Chapter VIII: Part 8

Of Tourneur's two elegies on the death of Sir Francis Vere and of Henry Prince of Wales, it may be said that they are about as good as Chapman's work of the same order: and it may be added that his first editor has shown himself, to say the least, unreasonably and unaccountably virulent in his denunciation of what he assumes to be insincere and sycophantic in the elegiac expression of the poet's regret for a prince of such noble promise as the elder brother of Charles I. The most earnest and fervent of republicans, if not wanting in common-sense and common courtesy, would not dream of reflecting in terms of such unqualified severity on the lamentation of Lord Tennyson for the loss of Albert the Good: and the warmest admirer of that loudly lamented person will scarcely maintain that this loss was of such grave importance to England as the loss of a prince who might probably have preserved the country from the alternate oppression of prelates and of Puritans, from the social tyranny of a dictator and the political disgrace of the Restoration.

The existence of a comedy by the author of "The Revenger's Tragedy," and of a comedy bearing the suggestive if not provocative title of "Laugh and Lie Down," must always have seemed to the students of Lowndes one of the most curious and amusing pieces of information to be gathered from the "Bibliographer's Manual"; and it is with a sense of disappointment proportionate to this sense of curiosity that they will discover the non-existence of such a comedy, and the existence in its stead of a mere pamphlet in prose issued under that more than promising title: which yet, if attainable, ought surely to be reprinted, however dubious may be its claim to the honor of a great poet's authorship. In no case can it possibly be of less interest or value than the earliest extant publication of that poet--"The Transformed Metamorphosis." Its first editor has given proof of very commendable perseverance and fairly creditable perspicacity in his devoted attempt at elucidation of this most astonishing and indescribable piece of work: but no interpretation of it can hope to be more certain or more trustworthy than any possible exposition of Blake's "Jerusalem" or the Apocalypse of St. John. All that can be said by a modest and judicious reader is that any one of these three effusions may unquestionably mean anything that anybody chooses to read into the text; that a Luther is as safe as a Loyola, that a Renan is no safer than a Cumming, from the chance of confutation as a less than plausible exponent of its possible significance: but that, however indisputable it may be that they were meant to mean something, not many human creatures who can be trusted to go abroad without a keeper will be likely to pretend to a positive understanding of what that significance may be. To me, the most remarkable point in Tourneur's problematic poem is the fact that this most monstrous example of senseless and barbarous jargon that ever disfigured English type should have been written--were it even for a wager--by one of the purest, simplest, most exquisite and most powerful writers in the language.

This extraordinary effusion is the single and certainly the sufficient tribute of a great poet, and a great master of the purest and the noblest English, to the most monstrous and preposterous taste or fashion of his time. As the product of an eccentric imbecile it would be no less curious than Stanihurst's Virgil: as the work of Cyril Tourneur it is indeed "a miracle instead of wit." For it cannot be too often repeated that in mere style, in commanding power and purity of language, in positive instinct of expression and direct eloquence of inspiration, the author of "The Revenger's Tragedy" stands alone in the next rank to Shakespeare. Many if not most of their contemporaries could compose a better play than he probably could conceive--a play with finer variation of incidents and daintier diversity of characters: not one of them, not even Webster himself, could pour forth poetry of such continuous force and flow. The fiery jet of his molten verse, the rush of its radiant and rhythmic lava, seems alone as inexhaustible as that of Shakespeare's. As a dramatist, his faults are doubtless as flagrant as his merits are manifest: as a writer, he is one of the very few poets who in their happiest moments are equally faultless and sublime. The tone of thought or of feeling which gives form and color to this splendid poetic style is so essentially what modern criticism would define as that of a natural Hebraist, and so far from that of a Hellenist or Latinist of the Renascence, that we recognize in this great poet one more of those Englishmen of genius on whom the direct or indirect influence of the Hebrew Bible has been actually as great as the influences of the country and the century in which they happened to be born. The single-hearted fury of unselfish and devoted indignation which animates every line of his satire is more akin to the spirit of Ezekiel or Isaiah than to the spirit of Juvenal or Persius: though the fierce literality of occasional detail, the prosaic accuracy of implacable and introspective abhorrence, may seem liker the hard Roman style of impeachment by photography than the great Hebrew method of denunciation by appeal. But the fusion of sarcastic realism with imaginative passion produces a compound of such peculiar and fiery flavor as we taste only from the tragic chalice of Tourneur or of Shakespeare. The bitterness which serves but as a sauce or spice to the meditative rhapsodies of Marston's heroes or of Webster's villains is the dominant quality of the meats and wines served up on the stage which echoes to the cry of Vindice or of Timon. But the figure of Tourneur's typic hero is as distinct in its difference from the Shakespearean figure which may possibly have suggested it as in its difference from the Shakespearean figure which it may not impossibly have suggested. There is perhaps too much play made with skulls and cross-bones on the stage of Cyril Tourneur: he cannot apparently realize the fact that they are properties of which a thoughtful poet's use should be as temperate and occasional as Shakespeare's: but the graveyard meditations of Hamlet, perfect in dramatic tact and instinct, seem cool and common and shallow in sentiment when set beside the intensity of inspiration which animates the fitful and impetuous music of such passages as these:

Here's an eye
Able to tempt a great man--to serve God;
A pretty hanging lip, that has forgot now to dissemble.
Methinks this mouth should make a swearer tremble,
A drunkard clasp his teeth, and not undo 'em
To suffer wet damnation to run through 'em.
Here's a cheek keeps her color let the wind go whistle;
Spout, rain, we fear thee not: be hot or cold,
All's one with us; and is not he absurd,
Whose fortunes are upon their faces set
That fear no other God but wind and wet?

