fundamental thought-to rivet the loose connection of his poem by an ideal unity, and thereby to obtain a more perfect form completely failed, and although his attempt to give the tragic element a higher significance was scarcely half successful, yet it is this very attempt which makes his work highly interesting, and it is therefore to be regretted that we do not possess any more of his dramatic works. We may, however, console ourselves with the conjecture that, as no other of his plays seems to have been printed, it is extremely probable that this is by far the best of all his dramas.

CHAPTER X.

THOMAS NASH AND GEORGE PEELE.

ACCORDING to Greene's opinion, that is, supposing the farewell words addressed to his colleagues at the end of his 'Groatsworth of Wit,' are meant to refer to Lodge under the name of Young Juvenal-Lodge seems to have had a special talent for satirical and cutting wit; his other pieces were therefore, perhaps comedies. Yet Meres, in his 'Palladis Tamia,' does not mention him among the distinguished comic writers of his day; among the first mentioned of these, however, we do find the name of the well-known pamphletist Thomas Nash. And yet even of him and the circumstances of his life, we know nothing further than that he was born in Leostoffe, in Suffolk, probably about the year 1564, and that he was already in his grave in 1601. He in so far shares the same fate as Lodge, as we possess of his dramatic works only one piece that was written entirely by himself, ('Dido Queen of Carthage,' which he wrote in conjunction with Marlowe and is probably for the most part the work of the latter), whereas there exist numerous specimens of his pamphlets and controversial treatises. In the latter, we everywhere find the skilful writer, the keen satirist, but more especially the terrible disputant in single combat, which he proved himself, for instance in his literary contest with Gabriel Harvey; we find a penetrating mind, which knows at the first glance how to attack the weak points of his enemy; a ready wit, more cutting than comic, which explains how it was that one of his lost dramas, 'The Isle of Dogs,' could lead to his being imprisoned; we find also acute remarks and elegance of style, but no depth of feeling, no greatness of mind, no productiveness and a want of an ideal character.

The same merits and defects are manifested in the

dramatic work of which we have already spoken, entitled 'A pleasant Comedie, called Summer's last Will and Testament, Written by Thomas Nash (London 1600);'* to judge from some allusions to the events of the time it must have been written in the autumn of 1592. Did we not know from other quarters that the author was a man of learned culture, who had studied at Cambridge and taken his degree of B.A. in 1585, almost every page of this drama alone would be sufficient to prove the fact. The piece is a mere allegory in which all possible gods and mythological figures take a part; it is profusely furbished up with classical erudition, Latin quotations, and learned allusions, but like every mere allegory is a cold, dry, and wearisome production. Summer" the king of the world," but weak and decrepid, and led by Autumn and Winter, wishes to make his will, but first summons all the servants, officials and princes of his kingdom (Ver, Solstitium, Sol, Orion, Bacchus, etc.), in order to take them to account. This is-as everyone must see-in itself a very undramatic subject, and upon it the dramatic form is enforced against its very nature. But, making allowance for this ill-chosen subject and overlooking the defects resulting from it, we must acknowledge that the whole possesses much wit and ingenuity, and that everything possible is done to breathe life and interest into the subject. To effect this, Nash at the very beginning makes the ghost of Will Summer, the famous court-jester of Henry VIII., appear as the prologue, and, in a most amusing manner, forget his own character by suddenly acting that of Mr. Toy (the name of the actor who plays the part), and as suddenly again changing into the person of Will Summer. The whole part is carried on in this twilight between illusion and reality; and, as Will Summer at the conclusion of the introductory scene announces with a clever turn of speech, that he intends remaining on the stage to witness the play, and as in fact he not only remains, but, by means of interspersed remarks, continually criticises and ridicules the play, the poet, and the actors, and as, at the end, the play again begins with Will Summer first personifying Mr. Toy and then the court-jester of Henry VIII., the whole Reprinted in Dodsley, l.c., ix. 13–79.

VOL. I.

