LECTURE THE THIRD.

DRAMATIC POETRY.

Origin of the Drama :-Old English Mysteries and Moralities:
-Gorboduc and Gammer Gurton's Needle, the first English
Tragedy and Comedy :-The Predecessors of Shakspeare:
-Dramatic Writers of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James
the First:-Shakspeare:-Dissertation on the excellence
of his Female Characters and Clowns:-Jonson :-The
Beauty of the Lyrical parts of Jonson's Dramas:-His
Tragedy of Catiline: Cartwright: -- Beaumont and
Fletcher :-Massinger :-Ford and Webster.

My last Lecture treated of the Epic and Narrative Poets; I shall now briefly review the merits of the Dramatic Poets who flourished previous to the Restoration. Although, in a period of elegance and refinement, there is not a more certain " sign of the times" than a taste for Dramatic entertainments, yet the fact is, that these had their origin in the rudest, and most uninformed ages of society. In ancient Greece, Thespis, the Father of Tragedy, represented his Dramas on a sort of cart, or moveable stage, which was drawn from place to

place; and his Actors sang and danced alternately, with their faces smeared with wine-lees:

"Ignotum Tragicæ genus invenisse camœnæ
Dicitur, et plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis,
Quæ canerent agerentque peruncti fœcibus ora."
HOR. ART. POET.

In England, in the same manner, the original of those magnificent structures which are now dedicated to the Dramatic Muses, were moveable pageants, drawn about upon wheels; after which, the court-yards of inns and hostelries were chosen for Dramatic representations; the floor forming what we now call the Pit of the Theatre, and the Balconies, or galleries around, being occupied as the Boxes and the Stage; and public Theatres do not appear to have been regularly erected till about the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The Drama, it is also worthy of remark, although it has become the theme of constant depreciation among modern Puritans, as it was formerly among the ancient Philosophers, had it's origin in Religious ceremonies. The Hymns, or Odes, sung in honour of Bacchus, and other Deities in Greece, and the Mysteries and Moralities of Monkish times in England, were the rude foundations on which

were erected the splendid superstructures of Eschylus, and Euripides, and Sophocles; of Shakspeare, of Fletcher, and of Otway. In the houses of the great it was as much the custom of the Chaplain to compose Plays for the families, as it now is to write Sermons; and Sunday was a day frequently appropriated for the representation of dramatic entertainments. Modern readers shudder at the impiety of the ancients, who represented their Gods in propria persona upon the Stage, while it is not less true, although less generally known, that in our own country, the Divine persons of the Trinity, the good and evil Angels, the Prophets, and the Apostles, were in the same manner personated in the English Theatres.

The first regular Comedy which appeared in England was "Gammer Gurton's Needle." The precise time of it's representation is unknown, but an edition of it is said by Chetwood, to have been printed in 1551; and the copy which Dodsley used for his collection of Old Plays was printed in 1575. "In this Play," says Hawkins, "there is a vein of familiar humour, and a kind of grotesque imagery, not unlike some parts of Aristophanes; but without those graces of language and metre, for which the Greek Comedian is so eminently distinguished." There is certainly much

whim and wit in many of the situations; and the characters, although rudely, are very forcibly delineated. The plot is simple and coarse enough. Gammer Gurton has lost her needle, and, just when she despairs of ever finding it, it is discovered sticking to part of her servant Hodge's breeches, which she had been lately employed in mending. The fine old Song, beginning "Back and sides, go bare, go bare," with which the Second Act of this Play opens, is of itself sufficient to rescue it from oblivion.

Lord Buckhurst's "Gorboduc" is the first regular Tragedy which ever appeared in England. The plot is meagre and uninteresting; the diction cumbrous and heavy; and the characters ill conceived, and hastily drawn. The dawn of English Tragedy was, therefore, as gloomy as it's meridian was splendid. George Peele, the Author of "The Loves of King David and Fair Bethsabe," was a Writer of a very different stamp; and, although not possessing much force and originality, there is a vein of pathos and unaffected feeling in this Play, and a sweetness and flow of versification, which we look for in vain in the writings of his contemporaries. Lily, who turned the heads of the people by his Euphuism, which has been so happily ridiculed by Sir Walter Scott, E 3

in his character of Sir Piercie Shafton, in the "Monastery," was nevertheless an Author of distinguished merit; and in his "Cupid and Campaspe," especially, we find touches of genuine Poetry, and unsophisticated nature. "The Spanish Tragedy, or, Hieronimo is mad again," by Thomas Kyd, is valuable for one Scene only, which is supposed to have been interpolated by a later hand, and has been attributed by various commentators to Jonson, to Webster, and to Shakspeare. It is not unworthy of either of those writers; but is most probably the property of the first, to whom, as has been ascertained by a discovery made a few years since at Dulwich College, two sundry payments were made by the Theatre, for additions to this Tragedy. Hieronimo, whose son has been murdered, goes distracted, and wishes a Painter to represent the fatal catastrophe upon canvas. He finds that the Artist is suffering under a bereavement similar to his own; and there is something powerfully affecting in the following dialogue :

Paint. God bless you, Sir!

"The PAINTER enters.

Hieron. Wherefore? why, thou scornful villain!

How, where, or by what means should I be blest?

leab. What would you have, good fellow?