as that is wholly in alternate rhyme. Excepting in the important difference between rhyme and blank verse, the general structure of this tragedy resembles that of Ferrex and Porrex and Jocasta: it has dumbshows to commence, and choruses to terminate every act. Tancred and Gismund is the earliest English play extant, the plot of which is known to be derived from an Italian novel. A classical taste began to be generally apparent very soon after Elizabeth came to the crown, and it produced its effects upon our national drama. The translation of the Andria of Terence had been printed about thirty years before she ascended the throne; and at a distance of from ten to fifteen years, it was followed by the interlude called Jack Juggler, founded upon a play by Plautus. Jocasta, from the Phonissæ of Euripides, was acted, as has been mentioned, in 1566; but it was preceded by a series of translations of the tragedies of Seneca, for the commencement of which, we are indebted to an author already named-Jasper Heywood, son to the celebrated John Heywood. Most of these versions came out separately in octavo, between the years 1559 and 1566. The Troas, by Jasper Heywood, certainly appeared in 1559*, as it is mentioned in the prefatory matter to Thyestes, by the same hand, It was printed by T. Powell without date; and in the 'Preface' to Thyestes, Heywood complains bitterly of the errors of the press, though he had corrected the proofs himself. He states that he had sworn that Powell should never print another work by him, and he appears to have kept his word. printed in 1560 *. wood, was published in 1561 †. Edipus, by Alexander Nevyle, came out in 1563 ‡, and Medea and Agamemnon, by John Studley, in 1566. Octavia, by Thomas Nuce, was entered on the Stationers' books in the same year; but I apprehend that no copy of so early a date is now known to exist. These seven, with the addition of Hippolytus and Hercules Oetaus by Studley, and the Thebais by Thomas Newton, were printed collectively in quarto, in 1581 §. Nine of the ten tragedies are in fourteen-syllable Alexandrines, (excepting the choruses, the measure of which is varied,) and the tenth, Octavia by Nuce, is partly in ten-syllable couplets, and partly in lines of eight syllables, rhyming alternately. Hercules Furens, also by Hey *Imprinted in the house of the late Thomas Berthelettes." +Imprinted by H. Sutton, 1561;' so that, perhaps, the executors of Berthelet pleased Heywood as little as Powell had done. Warton (H. E. P., iv. 208) thought that this play was not printed until 1581 a copy, printed by Thomas Colwell, 1563, 28 Aprilis,' is in the Garrick Collection. Warton was also incorrect in asserting that the Medea, by John Studley, was not published until 1581. T. Colwell was the printer of that tragedy, as well as of the Agamemnon. § Under the following title: 'Seneca his tenne Tragedies, trans'lated into English. Mercurii nutrices hora. Imprinted at London, in Fleetstreete, neare unto Saincte Dunstons church, by Thomas 'Marshe, 1581. Thomas Newton, who was more celebrated as a Latin than as an English poet, undertook the office of editor, and very modestly did not substitute his own version of the Troas for that of Heywood. To Thomas Newton, who began writing as early as 1560, Warton, Ritson, and others attribute a collection of poems on the death of Queen Elizabeth, published in 1603, under the title of Atropoion Delion, or the Death of Delia. One of these poems is an acrostic to Lady Francis Had they all been mere translations, I should have dismissed them with greater brevity; but Heywood and Studley have some claim to be viewed in the light of original dramatic poets: they added whole scenes and choruses wherever they thought them necessary, and even Nevyle (who is certainly inferior to all his coadjutors *) tells the reader, that he hath sometymes boldly presumed to erre from his author, rovynge at random where he list, adding and subtracting at his 'pleasure.' This circumstance proves, as Warton has very justly remarked, that dramatic authors now 'began to think for themselves, and that they were 'not always implicitly enslaved to the prescribed ' letter of their models.' I shall speak briefly of each of these writers in succession. The tragedies by Jasper Heywood are reprinted in the quarto of 1581, as they had first appeared in the octavo editions of about twenty years' earlier date †. Of these, the first was Troas, published while he was yet a lad at the University, and his additions were numerous, including a scene in stanzas, in which the [Strange?], in which these two lines occur, which are decisive that Newton of Chester was not the writer of them. Fainting with sorrow this my youngling Muse If Newton began writing forty-three years before the date when this was printed, he would hardly have applied the epithet youngling to his Muse. * On this point I differ, with the greatest humility, from Warton. H. E. P., iv. 208, edit. 8vo. † With the omission, however, of the curious introductory matter. ghost of Achilles claims the sacrifice of Polyxena-a new chorus for the third act, and a supplement to that which terminates the first act. The following lines from the last, show that at a very early age Heywood was no mean versifier. If prowess could eternitie procure, 'Then Pryame yet should live in lykyng lust: 'Ay, portly pompe of pride, thou art unsure! Lo, learne by him, O kinges, ye are but dust. 'And Hecuba that wayleth now in care, That was so late of high estate a Queene, A mirrour is to teache you what you are: 'Your wavering welth, O Princes, here is seene. 'Whom dawne of day hath seen in high estate 'Before sunnes set, alas, hath had his fall: 'The cradelles rocke apointes the life his date, 'From settled joy to sodain funerall.' To Thyestes he subjoined a scene at the close, where the hero soliloquizes on his misfortunes: he seems to have laboured to be forcible, and in exaggerating the terrific has almost rendered it ludicrous. It thus commences 'O kyng of Dytis dungeon darke and grysly ghosts of hell, 'That in the deepe and dredful denns 'where feare and famyne are; ' and heares of cralling snakes; 'Where Gorgon grymme, where Harpies are, ' and lothsome Lymbo Lakes, "Where most prodigious uglye thynges 'That makes his broode his cursed foode, ye yet dare them selves to spredde, 'Nor gapyng grounde to swallowe him Studley tells us himself, in the dedication of his Agamemnon, 1566, to Sir W. Cecill, that he had been educated at the grammar school' of Westminster, and that he had afterwards gone to Cambridge. He added to the fifth act of this tragedy, a long soliloquy by Eurybates, detailing more particularly than had been done in the body of the performance, the death of Cassandra, the flight of Orestes, and the capture of his sister. The following is an alliterative specimen of his talents as an original poet. Alas, ye hatefull hellysh hagges, ye furies foule and fell, Why cause ye rusty rančours rage ' in noble hartes to dwell? And cancred hate in boylynge brestes 'to grow from age to age? "Could not the graundsyres painful panges VOL. III. C |