No great discernment is required to see that, after the appearance of Johan Johan, all that was needed for the complete development of comedy was the invention of a well-contrived plot. For reasons already indicated, Interludes were naturally deficient in this respect. Nor were the Moralities and Bible Miracles much better: their length and comprehensive themes were against them. There were the Saint Plays, of which some still lingered upon the stage; these offered greater possibilities. But here, again, originality was limited; the dÉnouement was more or less a foregone conclusion. Clearly, one of two things was wanted: either a man of genius to perceive the need and to supply it, or the study of new models outside the field of English drama. The man of genius was not then forthcoming, but by good fortune the models were stumbled upon.

We say stumbled upon, because the absence of tentative predecessors and of anything approaching an eager band of successors, suggests an unpreparedness for the discovery when it came. Thus Calisto and Melibaea (1530), an imitation of a Spanish comedy of the same name, though it contained a definitely evolved plot, sent barely a ripple over the surface of succeeding authorship. It represents the steadfastness of the maiden Melibaea against the entreaties of her lover Calisto and the much more crafty, indeed almost successful, wiles of the procuress, Celestine. True, the play is dull enough. But if dramatists had been awake to their defects, the value of the new importation from a foreign literature would have been noticed. The years passed, however, without producing imitators, until some time in the years between 1544 and 1551 a Latin scholar, reading the plays of Plautus, decided to write a comedy like them. Latin Comedies, both in the original tongue and in translation, had appeared in England in previous years, but only as strayed foreigners. Nicholas Udall, the head master of Eton School, proposed a very different thing, namely, an English comedy which should rival in technique the comedies of the Latins. The result was Ralph Roister Doister. He called it an Interlude. Posterity has given it the title of 'the first regular English comedy'.

Divided into five acts, with subordinate scenes, this play develops its story with deliberate calculated steps. Acts I and II are occupied by Ralph's vain attempts to soften the heart of Dame Christian Custance by gifts and messages. In Act III come complications, double-dealings. Matthew Merrygreek plays Ralph false, tortures his love, misreads—by the simple trick of mispunctuation—his letter to the Dame, and thus, under a mask of friendship, sets him further than ever from success. Still deeper complexities appear with Act IV, for now arrives, with greetings from Gawin Goodluck, long betrothed to Dame Custance, a certain sea-captain, who, misled by Ralph's confident assurance, misunderstands the relations between the Dame and him, suspects disloyalty, and changes from friendliness to cold aloofness. This, by vexing the lady, brings disaster upon Ralph, whose bold attempt, on the suggestion of Merrygreek, to carry his love off by force is repulsed by that Dame's Amazonian band of maid-servants with scuttles and brooms. In this extraordinary conflict Ralph is horribly belaboured by the malicious Matthew under pretence of blows aimed at Dame Custance. Act V, however, brings Goodluck himself and explanations. That worthy man finds his lady true, friendship is established all round, and Ralph and Merrygreek join the happy couple in a closing feast.

This bald outline perhaps makes sufficiently clear the great advance in plot structure. Within the play, however, are many other good things. The character of Ralph Roister Doister, 'a vain-glorious, cowardly blockhead', as the list of dramatis personae has it, is thoroughly well done: his heavy love-sighs, his confident elation, his distrust, his gullibility, his ups and downs and contradictions, are all in the best comic vein. Only second in fullness of portraiture, and truer to Nature, is Dame Custance, who—if we exclude Melibaea as not native to English shores—may be said to bring into English secular drama honourable womanhood. Her amused indifference at first, her sharp reproof of her maids who have allowed themselves to act as Ralph's messengers, her gathering vexation at Ralph's tiresome wooing, her genuine alarm when she sees that his boastful words are accepted by the sea-captain as truth—these are sentiments and emotions copied from a healthy and worthy model. Matthew Merrygreek, an unmistakable 'Vice' ever at Ralph's elbow, is of all Vices the shrewdest striker of laughter out of a block of stupidity: it is from his ingenious brain that almost every absurd scene is evolved for the ridiculing of Ralph. Thoroughly human, and quite assertive, are the lower characters, the maid-servants and men-servants, Madge Mumblecrust, Tibet Talkapace, Truepenny, Dobinet Doughty and the rest. Need it be added that the battle in Act IV is pure fooling? or that jolly songs enliven the scenes with their rousing choruses (e.g. 'I mun be married a Sunday')? Ralph Roister Doister is an English comedy with English notions of the best way of amusing English folk of the sixteenth century. With all its improvements it has no suggestion of the alien about it, as has the classically-flavoured Thersites (also based, like Udall's play, on Plautus's Miles Gloriosus), or Calisto and Melibaea with its un-English names. Perhaps that is why it had to wait fifteen years for a successor. Quite possibly its spectators regarded it as merely a better Interlude than usual, without recognizing the precise qualities which made it different from Johan Johan.

