These, with the exception of the plays ascribed to Shakspeare, a few Interludes and Moralities, the tragi-comedy of Appius and Virginia, printed in 1576, and the tragedy of Selimus, Emperor of the Turks, must, and perhaps without danger of any very important omission, be limited to the following enumeration of dramas performed at the Rose theatre during the years 1591, 1592, and 1593; from which, however, we have withdrawn all those pieces that may be found previously noticed under the names of their respective authors : 1. Muly Mulocco, or the Battle of Alcazar 2. Spanish Comedy of Don Horatio, 3. Sir John Mandeville, 4. Henry of Cornwall, 5. Chloris and Orgasto †, 6. Pope Joan, 7. Machiavel, 8. Ricardo t. 9. Four Plays in One, 10. Zenobia, 11. Constantine, 12. Brandymer, 13. Titus Vespasian 14. The Tanner of Denmark, 15. Julian of Brentford, 16. The Comedy of Cosmo, 1591. 1592. 17. God Speed the Plough, 1593. * This play was printed in 1594, and has fallen under the ridicule of Shakspeare, in a parody on the words, Feed and be fat, &c. + The miserable orthography of this catalogue has frequently disguised the real titles so much as to render them almost unintelligible, and I suspect Orgasto in this place to be very remote from the genuine word. Called in one part of the list, "bendo and Ricardo," and in another, "Byndo and Ricardo." In order accurately to ascertain how far Shakspeare might be indebted to his predecessors, it would be highly desirable to possess a printed collection of all the dramas which are yet within the reach of the press, from the days of Sackville, to the year 1591. Such a work, so far from diminishing the claim to originality with which this great poet is now invested, would, we are convinced, place it in a still more indisputable point of view; and merely prove, that, without any servility of imitation, or even the smallest dereliction of his native talent and creative genius, he had absorbed within his own refulgent sphere the few feeble lights which, previous to his appearance, had shed a kind of twilight over the dramatic world. The models, indeed, if such they may be called, which were presented to his view, are, as far as we are acquainted with them, so grossly defective in structure, style, and sentiment, that, if we set aside two or three examples, little or nothing could be learned from * This, being the prior part of the title of the Pinner of Wakefield, mentioned below, is probably one and the same with that production. + The Pinner of Wakefield, which is in Dodsley's Collection, and in Scott's Ancient British Drama, was printed in 1599. + Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iii. pp. 354-358.-Mr. Malone observes of the play in this catalogue, called "Richard the Confessor," that it "should seem to have been written by the Tinker, in Taming of the Shrew, who talks of Richard Conqueror." them. In the course of near thirty years which elapsed between Sackville and Shakspeare, the best and purest period was perhaps that which immediately succeeded the exhibition of Gorboduc, but which was speedily terminated by the appearance of Preston's Cambyses in or probably rather before the year 1570. From this era we behold a ession of playwrights who, for better than twenty years, deluged the #age as tragic poets with a torrent of bombastic and sanguinary fiction, like disgraceful to the feelings of humanity and common sense; or comic writers, overwhelmed us with a mass of quaintness, buffoonery, and affectation. The worthy disciples of the author of Cambyses, Whetstone, Peele, Lilly, Kydd, and Marlowe, seem to have Facked their brains to produce what was unnatural and atrocious, and having, like their leader, received a classical education, misemployed it to clothe their conceptions in a scholastic, uniform, and monotonous garb, as far, at least, as a versification modulated with the most undeviating regularity, and destitute of all variety of cadence or of pause could minister to such an effect. That so dark a picture should occasionally be relieved by gleams of light, which appear the more brilliant from the surrounding contrast, was naturally to be expected; and we have accordingly seen that the very poets who may justly be censured for their general mode of execution, for the wildness and extravagancy of their plots, now and then present us with lines, passages, and even scenes, remarkable for their beauty, strength, or poetical diction; but these, so unconnected are they, and apart from the customary tone and keeping of the pieces in which they are scattered, appear rather as the fortuitous irradiation of a meteor, whose momentary splendour serves but to render the returning gloom more heavy and oppressive, than the effect of that sober, steady, and improving light which might cheer us with the prospect of approaching day. Of the twenty poets who have just passed in review before us, Marlowe certainly exhibits the greatest portion of genius, though debased with a large admixture of the gross and glaring faults of his contemporaries. Two of his productions may yet be read with interest; his Edward the Second, and his Faustus; though the latter must be allowed to deviate from the true tract of tragedy, in presenting us rather with what is horrible than terrible in its incidents and catastrophe. We must not be surprised, therefore, that the dramatic fabrics of these rude artists should have met with the warmest admiration, when we recollect, that, in the infancy of an art, novelty is of itself abundantly productive of attraction, and that taste, neither formed by good models, nor rendered fastidious by choice, can have little power to check the march of misguided enthusiasm. It is necessary, however, to record an event in dramatic history, which, coming into operation just previous to the entrance of our poet into the theatric arena as an author, no doubt contributed powerfully not only to chasten his muse, but, through him, universally the national taste. In 1589 commissioners were appointed by the Queen for the purpose of reviewing and revising the productions of all writers for the stage, with full powers to reject and strike out all which they might deem unmannerly, licentious, and irreverent; a censureship which, it is evident, if properly and temperately executed, could not fail of conferring almost incalculable benefit on a department of literature at that time not much advanced in its career, and but too apt to transgress the limits of a just decorum. This regulation ushers in, indeed, by many degrees the most important period in the annals of our theatre, when Shakspeare, starting into dramatic life, came boldly forward on the eye, leaving at an immeasurable distance behind him, and in groupes more or less darkly shaded, his immediate predecessors, and his earliest contemporaries in the art. them. In the course of near thirty years which elapsed pause could minister That so dark a pictu”. appear light, which was naturally to be Lority, as the first heir of ony of a like kind, or e period of his earliest effort correct in referring the composiThe interval elapsing between the of his first play cannot, with any ..ch anterior or subsequent to the year ère this date, may be presumed from place, the prosecution of his amatory his profession as an actor, might be erval of two years; and, in the second A previous to 1592, neither Webbe in 1589 §, nor Harrington in February, |