_Hippolito._ Brother, y'ave spoke that right;
Is this the face that living shone so bright?

_Vindice._ The very same.
And now methinks I could e'en chide myself
For doting on her beauty, though her death
Shall be revenged after no common action.
Does the silk-worm expend her yellow labors
For thee? for thee does she undo herself?
Are lordships sold to maintain ladyships
For the poor benefit of a bewitching minute?[1]
Why does yon fellow falsify highways
And put his life between the judge's lips,
To refine such a thing, keeps horse and men
To beat their valors for her?
Surely we're all mad people, and they[2]
Whom we think are, are not: we mistake those:
'Tis we are mad in sense, they but in clothes.

_Hippolito_. 'Faith, and in clothes too we, give us our due.

_Vindice_. Does every proud and self-affecting dame
Camphire her face for this? and grieve her Maker
In sinful baths of milk--when many an infant starves,
For her superfluous outside,--all for this?

[Footnote 1: This is not, I take it, one of the poet's irregular
though not unmusical lines; the five short unemphatic syllables,
rapidly run together in one slurring note of scorn, being not more
than equivalent in metrical weight to three such as would take their
places if the verse were thus altered--and impaired:

For the poor price of one bewitching minute.]

[Footnote 2: Perhaps we might venture here to read--"and only they."
In the next line, "whom" for "who" is probably the poet's own license
or oversight.]

What follows is no whit less noble: but as much may be said of the whole part--and indeed of the whole play. Violent and extravagant as the mere action or circumstance may be or may appear, there is a trenchant straightforwardness of appeal in the simple and spontaneous magnificence of the language, a depth of insuppressible sincerity in the fervent and and restless vibration of the thought, by which the hand and the brain and the heart of the workman are equally recognizable. But the crowning example of Cyril Tourneur's unique and incomparable genius is of course to be found in the scene which would assuredly be remembered, though every other line of the poet's writing were forgotten, by the influence of its passionate inspiration on the more tender but not less noble sympathies of Charles Lamb. Even the splendid exuberance of eulogy which attributes to the verse of Tourneur a more fiery quality, a more thrilling and piercing note of sublime and agonizing indignation, than that which animates and inflames the address of Hamlet to a mother less impudent in infamy than Vindice's cannot be considered excessive by any capable reader who will candidly and carefully compare the two scenes which suggested this comparison. To attempt the praise or the description of anything that has been praised or described by Lamb would usually be the veriest fatuity of presumption; and yet it is impossible to write of a poet whose greatness was first revealed to his countrymen by the greatest gritic of dramatic poetry who ever lived and wrote, and not to echo his words of righteous judgement and inspired applause with more or less feebleness of reiteration. The startling and magical power of single verses, ineffaceable and ineradicable from the memory on which they have once impressed themselves, the consciousness in which they have once struck root, which distinguishes and denotes the peculiar style of Cyril Tourneur's tragic poetry, rises to its highest tidemark in this part of the play. Every other line, one might almost say, is an instance of it; and yet not a single lineis undramatic, or deficient in the strictest and plainest dramatic propriety. It may be objected that men and women possessed by the excitement of emotions so desparate and so dreadful do not express them with such passionate precision of utterance: but, to borrow the saying of a later and bearer of the name which Cyril sometimes spelled as Turner, "don't they wish they could?" or rather, ought they not to wish it? What is said by the speakers is exactly what they might be expected to think, to feel, and to express with less incisive power and less impressive accuracy of ardent epigram or of strenuous appeal.[1]

[Footnote 1: It is, to say the least, singular to find in the most famous scene of a play, so often reprinted and re-edited a word which certainly requires explanation passed over without remark from any one of the successive editors. When Gratiana, threatened by the daggers of her sons, exclaims:

Are you so barbarous to set iron nipples
Upon the breast that gave you suck?

Vindice retorts, in reply to her appeal:

That breast
Is turned to quarled poison.

This last epithet is surely unusual enough to call for some attempt at interpretation. But none whatever has hitherto been offered. In the seventh line following from this one there is another textual difficulty. The edition now before me, Eld's of 1608, reads literally thus:

_Vind._ Ah ist possible, _Thou onely_, you powers on hie,
That women should dissemble when they die.

Lamb was content to read,

Ah, is it possible, you powers on high,

and so forth. Perhaps the two obviously corrupt words in italics may contain a clew to the right reading, and this may be it:

Ah!
Is't possible, you heavenly powers on high,
That women should dissemble when they die?

Or may not this be yet another instance of the Jew-Puritan abhorrence of the word God as an obscene or blasphemous term when uttered outside the synagogue or the conventicle? If so, we might read--and believe that the poet wrote--

Is't possible, thou only God on high,

and assume that the licenser struck out the indecent monosyllable and left the mutilated text for actors and printers to patch or pad at their discretion.]