Two quotations will be sufficient to illustrate the opposing characters.

But it is time to set forth the plot in more detail. The importance of Gorboduc as an example of English 'classical' tragedy prompts us to follow it through, scene by scene.

Act I, Scene 1.—Queen Videna discovers to her favourite and elder son, Ferrex, the king's intention, grievous in her eyes, of dividing his kingdom equally between his two sons. Scene 2.—King Gorboduc submits his plan to the consideration of his three counsellors, whose wise and lengthy reasonings he listens to but elects to disregard.

Act II, Scene 1.—The division having been carried out, Ferrex, in his part of the kingdom, is prompted by evil counsel to suspect aggressive rivalry from his brother, and decides to collect forces for his own defence. Scene 2.—Ferrex's misguided precautions having been maliciously represented to Porrex as directed against his power, that prince resolves upon an immediate invasion of his brother's realm.

Act III.—The news of these counter-moves and of the imminent probability of bloodshed is reported to the king. To restore the courage of the despairing Gorboduc is now the labour of his counsellors, but the later announcement of the death of Ferrex casts him lower than before. At this point the Chorus, recalling the murder of a cousin in an earlier generation of the royal race, points, in true Aeschylean fashion, to the hatred of an unsated revenge behind this latest blow:

Act IV, Scene 1.—Videna alone, in words of passionate vehemence, laments that she has lived so long to see the death of Ferrex, renounces his brother as no child of hers, and concludes with a threat of vengeance. Scene 2.—Bowed down with remorse, Porrex makes his defence before the king, pleading the latter's own act, in dividing the kingdom, as the initial cause of the ensuing disaster. Before he has been long gone from his father's presence, Marcella, a lady-in-waiting, rushes into the room, in wild disorder and grief, to report his murder at his mother's hand. In anguished words she tells how, stabbed by Videna in his sleep, he started up and, spying the queen by his side, called to her for help, not crediting that she, his mother, could be his murderess. Again, in tones of solemn warning, the Chorus reminds the audience that

Act V, Scene 1.—This warning is proved true by a report of the death of the king and queen at the hands of their subjects in revolt against the blood-stained House. Certain of the nobles, gathered together, resolve upon an alliance for the purpose of restoring a strong government. The Duke of Albany, however, thinks to snatch power to himself from this opportunity. Scene 2.—Report is made of the suppression of the rebellion, but this news is immediately followed by a report of Albany's attempted usurpation of the throne. Coalition for his defeat is agreed upon, and the play ends with the mournful soliloquy of that aged counsellor who first opposed the division of the throne and now sees, as the consequence of that fatal act, his country, torn to pieces by civil strife, left an easy prize for an ambitious conqueror.

This last quotation, interesting in itself as containing a recommendation to Queen Elizabeth to marry, or at least name her successor, will also serve as a specimen of the new verse, Blank Verse, which here, for the first time, finds its way into English drama. Meeting with small favour from writers skilful in the stringing together of rhymes, it suffered comparative neglect for some years until Marlowe taught its capacities to his own and future ages. With Sackville's stiff lines before us we shall be better able to appreciate the later playwright's genius. But we shall also be reminded that the credit of introducing blank verse must lie with the older man.

