Page images
PDF
EPUB

he is something wearied with this exercise, Idleness and Ignorance take him in hand, and the former invites him into her lap, and "sings a song that pleases him, and on his eye-lids crowns the god of sleep; " a part of it being as follows:

Come, come, and ease thee in my lap,
And, if it please thee, take a nap;
A nap that shall delight thee so,
That fancies all will thee forgo.
By musing still, what canst thou find
But wants of will and restless mind?
A mind that mars and mangles all,
And breedeth jars to work thy fall.
Come, gentle Wit, I thee require,
And thou shalt hit thy chief desire,
Thy chief desire and hoped prey;

First ease thee here, and then away."

While he is asleep, the sirens put on him a fool's dress, so that Reason and Science on seeing him cut his acquaintance. Wit is not aware of his disguise till he sees himself in a looking-glass which Reason had given him: Shame then takes him in hand, and applies the scourge till Science interposes; he repents, is restored to favour; aided by Instruction, Study, and Diligence, he again encounters the giant in the eye of his lady-love; has some hard fighting, but at last whips me off his head, and presents it to Science. The piece concludes with the marriage of the lovers, Reason, Experience, Instruction, Study, and Diligence rejoicing at the match, and even Will taking a sort of sneaking pleasure in it.

The play, as may be gathered from this analysis, conveys an excellent moral: the allegory, too, is managed with considerable skill; and there is something of humour in the execution, and of melody in the versification. The old copy is undated, but the piece was licenced between July, 1569, and July, 1570.

The play of "Like will to Like, quoth the Devil to the Collier, very godly, and full of pleasant mirth," was written

by Ulpian Fulwell, and printed in 1568. Here, again, we meet with some rude approaches to individual character; which is our chief reason for mentioning the piece. Nichol Newfangle, though in fact the hero, enacts the Vice, and is armed with the wooden dagger: among his friends are Ralph Royster, Tom Tosspot, Philip Fleming, Pierce Pickpurse, and Cuthbert Cutpurse, who have some lines of individual peculiarity. To these are added several allegorical personages, as Good Fame, Severity, Virtuous Life, God's Promise, and Honour. Lucifer also figures in the piece, with 66 his name written on his back and breast;" and Newfangle claims him for his God-father, adding that he has served an apprenticeship under him, and thus learnt all the sciences that minister to pride. The Collier comes in with empty sacks, owning that he has sold three pecks for a bushel; Newfangle introduces him to the Devil; and the three have a dance to the tune of "Tom Collier of Croydon hath sold his coal." Royster and Tosspot get drunk, and wade in debauchery, but finally repent; Pickpurse and Cutpurse are betrayed by Newfangle, and taken away with halters about their necks; Virtuous Life is crowned by Honour; Newfangle is carried off by the Devil; so that justice is done all round.

If The Conflict of Conscience deserves mention as an approach towards Tragedy, Tom Tiler and his Wife is equally entitled to notice as an early sprout of Comedy. It contains a mixture of allegorical and individual persons, the latter, however, taking the chief part of the action. The opening is made by "a sage person" called Destiny, and the Vice, named Desire; from their talk it appears that Destiny has married Tom Tiler to a lady named Strife, with whom he leads a very wretched life, she being not only a scold, but hugely given to drinking with Sturdy and Tipple. Filer meets his friend Tom Tailor, an artificer of shreds and patches, and relates his sufferings; Tailor proposes to change clothes with him; in this disguise, goes to Strife as her nus

[ocr errors]

hand, and gives her such a drubbing, that she submits, and betakes herself to the bed. Tiler then gets his own clothes again, goes home, and pities his wife: she, ignorant of the trick, vows she can never love him again: to regain her favour, he unwarily tells her the truth; whereupon she snatches a stick, and belabours him till he cries out for his life, and she declares that Tom Tailor had better have eaten her than beaten her. Tiler flies to his friend Tailor, relates what has happened, and the cause of it; for which Tailor insults and strikes him right before Destiny. Strife, coming up just then, plays her batteries against them both, until Patience arrives and composes all differences, taking the discontent out of Tiler, and the fury out of Strife.