There are among poets, as there are among prose writers, some whose peculiar power finds vent only in a broad and rushing stream of speech or song, triumphant by the general force and fulness of its volume, in which we no more think of looking for single lines or phrases that may be detached from the context and quoted for their separate effect than of selecting for peculiar admiration some special wave or individual ripple from the multitudinous magnificence of the torrent or the tide. There are others whose power is shown mainly in single strokes or flashes as of lightning or of swords. There are few indeed outside the pale of the very greatest who can display at will their natural genius in the keenest concentration or the fullest effusion of its powers. But among these fewer than few stands the author of "The Revenger's Tragedy." The great scene of the temptation and the triumph of Castiza would alone be enough to give evidence, not adequate merely but ample, that such praise as this is no hyperbole of sympathetic enthusiasm, but simply the accurate expression of an indisputable fact. No lyrist, no satirist, could have excelled in fiery flow of rhetoric the copious and impetuous eloquence of the lines, at once luxurious and sardonic, cynical and seductive, in which Vindice pours forth the arguments and rolls out the promises of a professional pleader on behalf of aspiring self-interest and sensual self-indulgence: no dramatist that ever lived could have put more vital emotion into fewer words, more passionate reality into more perfect utterance, than Tourneur in the dialogue that follows them:

_Mother_. Troth, he says true.

_Castiza_. False: I defy you both:
I have endured you with an ear of fire:
Your tongues have struck hot irons on my face.
Mother, come from that poisonous woman there.

_Mother_. Where?

_Castiza_. Do you not see her? she's too inward then.

I could not count the lines which on reperusal of this great tragic poem I find apt for illustrative quotation, or suggestive of a tributary comment: but enough has already been cited to prove beyond all chance of cavil from any student worthy of the name that the place of Cyril Tourneur is not among minor poets, nor his genius of such a temper as naturally to attract the sympathy or arouse the enthusiasm of their admirers; that among the comrades or the disciples who to us may appear but as retainers or satellites of Shakespeare his rank is high and his credentials to that rank are clear. That an edition more carefully revised and annotated, with a text reduced to something more of coherence and intelligible arrangement, than has yet been vouchsafed to us, would suffice to place his name among theirs of whose eminence the very humblest of their educated countrymen are ashamed to seem ignorant, it would probably be presumptuous to assert. But if the noblest ardor of moral emotion, the most fervent passion of eager and indignant sympathy with all that is best and abhorrence of all that is worst in women or in men--if the most absolute and imperial command of all resources and conquest of all difficulties inherent in the most effective and the most various instrument ever yet devised for the poetry of the tragic drama--if the keenest insight and the sublimest impulse that can guide the perception and animate the expression of a poet whose line of work is naturally confined to the limits of moral or ethical tragedy--if all these qualities may be admitted to confer a right to remembrance and a claim to regard, there can be no fear and no danger of forgetfulness for the name of Cyril Tourneur.

INDEX

Action, relation to character, 245.

Adventure, subject for drama, 242.

Aeschylus, Shakespeare compared with, 31;
Webster compared with, 52.

Allegory, 102, 168, 170, 179, 180.

Alleyn, 189.

"All Fools" (Chapman), 259.

"All's Lost by Lust," 196.

Amadis, 214.

"Amboyna" (Dryden), 82.

"Amphitruo," the, 217.

"Antipodes, The," 252.

_Antiquary, The_ (Scott), 84.

"Antonio and Mellida" (Marston), 30, 116, 117, 122, 124, 145, 148.

"Antonio's Revenge" (Marston), 122.

"Anything for a Quiet Life" (Middleton), 163.

"Appius and Virginia" (Webster), 198.

Arbuthnot, 228.

Ariosto, 110.

Aristophanes, Middleton compared with, 169;
caricaturist, 206.

Armada, 168, 206.

Arnold, Matthew, on Chapman, 107.

Asdrubal, speech of (Marston), 118.

"Asolani," 209.

"Astraea Redux," authorship, 157.

Astrophel and Stella, 66.

"Atheist's Tragedy, The" (Tourneur), 265;
reflects the age, 268, 273.

Athens, 169.

Audience in Shakespeare's age, 170, 245.

"Bachelor's Banquet, The" (Dekker), 97.

Bacon, Francis, 68, 256.

Balzac, Shakespeare and Marlowe compared with, 33;
Dekker compared with, 108.

Barkstead, William, 136.

Barnfield, 50.

"Bartholomew Fair" (Marston), 122.

Beaumont, 172;
and Fletcher, 182, 225.

"Beggars' Bush" (Fletcher), 178.

"Bellman of London, The," (Dekker), 101.

Bembo, Pietro, 209.

Bible, Hebrew, influence of, 281.

_Biographer's Manual_, 278.

_Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama_ (Fleay), 205.

Bishop Hall, 163.

Blake, William, Dekker compared to, 72;
"Jerusalem," 279.

Blank verse, 1, 2, 224.

"Blind Beggar of Alexandria, The" (Chapman), 193.

Boccaccio, Dekker compared with, 108.

Boswell, 162.

"Brazen Age, The," 218.

"Britannia's Honor," 84.

British Museum, 193.

Brome, 252.

Brontë, Charlotte, 40.

Browning, Heywood compared with, 236.

Bullen, on Marston, 135;
on Elizabethan songs, 137;
on Marlowe, 151;
on Middleton, 154, 163, 165, 168, 172, 179, 181;
on Heywood, 228, 230, 235.

Burbage, 189.

"Bussy d'Ambois" (Chapman), 259.

"Butcher's Story, The," 160.

Butler, parody Cat and Puss, 226.

Byron, 3, 38;
Jonson compared with, 71, 201, 267;
Tourneur compared with, 264.

Cade, Jack, 11.