The chief question of all remains to be asked. Does Gorboduc, with all its borrowed devices, and because of them, rise to a higher level of tragedy than Cambyses and Appius and Virginia? To answer this question we must examine the effect of those devices, and understand what is precisely meant by the term tragedy. Let it be first understood that the arrangement of acts and scenes is comparatively unimportant in this connexion, though most helpful in giving clearness to the action. Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (in the earlier edition) dispenses with it; so does Milton's Samson Agonistes; and we have just seen that the great Greek dramatists knew nothing of it. What is important is the exclusion of that comic element which, in some form or another, had hitherto found a place in almost every English play; the removal of all action from the stage—for the Dumb Shows stand apart from the play—; and the substitution of stately speeches for natural conversation and dialogue. Of all three the purpose is the same, namely, to impress the audience with a sense of greater dignity and awe than would be imparted by a more familiar style. The long speeches give importance to the decisions, and compel a belief that momentous events are about to happen or have happened. In harmony with this effect is the absence of all comic relief—although Shakespeare was to prove later that this has a useful place in tragedy. A smile, a jest would be sacrilege in the prevailing gloom. Two effects alone are aimed at; an impression of loftiness in the theme, and a profound melancholy. Not warm gushing tears. Those are the outcome of a personal sorrow, small and ignoble beside an abstract grief at 'the falls of princes', 'the tumbling down of crowns', 'the ruin of proud realms'. What does the reader or spectator know of Ferrex that he should mingle his cries with Videna's lamentations? The account of Porrex appealing, with childlike faith in his mother, to the very woman who has murdered him, may, for the moment, bring tears to the eyes. But it is an accidental touch. The tragedy lies not there but in the great fact that with him dies the last heir to the throne, the last hope of avoiding the miseries of a disputed succession; and that in her revengeful fury the queen, as a woman, has committed the blackest of all crimes, a mother's slaughter of her child. We are not asked to weep but to gasp at the horror of it. It is in order to protect the loftier, broader aspects of the catastrophe from the influence of the particular that action is excluded. This cautions us against confusing tragedy and pathos. To perceive the difference is to recognize that English Tragedy really begins with Gorboduc. Until its advent the stress laid on the pathetic partially obscured the tragic. This may be seen at once in the Miracles, though a little thought will reveal the intensely tragic nature of the complete Miracle Play. In Cambyses we find the same obscuration: there is tragedy in the sudden ending of those young lives, but the pathos of the mother's anguish and the sweet girl's pleadings prevent us from thinking of it. Appius and Virginia maintains a much truer tragic detachment, the effect being heightened by its opening picture of virtuous happiness destined to abrupt and tyrannous ruin. But it expresses itself so ill, shatters our hearing so unmercifully with its alliterative mouthing, and hurls us down so steeply with its low comedy, that we refuse to give its characters the grandeur or excellence claimed for them by the author. Gorboduc alone presents tragedy unspoiled by extraneous additions. In its triple catastrophe of princes, crown and realm we perceive the awful figure of the Tragic Muse and shrink back in reverent fear of what more may lie hid from us in the folds of her black robe. Darker, much darker and more terrible things have come since from that gloomy spirit. What has been written here should not be misinterpreted as an exaggerated appreciation of Gorboduc. We wish only to insist that this play did give to English drama for the first time (if we exclude translations) an example, however weak in execution, of pure tragedy; and was able to do so largely, if not entirely, by reason of its reversion to classical principles and devices.

