translation, repeats with almost the gracious irony of Chaucer himself the touch by which that master of raillery tempers the excess of sentiment in his "Clerk's Tale": —

"I know not whether all the bitter toil.

With which this lover to his purpose kept, And served, and loved, and sighed, and wept, Can give a perfect taste To any sweet soever at the last: But if indeed the joy Come dearer from annoy, I ask not. Love, for my delight To reach that beatific height: Let others have that perfect cup:Me let my mistress gather up To the heart where I would cling, After short petitioning." l

It may possibly be debated whether the earliest English examples of pastoral comedy, plays of Latin influence like "Gallathea" and "The Arraignment of Paris," owe a subsidiary debt to Tasso. In any case they cannot owe a great deal. The general introduction of the Italian pastoral play — always a courtly type — was due to the same group of literary exquisites who attempted the establishment of another aristocratic species in their imitations of Garnier's tragedy. The translation of the "Aminta" in a volume inscribed to the Countess of Pembroke has been mentioned, and the first original English experiments in the same genre were the work of the most gifted of Lady Pembroke's followers, Samuel Daniel. All of these comedies fall without the limits of Elizabeth's reign, and few of them deserve on their own account more than passing 1 Amyntca, A Tale of the Woods, trans. Leigh Hunt.

notice. Daniel's first effort in the pastoral style was published in 1606 with the title: "The Queenes Arcadia, A Pastorall Trage-comedie presented to her Maiestie and her Ladies, by the Vniuersitie of Oxford in Christs Church, in August last, 1605." The play deals in a somewhat original, if cumbrous, way with the disorder produced in an Arcadian shepherd community by the wiles of two types of worldly corruption, Colax and Techne. With the usual pastoral machinery is combined some not quite contemptible Jonsonian comedy, notably in the speeches of Dr. Alcon, the Quacksalver, who addresses the shepherdess Daphne in the following travesty of medical and alchemistic language: —

"Welcome, faire nimph, come let me try your pulse.
I cannot blame you t' hold your selfe not well.
Something amiss, quoth you, here 's all amiss,
Th' whole Fabrick of your selfe distempered is.
The Systole, and Dyastole of your pulse,
Do shew your passions most hystericall.
It seemes you haue not very careful bene
T' observe the prophilactick regiment
Of your own body, so that we must now
Descend vnto the Therapeutical
That so we may preuent the syndrome
Of symtomes, and may afterwards apply
Some analepticall Elexipharmacum,
That may be proper for your maladie."

Daniel's second and last effort in emulation of the Italian pastoral play is "Hymen's Triumph," acted at court in 1614, and published in the following year. This work, considerably simpler and more original than the former, brings us well into the middle of the Jacobean period and directs the attention to the more independent shepherd plays of this epoch. Of the last, only two justify mention here as obvious survivals of an earlier spirit. In "The Faithful Shepherdess" (1609), Fletcher has reproduced the thin and bloodless pastoral world of Guarini with a freshness which gives the play much of the delicacy, though nothing of the sweet charm, of the Elizabethan romantic comedies. In his beautiful fragment of "The Sad Shepherd "Ben Jonson has proposed with a Titanic daring, which piques the curiosity and again suggests the warmer earlier era, to blend the abstract types of Italian pastoralism with the red-blood figures of Robin Hood romance. Jonson's torso, however, is more in the nature of an untried enterprise than a dramatic achievement; and it must always, perhaps, have shown more kinship with the masque than with convincing human drama. "The Faithful Shepherdess," for all its beauty, was a notorious failure; and lacking warmth of feeling as it does, would be so on any stage. The other plays of the same type, not infrequent in the first two Stuart reigns, are one and all devoid of dramatic life. They are the hard and cold crystallizations from a gradually petrifying drama of that fervent ideality which informed all the most characteristic Elizabethan works, and produced, not merely the distinctively romantic comedies, but also the charming shepherd scenes scattered like oases in the midst of plays otherwise filled with the crash of matter and the wreck of worlds.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Greg, W. W., Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama. A Literary Inquiry with special Reference to the Pre-Restoration Stage in England, 1906. Elaborated from " The Pastoral Drama

on the Elizabethan Stage," Carnhill Magazine, 1899. Koeppel, E., Studien zur Geschichte der italienischen Novelle it

der englischen Litteratur des 16 Jahrhunderts, Quellen und

Forschungen, lxx, 1892. Laidler, Josephine, " A History of Pastoral Drama in England

until 1700," Engl. Stud., xxxv (1905), 193-259. Smith, Homer, "Pastoral Influence in the English Drama,"

Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc., 1897. Thorndike, A. H., "The Pastoral Element in the English

Drama before 1605," Mod. Lang. Notes, xiv (1900).