*

K

piece appears enveloped in the same wavering light, and the drama becomes a mere dramatical joke. This form, by which the allegory is rendered tolerable, but at the same time destroyed, makes the play somewhat interesting. It proves, not only that the poets already actually possessed the positive consciousness that the allegory in itself was dramatically impossible, and hence compatible only with a self-destruction of the dramatic illusion, but also shows that this mode of treating art ironically-which the romantic school declared to be the highest perfection of poetry-was attempted, in the domain of comedy at least, 200 years before them, and was therefore not even a new invention. It however likewise proves that Nash certainly was a scholar and possessed a refined, ingenious and humorous mind, but that he was neither a poet nor a dramatist, for although capable of producing an intellectual play, he was not capable of creating a drama.

I have placed Nash and Lodge before George Peele (although the former certainly and the latter probably is somewhat younger), so as, in my discussion to place the three representatives of the pre-Shakspearian dramas nearer to one another. There can be no doubt that, after Greene and Marlowe, Peele was the most distinguished talent among those dramatists who prepared the way for Shakspeare. Greene in his 'Groatsworth of Wit,' mentions him, perhaps with a certain partiality, as a poet in no respect inferior to, and in many respects "rarer "than Marlowe and Lodge; Nash (1588) calls him "primus verborum artifex;" and Meres (l.c.) mentions him, after Marlowe before Kyd and Shakspeare, as one of the best tragic writers of his time. According to recently discovered documents, Peele was of good family, born in 1558, not in Devonshire, but probably in London, studied at Oxford, where he resided for nine years, and in 1577 took his degree of B.A., that of M.A. in 1579 and returned to London in 1583. Here he lived in friendly intercourse with Greene, Marlowe, Lodge, Nash, and others, probably earning his living by his pen. Although married at the age of twenty-five, he lived in that dissolute and licentious manner which, as it seems, was the fashion with the so-called authors by profession of the day; sometimes starving in misery, some

times, when a lucky chance filled his purse, in revelry and riot. The pamphlet entitled The Merry Conceited jests of G. Peele, which was not published till after his death, represents him as a low and common swindler, but, apart from some single features, this is doubtless a complete falsehood or fiction, and employs his popular name merely as a signboard for favour with the public. Peele's moral character however, as Greene intimates, was so far from being spotless, that it was quite possible to circulate such fictions about him. According to Meres he was already in his grave in 1598.*

6

Peele's earliest yet known literary productions, are some commendatory verses to Watson's 'Hecatompathia,' a collection of sonnets printed in 1582. Others of his poetical works which likewise fall to the time of his sojourn in Oxford, especially a translation of the 'Iphigenia' of Euripides, have been lost. His earliest drama-supposed to be his first from a remark by Nash on Greene's *Menaphon-is the Arraignment of Paris,' which was printed without his name in 1584. However, if ‘The History of the two valiant Knights, Syr Clyomon, Knight of the Golden Sheeld, sonne of the King of Denmark, and Syr Clamydes the White Knight, etc.' (London, 1599) § is really from his pen-as Dyce seems to think it necessary to suppose, because in one of the copies of the old edition in the style of writing at the time, Peele is called the authorthen this play must at all events be older than the 'Arraignment of Paris.' But I am inclined to believe that, although in style it is closely allied to Peele's oldest plays, it may not have been written by him, but by one of his immediate predecessors from the seventh decade. At all events it stands upon a lower stage of dramatic culture than the Arraignment of Paris.' The language is older and more disjointed, the verse is that of the rhymed

* See, The Dramatic and Poetical Works of Robert Greene and George Peele, with Memoirs of the Authors and Notes, by the Rev. Alexander Dyce. London, 1861, p. 323 ff. My having-in the above statements in regard to the circumstances of Peele's life-exclusively followed the recently discovered document, according to which Peele, as a sworn witness in a law-suit, made those statements himself, is justified by the public and judicial character of the document.

+ Dyce, l.o. 324.

+ Dyce, p. 333.

§ Dyce, p. 487-535.