We have insisted on the difference between Tragedy and Pathos, and criticized the weakening effect of the latter upon the former. To escape the penalty that awaits general criticism we may add here that Tragedy is never greater than when her handmaid is ready to do her modest service. Sophocles puts into the mouth of Oedipus, at the moment of his departure into blind and desolate exile, tender injunctions regarding the care of his young daughters:

Shakespeare, too, knew well how to kindle the soft radiance which, fading again, makes the ensuing darkness darker still. Ophelia, the sleeping Duncan, Cordelia rise to our minds. Nor need we quote the famous words of Webster's Ferdinand. It is enough that the greatest scene in Gorboduc is precisely that scene where pathos softens by a momentary dimness of vision our horror at a mother's crime.

The Misfortunes of Arthur (1587), by Thomas Hughes, though twenty-five years later, may be placed next to Gorboduc in our discussion of the rise of tragedy. It will serve as an illustration of the kind of tragedy that was being evolved from Senecan models by plodding uninspired Englishmen before Marlowe flung his flaming torch amongst them. To understand the story a slight introduction is necessary. Igerna, the wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, was loved by King Uther, who foully slew her husband and so won her for himself. As a result of this union were born Arthur and Anne, who, in their youth, perpetuated the inherited taint of sin by becoming the parents of a boy, Mordred. Afterwards Arthur married Guenevera, and some years later went to France on a long campaign of conquest. In his absence Mordred gained the love of Guenevera. The play begins with the contemplated return of Arthur, glorious from victory, the object being to concentrate attention upon the swift fall from glory and power to ruin and death. Guenevera, having learnt to hate her husband, debates in her mind his death or hers, finally deciding, however, to become a nun. Her interview with Mordred ends in his resolving to resist Arthur's landing. Unsuccessful in this attempt, and defeated in battle, he spurns all thought of submission, challenging his father to a second conflict, in Cornwall. Arthur, feeling that his sins have found him out, would gladly make peace; but, stung by Mordred's defiance, he follows him into Cornwall. There both armies are destroyed and Mordred is slain, though in his death he mortally wounds his father. After the battle his body is brought before Arthur, in whom the sight awakens yet more fiercely the pangs of remorse. The play closes immediately before Arthur's own mysterious departure.

Here is all the material for a great tragedy. The point for beginning the story is well chosen, though in obvious imitation of Agamemnon. Attention is concentrated on the catastrophe, no alien element being admitted to detract from the melancholy effect. It is sought to intensify the gloom by recourse to Seneca's stage Ghost; thus, the departed spirit of the wronged Gorlois opens the play with horrid imprecations of evil upon the house of Uther, and, at the close, exults in the fullness of his revenge. From his mouth, as well as from the lips of Arthur, and again from the Chorus (which closes the acts, as in Gorboduc) we learn the great purpose beneath this overwhelming ruin of a king and kingdom—to show that the day and the hour do come, however long deferred, when

As before, all action is rigorously excluded from the stage, to be reported, at great length and with tremendous striving after vividness and effect, by one who was present. Dumb Shows before each act continue the attempt to balance matters spectacularly. Clearly the only hope of dramatic advance for disciples of the Senecan school lay in improved dialogue. This was possible in four directions, namely, in more stirring topics, in more personal feeling, in shorter speeches, and in a change in the style of language and verse. Unfortunately for Thomas Hughes, it is just here that he fails, and fails lamentably. What is more, he fails because of his methods. The dominant desire of the English 'classical' school was to be impressive. Hence the adoption by Hughes of a ghostly introduction and conclusion. His conversations, therefore, must reflect the same idea. He saw, indeed, that long speeches, except at rare intervals, were tedious, and reduced his to reasonable proportions, even making extensive use—as, we shall see, the author of Damon and Pythias did before him—of the Greek device of stichomythia. He was most anxious, also, to provide stirring topics for his characters to speak on, the queen's uncertainty between crime and religion in the second scene being a notable example. But of necessity the distance of time and space imposed by his methods between an event and the reporting of it gives a measure of detachment to its discussion. In the matter of personal feeling, too, he was hampered by this same unavoidable detachment, and by the need of being impressive; for he and his friends seem to have been convinced that the wider and less particular the subject the greater would be the hearer's awe. We need only compare Arthur's speech over Mordred's body with the lamentation of the mother in Cambyses to perceive how the new methods compel the king to hasten from the thought of the 'hapless boy' to a consideration of their joint fate as 'a mirror to the world'. Because, in Cambyses, we know so little more of the boy and his mother than her grief, his murder fails as tragedy; but had Arthur indulged a little in such grief as her's, how much more moving would have been the tragedy of The Misfortunes of Arthur! But this was not the way of the Senecan school. Everywhere we find the same preference, as in Gorboduc, for broad argument and easily detachable expressions of philosophic wisdom. What shall be said of the style of language and verse? This much in praise, that Blank Verse is retained. But—and the thoughtful reader will discern that the same fatal influence is at work here as elsewhere—Hughes relapses, deliberately, into the artificial speech of Appius and Virginia. Alliteration charms him with its too artful aid. Nowhere has R.B. such rant as falls from the pen of Hughes. In the last battle between Arthur and Mordred 'boist'rous bangs with thumping thwacks fall thick', while the younger leader rages over the field 'all fury-like, frounc'd up with frantic frets'. Guenevera revives her declining wrath with this invocation of supernatural aid:

A fairer example, however, of Hughes's style may be taken from Cador's speech urging Arthur to adopt severe measures against Mordred (Act III, Scene 1):

One feature remains to be spoken of, a feature which redeems the play from an otherwise deserved obscurity. We refer to the author's creation of characters fit for tragedy. Sackville's royalties are dull folk, great only by rank. Arthur and Mordred are men of a grander breed, men worthy to rise to heights and win the attention of the world by their fall. Nor does the author forget the artistic strength achieved by contrast. Arthur is depicted as a veteran warrior, contented with his conquests, and anxious to establish peace within his kingdom. He is remorseful, too, for past sins, and is ready to make amends by yielding up to Mordred the coveted throne—until that prince's insolence makes compromise impossible. Mordred, on the other hand, stands before us as the young, ambitious, dauntless aspirant to power, scorning cautious fears, flinging back every overture for peace, reaching forward to the goal of his hate even across the confines of life. At the risk of quoting too much we append (with the omission of two interruptions) Mordred's speech in favour of resisting his father:

From the brief list of other tragedies preserved from this period of development, and including such plays as Tancred and Gismunda (1568) and Whetstone's Promos and Cassandra (printed 1578)—the latter chiefly interesting on account of the criticism of contemporary drama contained in its Dedication—we select Damon and Pythias (before 1567) by Richard Edwards as an example of native tragedy influenced but not subjugated by classical models. To be exact, it is a tragi-comedy, but it is very improbable that the method of presentment would have been different had it ended tragically; therefore it will suit our purpose. Of importance is the date, some three or four years later than Gorboduc and seventy years earlier than The Misfortunes of Arthur. When we call to mind the form finally adopted for tragedy by Shakespeare, we shall find this play an illuminating beacon, lighting the first steps along the right path. The author was well acquainted with classical drama, as may be seen in his use of stichomythia, amongst other things, and possibly in his preference for a Grecian story. He probably knew Gorboduc quite well, and learned much from its faults. Backed by this knowledge he selected, adapted, and rejected methods at discretion, and stood finally and definitely by the fundamental principles of the native English drama, placing all his action on the stage and fearlessly admitting light humorous elements to relieve the strain of too insistent emotion or suspense. That in one place he went too far in this direction cannot be denied: the episode of the shaving of Grim the Collier is a bad error of judgment, founded on a right motive but horribly mismanaged. That mistake, however, is so glaring that it must have been obvious to all succeeding writers; it could not seriously affect their judgment of the methods employed in the rest of the play. It is these methods that we must understand.