"Caesar and Pompey," 259.

Campbell, Thomas, on Webster, 37.

"Canaan's Calamity," 92.

"Captives, The," 230.

Caricature, motive in drama, 206.

Carlyle, 93;
definition of genius, 109, 207;
Tourneur compared with, 264.

Carr, Robert, 256.

Cat and Puss (Butler), 226.

Catholic formula, 191.

"Catiline his Conspiracy" (Jonson), 144.

Caxton, 213, 214, 219.

"Cenci" (Shelley), 16.

_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, 93.

"Challenge for Beauty, The" (Heywood), 212, 231, 234, 235.

Chalmers on Queen Elizabeth, 69.

"Changeling, The" (Middleton), 30, 186.

Chapman, George (255-261), Matthew Arnold on, 107;
part in "Eastward Ho!", 129, 130;
plays unedited, 152;
"Blind Beggar," 193;
in Germany, 255;
translation of Juvenal, 256;
faults of style, 257;
Homer, 258;
Keats on, 258;
sources from French history, 258;
Shelley on, 258;
tragedy and comedy, 259;
contact with Shakespeare, 260;
feeling toward other poets, 260.

"Chaste Maid at Cheapside, A," Middleton and Shirley (?), 163.

Chaucer, 1, 72;
Middleton compared with, 177, 247.

Chester, Sir Robert, 137, 138.

Chettle, 72, 87, 205.

"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," 264.

"Chronicle History of Thomas Lord Cromwell," 19.

"Chronographicall History of all the Kings" (Heywood), 211.

"Christmas Carol, A," 229

Chronicle plays, 203, 206, 207, 208.

Clown, the, 230, 236.

Coleridge, on Beaumont and Fletcher, 29;
on Dekker, 88, 150;
love of country, 202, 254;
on Chapman, 258.

Collier, on Marlowe, 7.

Collingwood, 254.

Colman, George, 231.

Comedy, French and Latin, 133;
early specimens, 156, 157;
in Dekker, Jonson, Shakespeare, and Middleton, 158.

"Conquest of Granada, The," 226.

"Contention between the two Famous Houses, etc.," 9.

"Contes Drolatiques," 161.

"Coriolanus," 270.

Corneille, treatment of Psyche, 222.

Couplet, in dramatic verse, 204;
treatment by Jonson, Marlowe, Shakespeare, 205.

Critics, incompetence, 37, 38.

"Cure for a Cuckold, A," 24.

Daniel, "Defence of Rhyme," 107.

Dante, Webster compared with, 33, 52;
Marston compared with, 119;
love of country, 202.

Day, 87, 205.

"Dead Term, The" (Dekker), 102.

_Decameron_, 93.

"Defence of Rhyme," 107.

Dekker, Thomas (61-112);
collab. with Webster, 19;
part in "Westward Ho!", 20;
comic style, 21, 158;
collab. with Marston and Middleton, 30;
François Villon compared with, 61, 62;
tenderness like Shakespeare, 62;
compared with Jonson, 69-71;
with Blake and Shelley, 72;
moral force, 73;
satirist, 75;
Hunt and Hazlitt on, 78;
compared with Webster, Ford, and Middleton, 81;
with Massinger, 87;
Coleridge on, 88;
Kingsley on, 89, 90;
compared with Dickens, 102, 107;
modern writers compared with, 106-108;
humorist, 106;
style compared with Dryden, 107;
likened to Boccaccio, 108;
as man and poet, 112;
plays unedited, 152;
collab. with Middleton, 161;
allegory compared with Middleton, 168;
Rowley compared with, 191, 193;
faults, 194;
imitated by Rowley, 195;
use of foreign words, 247.

Deloney, Thomas, 91, 92.

Demonology, 161.

Desdemona, type of heroine, 57.

Devereux, Robert, 256.

"Devil's Answer to Pierce Penniless, The" (Dekker), 95.

"Devil's Law-case, The" (Webster), 25, 27, 30, 32, 49, 53.

"Dick of Devonshire," 235.

Dickens, Dekker compared with, 102, 107, 160;
Middleton compared with, 163.

Diderot, 266.

"Dido, Queen of Carthage" (Marlowe), 8.

Dilke, _Old Plays_, 154.

"Dr. Faustus" (Marlowe), 2, 4, 6, 11.

Dodsley's _Old Plays_, 195.

Don Juan, 214.

Donne, John, 126, 257.

Don Quixote, 229.

"Double PP, The, etc.," 97.

Drake, Sir Francis, 18.

Dramatic poetry, evolution of, 216.

"Dream, The" (Dekker), 100.

Drue, Thomas, 207.

Dryden, 82;
Dekker compared with, 107, 157, 221, 226.

"Duchess of Malfy, The" (Webster), 16, 32, 37, 53, 55, 270.

"Duchess of Suffolk, The," 207.

"Duke of Milan, The," 30.

"Dutch Courtesan, The" (Marston), 122, 130-133, 146.

Dyce, 11, 22, 23, 76, 151, 153, 180;
on Webster, 40;
on Middleton, 154, 157, 172;
on Heywood, 232.

"Earthly Paradise, The," 215.

"Eastward Ho!", 129, 130.

"École des Maris," 134.

"Edward II." (Marlowe), 6, 208.

_Elegies_, Ovid's, 12;
Tourneur's, 277;
Tennyson's, 278.

"Englishmen for My Money," 85.

English language, dignity, 228.