66

"A new Interlude for Children to play, named Jack Juggler, both witty and very pleasant," is somewhat remarkable, not only in that it carries still higher the effort at individual character, but as being one of the oldest pieces founded on a classic original; the author claiming, in his prologue, to have taken "Plautus' first comedy" as his model. Master Bongrace sends his lackey, Jenkin Careaway, to Dame Coy, his lady-love; but Jenkin loiters to play at dice and steal apples. Jack Juggler, who enacts the Vice, from mere love of mischief watches him, gets on some clothes just like his, and undertakes to persuade him "that he is not himself, but another man." The task proves too much for him, till at length he brings fist-arguments to bear; when Jenkin frankly gives up the point, and makes a comical address to the audience, alleging certain reasons for believing that he is not himself. The humour of the piece—and there is considerable in it-turns mainly on this doubt of his identity. His blunders get him into disgrace with Dame Coy, who even goes so far as to bestow "a cudgel-blessing" on him; so that he is reasoned out of his mispersuasion by much the same arguments as brought him into it. Besides the lines of character, the piece has considerable liveliness of dialogue, and Alice Trip-and-go, a smart maid-servant of Dame Coy,

is described by Jack Juggler in a very natural and effective

manner.

There are many other pieces of the same class, but it would be overworking our point, to dwell upon them. We will dismiss this branch of the subject with a very curious account, by Stephen Gosson, of a Moral-play that seems to have perished. In 1579, Gosson published a book entitled "The School of Abuse, containing a Pleasant Invective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, and such-like Caterpillars of the Commonwealth." To offset this attack, it seems, a piece called The Play of Plays was soon after written and performed. Two or three years later, Gosson put forth a tract with the title of Plays Confuted in Five Actions, in which occurs the following:

"The author of The Play of Plays, spreading out his battle to hem me in, is driven to take so large a compass, that his array is the thinner, and therefore the easier to be broken. He tieth Life and Delight so fast together, that if Delight be restrained Life presently perisheth: there Zeal, perceiving Delight to be embraced of Life, puts a snaffle in his mouth to keep him under: Delight being bridled, Zeal leadeth Life through a wilderness of loathsomeness, where Glut scareth them all, chasing both Zeal and Delight from Life, and with the club of amazedness strikes such a peg into the head of Life, that he falls down for dead upon the stage.

"Life being thus faint and overtravelled, destitute of his guide, robbed of Delight, is ready to give up the ghost in the same place: then entereth Recreation, which with music and singing rocks Life asleep, to recover his strength. By this means Tediousness is driven from Life, and the taint is drawn out of his head, which the club of amazedness left behind.

"At last Recreation setteth up the gentleman upon his feet, Delight is restored to him again, and such kind of sports, for cullises, are brought in to nourish him, as none but Delight must apply to his stomach. Then, time being

made for the benefit of Life, and Life being allowed to follow his appetite amongst all manner of pastimes, Life chooseth comedies for his delight; partly because comedies are neither chargeable to the beholder's purse, nor painful to his body; partly because he may sit out of the rain to view the same, when many other pastimes are hindered by weather. Zeal is no more admitted to Life before he be somewhat pinched in the waist, to avoid extremity, and being not in the end simply called Zeal, but Moderate Zeal: a few conditions are prescribed to comedies; that the matter be purged, deformities blazed, sin rebuked, honest mirth intermingled, and fit time for the hearing of the same appointed. Moderate Zeal is contented to suffer them, who joineth with Delight to direct Life again, after which he triumphs over Death, and is crowned with eternity."

CHAPTER III.

THEATRICAL COMPANIES.

We have seen that the English Drama took its origin in the Church. Doubtless it was for a long time mainly in the hands of the Clergy, themselves acting in the performances, or at least superintending them. At what time play-acting began to be followed as a distinct profession, is not known. Companies of travelling actors, it seems, were not uncommon as far back as the time of Henry VI.; the Castle of Perseverance being represented by persons of that sort, who, on reaching a populous district, sent forward messengers to give notice when and where the performance would take place. Early in the next reign, 1464, an Act of Parliament was passed, regulating the apparel of different orders, but making a special exception in favour of certain classes

« PreviousContinue »