First, to sketch the plot. Damon and Pythias with their servant Stephano arrive in Syracuse in the reign of the tyrant, Dionysius. There Damon is arrested on the denunciation of the informer Carisophus, and is sentenced to death as a spy. Reprieve for six months is allowed him on the pledge of Pythias's life as bail, and at the last minute he returns, just in time to save the life of his devoted and willing friend. Such signal proofs of the sincerity of their affection win for both of them not only life but royal favour, the king turning from his evil ways to follow their counsel. A character of importance not mentioned here is Aristippus, 'a pleasant gentleman' and a successful courtier, whose friendship with Carisophus, an alliance hollow, suspicious, and most unloving on one side at least, forms an admirable foil for the true friendship of Damon and Pythias.

There is no division into acts and scenes, but the omission amounts to little more than the absence of those words from the printed copy, since the plot is most carefully arranged—witness the gradual introduction of the characters and preparation for the arrest of Damon—and the stage is frequently cleared. In fact it is perfectly easy to insert the customary labels of acts and scenes at these latter points, in the manner employed, for example, in the 1616 edition of Marlowe's Faustus. There are no Dumb Shows, there is no Chorus, there is no Ghost. But our old friend the Vice is there—without his Devil; the clown too, and Herod; and we note with interest the modifications which were considered necessary before they could figure creditably on the tragic stage. Herod needed small alteration: the plot demands a tyrant of ferocious injustice, who can 'fall in dump and foam like a boar' at a moment's notice, or Damon cannot be judged worthy of death for his offence. The clown, whose sins, when he committed any, were always rather the product of evil influence than of original sin, is ennobled to the standing of an honest faithful slave, simple in his notions, shrewd to save his own skin, overjoyed at being made a freed man, and withal one who keeps good time by his stomach; in a word, Stephano. The Vice (of whom Will and Jack are lighter adaptations), the source of all mischief, the Newfangle of Like Will to Like and the Diccon of Gammer Gurton's Needle, is Carisophus, the disappointed courtier, who endeavours to creep back to favour by double-dealing with Aristippus and by practising the base treachery of a common informer, and who finally is kicked out of court and off the stage by Eubulus, the good counsellor. These adaptations, then, of the stock Interlude characters, are merely a continuation of the changes initiated by Heywood and others of his day and amplified in the first regular comedies; they owe nothing to classical influence. But the same feeling after naturalness which makes Stephano and Carisophus such well-defined realities influences for good the portraits of the other characters. Aristippus is a thoroughly well drawn likeness of the easy-going, gracefully selfish, polished courtier; and Damon and Pythias weary us only by reason of the weight of virtue thrust upon them by the original story, and not to be avoided, therefore, if the plot was to hold. Even the verse reflects the healthy desire to avoid artificiality. We shall not attempt to praise it: the roughness in the flow of lines constantly and quite irregularly varying in length can find little to defend it and many sensitive critics to denounce it. But there is hardly any doubt that this unevenness was due, not to a false ear for metre, but to a deliberate attempt to get rid of the unnatural formalism of correct rhymed verse. Rhyme is retained; but blank verse had only recently appeared and was still in ill favour. Edwards's device was another experiment in the same direction. Needless to say, alliteration is not called in to reinforce weak sentiments.

Possibly attributable to classical influence is the adoption of the serious, half-philosophical tone noticed in Gorboduc and The Misfortunes of Arthur. This quality the author judged to be a harmonious element in tragedy, and judged aright, though, as was natural at so early a stage, he tended to exaggerate it. Shakespeare's greatest tragedies abound in passages of deep reflexion upon life, death, and the problems of right and wrong. We may choose to place the origin of this grave spirit in the 'classics', but it may be pointed out, with reason, that the persistent traditions of the Moralities, the pious moralizings retained in such Interludes as Like Will to Like, may just as easily have passed over naturally into Edwards's work along with the Vice. In support of this other source may be cited the absence from this play of the long speeches which went hand in hand with the learned reasoning and soliloquies of Sackville and Norton. Quite undeniably of classical influence, however, is the refinement and restraint noticeable throughout the play. These we welcome. They prune the tree of native drama without hacking off its stoutest limbs. Under their control tragedy steps upon the stage in an English dress to prove herself worthy of her Roman sister and ultimately capable of far greater achievements.