"English Traveller, The," 240.

"Entertainment" (Marston), 136.

Essex, Earl of, 256.

Euphuism, 147.

Euripides, 37, 169.

"Fair Maid of the Exchange, The," 237.

"Fair Maid of the Inn, The" (Fletcher), 26.

"Fair Maid of the West, The" (Heywood), 212, 241, 243.

"Fair Quarrel, A" (Middleton), 165, 167.

Falstaff, 179.

"Family of Love, The" (Middleton), 159, 181.

"Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt, The," 19.

"Fatal Curiosity" (Heywood), 239.

First great English poet, 1, 189.

Flamineo, 48, 52.

Fleay, _Biographical Chronicle_, 205;
on Heywood, 228, 246, 249.

Fletcher, "Fair Maid of the Inn, The," 26;
Webster compared with, 26;
tragic poet, 30;
compared with Shakespeare, 65;
comic style, 165;
metrical beauty, 172, 174;
Middleton compared with, 172, 174, 178;
collab. with Beaumont, 182;
realism, 214;
Heywood compared with, 232;
faults, 234;
"Flitcher," 237;
Chapman's feeling toward, 260.

Ford, 81, 172, 177.

Foreign words, abuse of, 246.

"Fortune by Land and Sea," 243, 244.

"Four Brides of Noah's Ark," 106.

"Four Prentices of London, The," 193, 225, 228.

Francis I., 258.

Franklin, 254.

French comedy, 133.

French history, source for Chapman, 258.

Froissart, 229.

"Game at Chess, A," 157, 171.

Gautier, 231.

"Gentle Craft, The" (Dekker), 64.

"Gentleman Usher, The" (Chapman), 259.

German criticism, 19.

Gifford, on Dekker and Jonson, 69, 70, 90;
on Marston, 122, 276.

Gil Blas, 210.

Giocondo, 110.

"Gloriana" (Lee), 82.

Glover, 38.

God, as term in literature, 286.

Goethe, on Marlowe, 2, 3.

"Golden Age, The" (Heywood), 216.

Goldsmith, Dekker compared with, 106.

Greene, Robert, 50, 73, 101.

Grenville, Richard, 18.

"Grim the Collier of Croydon," 84.

Grosart, _Barnfield_, 51;
on Dekker, 91, 99;
on Marston, 126.

"Gull's Hornbook, The" (Dekker), 97.

Hall, 125.

Hallam on Heywood, 3, 199, 232.

"Hamlet," 144, 176, 179;
influence on Tourneur, 276, 282, 284.

Haughton, 73, 87.

Hazlitt, on Dekker, 78, 79, 181, 190;
on Heywood, 201.

Hebrew Bible, influence of, 281.

"Heliogabalus," 231.

Henry IV., reign of, 258.

Henry, Prince of Wales, 256.

"Hero and Leander" (Marlowe), 13, 136, 256.

Heroine, orthodox ideal of, 247;
_cf._ also 157 _note_.

Hesiod, 256.

Heywood, Thomas (200-254), realism, 65, 215;
"The Royal King," etc., 193;
characters from life, 201;
love of country, 202;
of London, 202;
pathos and humor, 204;
patriotism, 210;
imitator of Theocritus, 214;
William Morris compared with, 215;
power of condensation, 217;
character as poet, 224, 225;
influence of civic services, 226;
compared with Fletcher, 232;
best play, 233, 234;
national quality in, 236, 254;
dramatic force, 245;
disciple of Jonson, 251;
prose, 253;
story-telling, 253.

"Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, The" (Heywood), 212.

"Hippolytus," 37.

History, treatment on stage, 18, 19.

"Histriomatrix," 126, 139, 140. [Transcriber's note: in the text, "Histriomastix"]

Hogarth, 158.

Homer, 220;
Chapman on, 255-261.

"Honest Whore, The," Webster's part in, 21;
Dekker's, 74, 75;
Middleton's and Rowley's, 183.

Hood, 138.

Horace, 143.

Horne, 152.

"How to Choose a Good Wife from a Bad" (Heywood), 247.

Hugo, Victor, son of, 4; 33, 38;
Dekker compared with, 74.

Hunt, Leigh, on Dekker, 78;
on Middleton, 154.

"Hymns" (Homer), 256.

"If you know not me," 206.

"Iliad," Chapman's translation, 255.

"Inner-Temple Masque, The," 179.

"Insatiate Countess, The" (Marston), 135.

"Iron Age, The," 216, 220.

Italian influence, 73, 103, 119, 148, 247.

"Jack Drum's Entertainment," 126, 142.

Jeronimo, 167.

"Jerusalem" (Blake), 279.

"Jests to make you merry" (Dekker), 99.

"Jew of Malta" (Marlowe), 5;
compared with "Dr. Faustus," 6;
with "King Richard II.," 11, 189.

"Jocondo and Astolfo" (Dekker), 110.

Johnson, Dr., 162, 237.

Jones, Inigo, 256.

Jonson, Ben, compared with Shakespeare, 65;
"Poetaster," 68;
compared with Dekker, 69, 70, 111;
collaboration with Dekker, 71;
court characters, 85;
influence on Marston, 122;
"Catiline," 144;
character invention, 158;
compared with Middleton, 165, 172;
treatment of couplet, 205;
model for other poets of the age, 222, 237;
friend of Chapman, 256;
model for Heywood, 251;
Chapman's feeling toward, 260;
ridicules Marston, 276.