INDIVIDUAL TEXTS

Greene, Robert: Dramatic Works, edited by A. Dyce, 1831, 1861, 1879; A. B. Grosart, 1881-86; J. C. Collins, 1905; T. H. Dickinson, Mermaid edition, 1909. Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. "As it was plaid by her Maiesties seruants. Made by Robert Greene Maister of Arts," 1594. Other editions 1599 ?, 1630,1655. Reprinted, J. P. Collier, Dodsley, viii, 1825; A. W. Ward, Old English Drama (withDoctor Faustus), 1878, etc.; C.M. Gayley, Representative English Comedies, 1903. The Scottish History of James the Fourth, slain at Flodden. "Written by Robert Greene, Maister of Arts," 1598. Reprinted, J. M. Manly, Specimens, ii, 1897. Discustion: W. Creizenach, "Zu Greene's James the Fourth," Anglia, viii (1885), 419. (Spurious) George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield, 1590. Reprinted, Reed's and Collier's Dodsley; Ancient British Drama, i, 1810. Discussion: O. Mertins, "Robert Greene und 'the play of George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield,'" 1885; R. Sachs, " George Green, the Pinner of Wakefield," Sh. Jb., xxvii (1892), 192 ff. Fair Em, the Miller's Daughter of Manchester. "With the loue of William the Conqueror. As it was sundrie times publiquely acted ... by the right honourable the Lord Strange his seruaunts." Ed. n. d. Reprinted 1631. Later editions: W. R. Chetwood, Select Collection of Old Plays, 1750; H. Tyrrell, 1851; N. Delius, 1874; R. Simpson, School of Shakspere, ii, 1878; C. Warnke and L. Proescholdt, 1883; A. F. Hopkinson, 1895; C. F. T. Brooke, The Shakespeare Apocrypha, 1908. For discussion, see bibliography to The Shakespeare Apocrypha.

Mcnday, Anthony: John a Kent and John a Cumber. Preserved in manuscript signed by Munday and dated "Decembris, 1595." Printed, J. P. Collier, Shakespeare Society, 1851. The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington, "Afterward called Robin Hood of merrie Sherwodde with bis loue to chaste Matilda, the Lord Fitz waters daughter afterward es his faire Maide Marian. Acted by the Right Honourable the Earle of Notingham, Lord high Admirall of England, his seruants," 1601. Reprinted, J. P. Collier, 1828. The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington ..." with the lamentable Tragedie of chaste Matilda, his faire maide Marian, poysoned at Dunmowe by King Iohn." Acted by the Admiral's Servants, 1601. Both these plays are reprinted in J. P. Collier's Five Old Plays, 1833, and thence in Hazlitt's Dodsley, viii, 1874. Henry Chettle was responsible for a revision of the earlier drama, and was part author of the later. Discussion: A. Ruckdeschel, Die Quellen des Dramas " The Downfall and the Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington," Erlangen, 1897; A. H. Thorndike, "The Relation of As You Like It to the Robin Hood Plays," Jrl. Germ. Phil., iv (1902), 59-69. The Merry Devil of Edmonton. "As it hath beene sundry times Acted by his Maiesties Seruants, at the Globe, on the banke-side," 1608. Other editions 1612,1617,1626,1631,1655. Reprinted, Dodsley, all edd.; Ancient British Drama, 1810; H. Tyrrell, 1851; K. Warnke and L. Proescholdt, 1884; A. F. Hopkinson, 1891; H. Walker, Temple Dramatists, 1897; C. F. T. Brooke, The Shakespeare Apocrypha, 1908. For discussion, see bibliography to The Shakespeare Apocrypha. Dk.kkk.k. Thomas: Old Fortunatus, 1600. The Shoemaker's Holiday, 1600.

For bibliography of these plays, see p. 350. The Thracian Wonder. First printed by Francis Kirkman in a volume entitled Two New Playes, 1661, and there stated to be "Written by John Webster and William Rowley." Reprinted, Works of John Webster, A. Dyce iv, 1830; W. Hazlitt, iv, 1897. Discussion: J. Q. Adams, Jr., Mod. Phil., iii (1906);