15. Wits, Satirists, and Song-Writers; Joseph Hall. - 16. Sir John Harington.-17. Richard Corbet. -18. John Cleveland.—19. Thomas Carew.-20. Sir John Denham.-21. Sir John Suckling. -22. William Cartwright.-23. Richard Lovelace.-24. Robert Herrick. 25. The Position of John Milton in Literature; His Earlier

Poetry.

1. Samuel Daniel was born near Taunton, in 1562, the son of a music-master. From 1579 to 1582 he was studying as a commoner at Magdalene Hall, Oxford, but he did not take a degree. In 1585, at the age of twenty-three, he translated from the Italian "The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius, contayning a Discourse of rare Inventions, both Militarie and Amorous, called Impresse. Whereunto is added a Preface, contayning the Arte of Composing them, with many other Notable Devises." Daniel became tutor to the Lady Anne Clifford, afterwards Countess of Pembroke, and became historian and poet under the patronage of the Earl of Pembroke's family. He began his career as an original poet, strongly influenced by the Italian writers, in 1592, with "Delia: contayning certayne Sonnets, with the Complaint of Rosamond." This he dedicated to Mary, Countess of Pembroke, Sidney's sister; augmented editions, bringing the number of sonnets to fiftyseven, followed in 1594 and 1595. In 1595, Daniel combined his functions of historian and poet by publishing "The First Fowre Books of the Civille Warres betweene the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke." This poem is in stanzas of the