Juvenal, Tourneur akin to, 281.

Keats, 223;
on Chapman, 258.

Killigrew, 267.

King Brute, 213.

"King Edward III.," 12.

"King Edward IV.," 203, 230.

"King Henry VI.," Marlowe's part in, 9.

"King Henry VIII.," Fletcher's part in, 174.

King James, 129;
demonology, 161, 213, 256.

"King Lear," 16, 31, 176.

"King Richard II.," 6, 208.

Kingsley, on Webster, 42;
on Dekker, 89, 90.

"Knight's Conjuring, A," 95.

Knox, John, 267.

La Fontaine, 110.

Lamb, Charles, 21, 151, 190;
on Dekker, 63, 66, 78, 162;
on Marston, 122, 123;
on Webster, 140;
on Heywood, 152, 200, 202, 205, 211, 214, 219, 225, 226, 237;
on Middleton, 153, 165, 167, 177;
on Rowley, 187, 197-199, 202;
on Chapman, 258, 259;
on Tourneur, 284.

Landor, Walter Savage, 120, 166;
on Marston, 137;
Rowley compared with, 199.

"Lantern and Candle-light" (Dekker), 101.

"La Reine d'Espagne," 232.

Latin comedy, 133.

"_Latter-day Pamphlets_," 93.

Latouche, Henri de, 232.

"Laugh and Lie Down," 278.

Lee, "Gloriana," 82.

"Life of Merlin, surnamed Ambrosius" (Heywood), 112.

Lillo, 239.

"Lingua," 170.

_Little Dorrit_, 100.

London, 11, 203, 214, 245.

"London's Tempe," 84.

Longfellow, 38.

"Love's Mistress," 222.

Lowndes, 278.

"Loyal Subject, The" (Fletcher), 232.

Lucrezia Borgia, 209.

"Lust's Dominion," 85, 152.

"Lycidas," 157.

Lyly, parody on "Antonio and Mellida," 147.

Lyric poetry before Shakespeare, 242.

Macaulay, on Milton, 104.

"Macbeth," relation to "The Witch," 172, 252.

Machiavelli, 84.

"Mad World, My Masters, A" (Middleton), 160.

"Maid's Tragedy, The," 30.

"Maidenhead Well Lost, A," 231.

"Malcontent, The" (Marston), 22, 116;
Webster's part in, 124, 129.

Mallory, 229.

"Manfred," 3.

Mantalini, 24.

Marlowe, Christopher (1-14),
influence on Shelley, 1, 13;
on Milton, 5;
on Nathaniel Lee, 7;
compared with Shakespeare, 7, 194, 208;
comic spirit, 10, 11;
translations of Ovid and Lucan, 12;
lyric quality, 13;
place in literature, 14;
compared with Webster, 33, 58, 59;
impostures of, 85;
Bullen's edition, 151;
Middleton compared with, 172;
model for others, 178;
first great poet of England, 189;
treatment of couplet, 205, 260.

Marmion, 222.

Marston, John, (112-149),
tragic spirit compared with Webster's, 17, 30, 59;
collaboration with Webster, 22;
relations with Jonson, 112, 113, 127;
tragic style compared with Webster, Tourneur, Shakespeare, 114;
characters, 115, 116;
compared with Sophocles, Tacitus, Dante, 117, 119;
influenced by Jonson, 122,
collaboration with, 140, 141;
place among poets, 144;
compared, with Jonson, 146;
satirist, 179;
compared with Tourneur, 276, 277, 281;
ridiculed by Jonson, 276.

Mary Tudor, 207.

"Massacre at Paris" (Marlowe), 7, 10.

Massinger, 30, 87, 90, 194, 237.

"Match at Midnight, A" (Rowley), 192.

"Match Me in London" (Dekker), 84.

"Mayor of Queenborough, The," 167.

"Medea," the, 37.

Meltun Society, 157 _note_.

"Menaechmi, The," 217.

"Michaelmas Term" (Middleton), 158.

"Microcynicon," 179.

Middleton, Thomas (150-187),
place as tragic poet, 30;
associated with Dekker, 75-77, 87;
poet of city, 85;
comic style, 158;
associated with Rowley and Dekker, 161;
"The Widow," 165;
allegory compared with Dekker's, 168;
obligations to Shakespeare, 172;
compared with Chaucer, 177;
a second poet by same name (?), 180;
collaboration with Rowley, 182;
comedy, 190;
_cf._ "Meddletun," 237.

"Midsummer Night's Dream," compared with "Old Fortunatus," 65.

Millais, 203.

Milton, indebted to Marlowe, 5, 38, 50, 95, 150;
indebted to Middleton, 157, 170, 236, 199;
indebted to Heywood, 217.

Minto, on Chapman, 260.

"Miseries of Enforced Marriage, The," 246.

"Misery of a Prison and a Prisoner, The" (Dekker), 99.

Molière, Dekker compared with, 107:
Marston, 132, 133, 211;
Heywood, 211, 216, 222.

"Monsieur d'Olive" (Chapman), 259.

Morality plays. 156.

"More Dissemblers Besides Women" (Middleton), 164.

Morris, William, 215, 223.

"Mountebank's Masque," 138.

Musaeus, 256.

"Myrrha" (Barkstead), 136.

Nash, Thomas, 8, 100, 180, 188.

National characteristics on Heywood, Sidney, etc., 254.

Nelson, 254.

Newman, J.H., 89, 90.