To select details in proof of the success of Damon and Pythias as a pioneer in tragedy is made difficult by the fact that it ends happily. But attention may be called to the very praiseworthy treatment of the comic characters—notably Stephano and the gruff but kind-hearted hangman, Gronno—and to the humanity which vitalizes the major personages, Carisophus in particular; to the dignity also, maintained throughout the play (the Collier episode alone excepted), and to the admirably dramatic suspense secured just before Damon's return. The following extract is drawn from Pythias's farewell speech at that time, delivered on the scaffold in accordance with the best English customs:

Before this chapter closes a word remains to be said about the rise of History Plays. Pre-eminently they are the outcome of a patriotism that was growing stronger and stronger as each year increased the glory of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Nothing in them is more noteworthy than the pride in England, in England's kings, and in England's defiance and conquest of her foes. Whether we read The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth (acted before 1588) or The Troublesome Reign of King John (printed 1591) we find the same joyous presentment of courageous victory. Unfortunately for the author of the latter play, his royal subject fell away sadly in his submission to the Pope; yet the writer would not entirely concede the victory to Rome, and having made the very most of his king's campaign in France and his defiant rejection of the Papal demands, he attempts to redeem the situation, even in the dreadful moment of John's kneeling supplication to Pandulph, by putting into the former's mouth 'asides' expressing a heart completely at variance with the formal penitence; in fact this scene might be understood as a clever hoodwinking of the enemy to circumvent the Dauphin. With true artistic and patriotic instinct the author creates the redoubtable Faulconbridge to demonstrate that Englishmen were stout of heart and loyal to the throne in its worst perils, whatever might be the temporary failings of the king and a few nobles. In The Famous Victories the earlier author had for his central figure a type of character that will always appeal to an English audience. Here we find in fullest expression that free introduction of the comic by the side of the serious, and that love for jovial intercourse between royalty and subjects which are so frequent in our History Plays. The roistering of Prince Hal among his boon companions in the tavern, his boxing of the Judge's ears, and his consequent arrest; these hold the stage for the first six scenes (there are no acts, in this play or in the other), and contain several touches and incidents borrowed afterwards by Shakespeare for his Falstaff. Indeed it is surprising to observe how extensively that great genius appropriated the work of other men. While commonly refining the language, he was not above borrowing thought as well as incident—even for the famous lines by the Bastard, Faulconbridge, closing King John.

The form of the History Plays is a direct continuation of the methods of the old Miracles, and does not differ in essentials from that found in Shakespeare's 'Histories'. Such differences as do occur are due, as a rule, to minor differences of arrangement and length. The author of The Troublesome Reign of King John extended his theme into two plays, and so found room for much that had to be omitted in a single play; Shakespeare, on the other hand, spread over three plays the royal character—Henry V—which his predecessor comprehended in one. The historical method had, however, a certain effect on the English drama. It made extremely popular, by its patriotic subjects, a form which disregarded the skilful evolution of a plot, contenting itself with a succession of scenes, arranged merely in order of time, that should carry a comprehensive story to its finish. We shall see this influence operating disastrously in plays other than History, and must mark it as a retrograde movement in the development of perfect drama. One extremely valuable contribution of these History Plays was their insistence upon absolute humanness in the characters. To present a Prince Hal, a King John or a Faulconbridge, a Queen Elinor or a Constance, as mere mouthpieces or merely royal persons would have been to court immediate failure before an audience of Englishmen imbued with intense pride in the life and vigour of their country, their countrymen, and their Queen.

Of the three following extracts from The Troublesome Reign of King John the first is a speech which might well have found a place in Shakespeare's first scene, where Faulconbridge is questioned as to his parentage, the inheritance depending on his answer; the second is from one of John's dying speeches, full of remorse for his bad government, and may be compared dramatically with the better known speeches, full only of outcry against his bodily affliction; the third illustrates the spirit of patriotic pride which glows in every scene.