that the performances of the company at the Blackfriars Theatre, of which Shakspere was then a shareholder, were exceptions to the character of the general performances. But there were several other theatres in London. In some of these their licence to entertain the people was abused by the introduction of matters connected with religion and politics; so that, in 1589, Lord Burghley not only directed the lord mayor to inquire what companies of players had offended, but a commission was appointed for the same purpose. How Shakspere's company proceeded during this inquiry has been made out most clearly by the valuable document discovered at Bridgewater House by Mr. Collier, wherein they disclaim to have conducted themselves amiss.

In this petition, Shakspere, a sharer in the theatre, but with others below him in the list, says, and they all say, that "they have never brought into their plays matters of state and religion.” The public mind in 1589-90, was furiously agitated by matters of state and religion." A controversy was going on which is now known as that of Martin Marprelate, in which the constitution and discipline of the church were most furiously attacked in a succession of pamphlets; and they were defended with equal violence and scurrility. Izaak Walton "There was not only one Martin Marprelate, but other venomous books daily printed and dispersed books that were so absurd and

says,

8

SANTE A HISTORY 201 OPINIONIT NO scurrilous, that the graver divines disdained them an answer. Walton adds, "And yet these were grown into high esteem with the common people, till Tom Nashe appeared against them all, who was a man of a sharp wit, and the master of a scoffing, satirical, merry pen." Connected with this controversy, there was, subsequently, a more personal one between Nashe and Gabriel Harvey; but they were each engaged in the Marprelate dispute. Nashe was a writer for the theatre, and so was John Lyly, the author of one of the most remarkable pamphlets produced on this occasion, called "Pap with a Hatchet." Harvey, it must be observed, was the intimate friend of Spenser; and in a pamphlet which he dates from Trinity Hall, November 5. 1589, hẹ thus attacks the author of "Pap with a Hatchet," the more celebrated Euphuist, whom Sir Walter Scott's novel has made familiar to us:

"I am threatened with a bable, and Martin menaced with a comedy a fit motion for a jester and a player to try what may be done by employment of his faculty. Bables and comedies are parlous fellows to decipher and discourage men (that is the point) with their witty flouts and learned jerks, enough to lash any man out of countenance. Nay, if you shake the painted scabbard at me, I have done; and all you that tender the preservation of your good names were best to please Pap-Hatchet, and fee Euphues betimes, for fear lest he be moved, or some one

of his apes hired, to make a play of you,” and then is your credit quite undone for ever and ever. Such is the public reputation of their plays. He must needs be discouraged whom they decipher. Better anger an hundred other than two such that have the stage at commandment, and can furnish out vices and devils at their pleasure.'

We thus see that Harvey, the friend of Spenser, is threatened by one of those who "have the stage at commandment” with having a play made of him. Such plays were made in 1589, and Nashe thus boasts of them in one of his tracts printed in 1589: "Methought Vetus Comœdia began to prick him at London in the right vein, when he brought forth Divinity with a scratched face, holding of her heart as if she were sick, because Martin would have forced her; but missing of his purpose, he left the print of his nails upon her cheeks, and poisoned her with a vomit which he ministered unto her to make her cast up her dignities." Lyly, taking the same side, writes,- "Would those comedies might be allowed to be played that are penned, and then I am sure he [Martin Marprelate] would be deciphered, and so perhaps discouraged." Here are the very words which Harvey has repeated, "He must needs be discouraged whom they decipher Harvey, in a subsequent passage of *Pierce's "Supererogation." Reprinted in " Archaicap. 137. O

the same tract, refers to this prostitution of the stage to party purposes in very striking words: "The stately tragedy scorneth the trifling comedy, and the trifling comedy flouteth the new ruffianism." These circumstances appear to us very remarkable, with reference to the state of the drama about 1590; and we hope that we do not attach any undue importance to them from the consideration that we were the first to point out their intimate relation with Spenser's "Tears of the Muses," and the light which, as it appears to us, that poem thus viewed throws upon the dramatic career of Shakspere."

*

The four stanzas which we have quoted from Spenser are descriptive, as we think, of a period of the drama when it had emerged from the semi-barbarism by which it was characterised; "from the commencement of Shakspere's boyhood, till about the earliest date at which his removal to London can be possibly fixed."† This description has nothing in common with those accounts of the drama which have reference to this "semi-barbarism." Nor does the writer of it belong to the school which considered a violation of the unities of time and place as the great defect of the English theatre. Nor does he assert his preference of the classic school over the romantic, by objecting, as Sir Philip Sidney objects, that "plays be neither right tragedies

*Life of Shakspere in "Store of Knowledge."
† Edinburgh Review, vol. lxxi., p. 469.

nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns." There had been, according to Spenser, a state of the drama that would

"Fill with pleasure

The listeners' eyes, and ears with melody."

Can any comedy be named, if we assume that Shakspere had, in 1590, not written any, which could be celebrated-and by the exquisite versifier of The "Fairy Queen"-for its "melody?" Could any also be praised for

"That goodly glee

Which wont to be the glory of gay wits?" Could the plays before Shakspere be described by the most competent of judges—the most poetical mind of that age next to Shakspere—as abounding in

"Fine Counterfesance, and unhurtful Sport,

Delight, and Laughter, deck'd in seemly sort?"

We have not seen such a comedy, except some three or four of Shakspere's, which could have existed before 1590; we do not believe there is such a comedy from any other pen. What, according to the "Complaint" of Thalia, has banished such comedy? "Unseemly Sorrow," it appears, has been fashionable; -not the proprieties of tragedy, but a Sorrow

"With hollow brows and grissly countenance; "

the violent scenes of blood which were offered for the excitement of the multitude, before the