"News from Hell," 95.

"New Wonder, A, etc." (Rowley), 191.

"Northward Ho!", 20.

"No Wit, No Help Like a Woman's" (Middleton), 165.

"Odyssey," Chapman's translation, 256.

"Old Fortunatus" (Webster), 21, 30;
"Midsummer Night's Dream" compared with, 65.

"Old Law, The" (Rowley), 167.

_Old Plays_, Dilke's. 154, 195.

One-part plays, 237.

"Othello," 16, 31.

Ovid, Marlowe's translations, 12;
source for Heywood, 218;
Dryden's translations, 221.

Oxford, 255.

Painter, William, 58.

"Palace of Pleasure, The" (Painter). 58.

"Paradise Regained," 157.

"Parasitaster, The" (Marston), 133, 146.

"Parliament of Bees, The," 85.

"Passionate Shepherd, The" (Marlowe), 13.

"Patient Grissel," 72.

Patient Grizel, type of heroine, 247.

Patriotism in Dante, Coleridge, Shakespeare, Virgil, 202;
in Heywood, 243, 245.

Peele, George, 69, 205.

Percy Society, 188.

"Persae," the, 81.

Persius, Tourneur akin to, 281.

"Phoenix and Turtle, The," 138, 156.

_Pickwick Papers_, 100.

Plautus, imitated by Dryden, Molière, Rotrou, 216;
model for Heywood, 231, 240.

Plymouth, 243.

"Poetaster, The" (Jonson), 68, 133, 138.

Ponsard, 38.

Pope, 82, 228.

"Prince Nicander's vein," 223

Protestant animosity in drama, 207.

Prynne, William, 207.

Psyche, subject of English poetry, 222, 223, 251.

"Puritan, The," 181.

Puritanism, 241, 278, 281, 286 _note_.

"Pygmalion's Image," 136.

Queen Elizabeth, 69, 105, 168, 211-213, 256.

"Queen of Corinth, The," 178.

Quevedo, 95.

Rabelais, 95; Rowley compared with, 190.

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 69.

_Rand_, verb, 189.

"Rape of Lucrece, The," 223.

"Raven's Almanack, The" (Dekker), 103.

Realism, in dialogue, 194;
of Heywood and Fletcher, 214, 247;
differentiated from romanticism, 234.

"Rehearsal, The," 226.

Renascence, 281.

Restoration, the, 157 _note_, 259, 278.

"Return from Parnassus, The," 141.

"Revenger's Tragedy, The" (Tourneur), 176, 268, 273, 287.

"Roaring Girl, The," 161.

"Robert, Earl of Huntington," 73.

Rochester, Lord, 157.

"Rod for Runaways, A" (Dekker), 103.

"Romeo and Juliet," 69, 179, 247.

Rotrou, 216.

Rowley, William (187-199), genius in comedy and tragedy, 24, 166-168;
collaboration with Middleton, 161, 179, 181-183;
compared with Dekker and Nash, 188;
akin to Rabelais, 190;
comic style compared with Dekker, Middleton, Heywood, 191;
theory of verse, 194;
best as tragic poet, 196, 197;
compared with Heywood, 244.

"Royal King and Loyal Subject, The," 193, 232.

St. George's Day, 190.

"St. Patrick for Ireland" (Shirley), 194.

"Samson Agonistes," 157.

Sancho Panza, 229.

"Sardanapalus," 267.

"Satiromastix" (Dekker), 69, 127, 128.

Scott, Sir Walter, 84;
on Middleton, 153.

"Seaman, The," 96.

"Search for Money, A," 188.

"Second Maiden's Tragedy, The," 174.

"Sejanus," 144.

Selden, 163.

Settle, Elkanah, 157 _note_.

"Seven Deadly Sins of London, The," 93.

Shadwell, 251, 267.

Shakespeare, Marlowe compared with, 2, 10, 14;
translated by Hugo, 4;
indebted to Marlowe, 5, 14, 36;
Webster compared with, 15-17, 29, 30, 33, 38, 44-46, 52, 54, 57, 58;
collaboration with Rowley, 24;
doctrine compared with Aeschylus, 31;
lyric quality, 50;
greatest contemporary of, 55;
light comedy, 64;
Webster on, 65;
Dekker compared with, 67, 71,
in humor, 108;
burlesqued by Dekker, 68, 81;
admonitory style in dialogue, 98;
"Venus and Adonis," 136;
obscurity like Marston's, 137, 144;
above Milton, Coleridge, and Shelley, 150;
Middleton compared with, 154, 155,
in humor, 158;
characters, 166, 182, 184;
obligations to Middleton, 172;
tragic invention, 176;
method of work, 178;
compared with Rowley, verse quality, 191, 194;
patriotism, 202;
treatment of couplet, 205;
on chronicle plays, 206, 209;
"Richard II.," 208;
Heywood compared with, blank verse, 224;
national qualities in, 236;
Dr. Johnson on, 237;
humanity, 243;
use of foreign words, 246;
quoted in Heywood's plays, 249;
reference to Chapman, 260;
Tourneur compared with, in dramatic dialogue, 263;
verse music, 270;
tragic hero, 274;
poetic style, 276.

Shakespeare Society, 19.

Shelley, Marlowe's influence on, 1, 16, 38;
Dekker compared with, 72;
Marston, 137, 141, 177, 258.

Shirley, 30, 38, 163, 194, 221.

"Shadow of Night, The" (Chapman), 255.

"Shoemaker, a Gentleman, A" (Rowley), 193.

Sidney, Sir Philip, 18, 66, 68, 224, 254, 258.

Sigurd, 214.

"Silver Age, The," 216.

"Sir Giles Goosecap," 128.

"Sir Peter Harpdon's End," 215.

"Sir Thomas More," 19.

"Sir Thomas Wyatt, The Famous History of," 19, 22.

"Sir Tristrem," 153.

Slang, Rowley's, 195.

Socrates, 169.

Somerset, Earl of, 256.

Sophocles, Webster compared with, 35-37, 52, 218, 221.

"Sophonisba" (Marston), 116.

Southey, on Rowley, 199.

Sovereign of modern poets, 35.

Spain in drama, 168, 194, 210, 234.

"Spanish Gipsy, The," 177, 179.

"Spanish Moor's Tragedy, The," 85.

Spenser, 1.

Stanihurst's Virgil, 280.

Sterne, Dekker's style compared to, 107;
morbidity, 121.

"Strange Horse-race, A" (Dekker), 102.

Strozzi, Ercole, 209.

_Study of Shakespeare, A_, 11.

Suckling, Sir John, 157.

Sue, Eugène, 33.

Swift, Jonathan, prose, 8, 17, 121, 220;
Tourneur compared to, 264.

Tacitus, Marston's dialogue compared with, 119.

"Tamburlaine," 2, 4, 11.

"Taming of the Shrew, The," Marlowe's part in, 11.

Tennyson, Webster's verse compared with, 20, 38, 208;
Heywood compared with, 236, 278.

Thackeray, Dekker's humor compared with, 106, 108.

Thames, the, 190.

Theocritus, imitated by Heywood, 214.

"Thomas of Reading, etc.," 91.

"Three Hours After Marriage," 82.

"Titus Andronicus," 12.

Tourneur, Cyril (262-289), cynicism compared with Webster, 17, 60;
verse compared with Middleton, 172, 176;
poetic passion, 182;
allegory, 180;
reflective quality, 263;
dialogue compared with Shakespeare, Webster, 263;
shows influence of age, 268;
verse quality, 269, 270;
dramatic quality, 271, 272;
revenge as theme, 273;
master-work, 273;
comparable only with Shakespeare, 276, 277, 280, 281, 282, 288;
sublimity, 280;
akin to Juvenal, Persius, 281;
tragic style, 285;
moral passion, 289.

"Transformed Metamorphosis, The" (Tourneur), 180, 279.

Travel, motive for drama, 242.

"Travels of Three English Brothers, The," 242.

"Trial of Chivalry, The" (Heywood), 228, 229, 235.

"Traitor, The," 30.

"Trick to Catch the Old One, A" (Middleton), 158, 160.

"Troilus and Cressida," 220, 223, 277.

"Troja Britannica" (Heywood), 212.

Troy "Histories" of, 213.

Tupper, Martin, 228.

Turner, 285.

Twain, Mark, 228.

"Two Foscari, The," 267.

"Two Gentlemen of Verona," 155.

"Two Noble Kinsmen, The," Shakespeare's part in, 20.

"Tyrannic Love," 226.

Vanini, Tourneur successor of, 266.

Vere, Sir Francis, Tourneur's elegy on, 277.

"Venus and Adonis," 238.

Villon, François, Dekker compared with, 61.

Vindice, 60.

Virgil, source for "Dido, Queen of Carthage," 8;
love of country, 202.

"Virgin Martyr, The" (Dekker), 88, 194.

"Volpone," 144.

Voltaire, 199.

Watson, 141.

Webster, John (15-67), tragic imagination compared with Shakespeare,
15, 29, 30, 58, 59, 176, 190;
collaboration with Dekker, 19;
with Rowley, 23, 24;
independent of other poets, 32;
tragic quality, 46;
lyric quality, 51;
metrical faults, 53, 54;
compared with Marlowe, 58;
with Marston, 59;
with Middleton, 172, 182;
foreign words, 246;
compared with Tourneur, dialogue, 263;
verse, 270;
style, 276, 280;
tragic heroes, 281.

"Westward Ho!", 20.

"What you Will" (Marston), 127, 128, 146.

"White Devil, The" (Webster), 16, 32, 37, 40, 270.

"Whore of Babylon, The," 168.

"Widow, The" (Middleton), 164.

"Widow's Tears, The" (Chapman), 259.

Wilkins, George, 244.

"William Eps his death" (Dekker), 95.

"Wisdom of Solomon, The," 180.

"Wise Woman of Hogsdon, The" (Heywood), 245.

"Witch, The" (Middleton), relation to Macbeth, 171, 172.

Witchcraft, 251.

"Witches of Lancashire, The," 250, 251.

Wither, 50.

"Woman Killed with Kindness, A" (Heywood), 212, 238, 240, 249.

"Women Beware Women" (Middleton), 175, 177.

"Wonder of a Kingdom, The" (Dekker), 84.

"Wonder of Women, The" (Marston), 116, 122.

"Wonderful Year, The," 93.

Wood, Anthony, on Chapman, 255.

Wordsworth, love of country, 202;
Heywood compared with, 236.

"Work for Armourers" (Dekker), 102.

"Works and Days," Chapman's translation, 256.

"World Tost at Tennis, The," 179.

"Your Five Gallants" (Middleton), 160.

Zola, Émile, 33.

THE END