The The and secret Murthering of John Brewen, goldsmith of London, committed by his own wife." Kyd wrote plays, and was a friend of Marlowe's. He wrote probably the "Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune," first printed in 1589, but perhaps acted at Court in 1582, as "A History of Love and Fortune.* There is ascribed to him also, with reasonable confidence, "The Tragedye of Solyman and Perseda. Wherein is laid open Love's Constancy, Fortune's Inconstancy, and Death's Triumphs." It was entered at Stationers' Hall on the twentieth of November, 1592, but the earliest edition now extant is of 1599. only play to which he is known to have put his name when printing it, was translated from the French, entered for publication in January, 1594, and published in 1595, as "Pompey the Great, his Faire Cornelia's Tragedie: effected by her father and husband's downcast, death, and fortune." The French theatre was rising from translations to imitations of the Greek and Latin plays. Ron- French sard had translated the "Plutus" of Aristophanes. Octavien de Saint-Gelais had translated six comedies of Terence. Étienne Jodelle, Sieur de Limoudin, who died in 1573, aged forty-one, wrote plays of his own with choruses in imitation of the Greek, Cléopâtre captive; Didon se sacrifiant. His 'Eugène' represented the disorders in the French Church under Henri II. Jodelle died neglected by the Court he served, and his last verse was a sonnet of reproach to Charles IX. Gabriel Bounym, in 'La Sultane,' brought Turks on the stage in France. They were familiar, as we have seen, to playgoers in England. Jacques de la Taille, who died, twenty years old, in the same year as Jodelle, was the first writer of prose comedy in France, and in his 'Corrivaux' he followed the traces of Ariosto and Macchiavelli. Larivey, a good writer of comedy, who was of about the same age as Jacques de la Taille, but lived until 1612, Theatre. * Reprinted by J. Payne Collier for the Roxburghe Club in 1851. professed himself an imitator of the comic poets of Italy. He was Italian born, and translated his Italian name, Giunti, into L'Arrivé. Among these dramatists it was Robert Garnier, born in 1545, at Ferté Bernard, in Maine, who held the chief place among French writers of tragedy. He studied law at Toulouse, left law for poetry, and died in 1601. Garnier took Seneca for his model, but applied classical themes to the life of his own time. In his 'Porcie,' like English dramatists under Elizabeth, he took a parable from civil war, avowedly that he might paint in it calamities like those of his own time; for civil war in France was actual and present when Garnier wrote. Garnier earned praise also for improvements in the versification of French plays. It was he who first gave regular form to the use of masculine and feminine rhymes. His themes were' Hippolyte:' Marc Antoine;' la Troade; Antigone;' Bradamante;' 'Sédécie;' 'Cléopâtre,' and the 'Cornélie' that Kyd turned into English. But, with all his merits, Garnier is too rhetorical, and Kyd pleased rather the critical world than the public at large by his translated play; while his own "Spanish Tragedy" pleased the public at large rather than the critical world that found much in it to be ridiculous. There was nothing in it more ridiculous than in some older plays of the same sort; but it fell upon times when Shakespeare had given to the thoughtful a new sense of what a play could be. 6 Kyd's authorship of "The Spanish Tragedy" is inferred from a passage in Thomas Heywood's "Apology for Actors, containing three briefe Treatises. (1) Their antiquity ; (2) their ancient dignity; (3) the true use of their quality,” a pamphlet of sixty pages, first published in 1612. Heywood says, "Therefore, Mr. Kyd, in his 'Spanish Tragedy,' upon occasion presenting itself," thus writes: "The First Part of Jeronimo." There can be little doubt that the shorter play called "The First Part of Jeronimo" was written after the success of "The Spanish Tragedy," as a dramatic enlargement of the story of preceding action, which is sufficiently narrated in the First Act of that play. I do not at all doubt that the First Part was written, not by Kyd, soon after the "Spanish Tragedy" appeared, to catch some profit from the popularity of the main piece. Prynne, in his "Histriomastix," quoted against plays, from Richard Braithwaite's "English Gentlewoman," the story of "a late English gentlewoman of good rank" who spent much of her time at the theatre. When she came to die, she was exhorted by her minister to repent and call upon God for mercy. To which she made no reply but "Jeronimo! Jeronimo! O let me see Jeronimo. acted!" and so closed her dying eyes. "The First Part of Jeronimo with the Warres of Portugall and the Life and Death of Don Andrea," was first published in 1605, and was reprinted (from a copy among Garrick's books in the British Museum) in the edition of Dodsley's Old Plays published in 1825, with Additional Notes and Corrections by "the late" Isaac Reed, Octavius Gilchrist, and John Payne Collier, the editor. Thomas Hawkins, in his three volumes of plays illustrating "the Origin of the English Drama," published at the Clarendon Press in 1773, included among his specimens "The Spanish Tragedy." He called Langbaine's statement that there was a First and Second Part of Hieronimo a mistake, and said they were the same plays with varied titles, issued in the same year by different printers. Here he made two mistakes in the correction of one right statement of a fact. "The First Part of Jeronimo" begins with the King of Spain and other chief Spaniards of the story banqueting at the house of Jeronimo, who is during the feast created Marshal of Spain. His first words are of affection for his young son Horatio, who is to kneel by him and join in thanks for the honour conferred on their house. Jeronimo remembers also that it is his year of jubilee; he is fifty years old this day. Then an ambassador returns from Portugal with refusal of the tribute left now three years in arrear. There must be war against Portugal; but the King of Spain takes Jeronimo's advice that a new ambassador be sent, able as any to avert war by his friendly reasoning, and bold as any, if need be, to raise his gall up to his tongue. Jeronimo names Don Andrea. The king assents to this; but would have named Horatio, were he not too young. The lords assent, one saying, "Let it be Don Andrea, He's a worthy limb, Loves wars and soldiers, therefore I love him." All then go out except Lorenzo, the King's nephew, who feels himself slighted. Lorenzo is chief villain of the tale, and knows it very well. "I hate Andrea," he says, "I hate Andrea, 'cause he aims at honour, when That yawning beldam with her jetty skin, 'Tis she I hug as mine effeminate bride, For such complexions best appease my pride. I have a lad in pickle of this stamp, A melancholy discontented courtier, Whose famished jaws look like the chap of death : Upon whose eyebrows hang damnation ; Whose hands are washed in rape and murders bold: Him with a golden bait I will allure (For courtiers will do anything for gold) To be Andrea's death at his return. He loves my sister; that shall cost his lite: So she a husband, he shall lose a wife. O sweet, sweet policy, I hug thee! Good: Before Lorenzo gives instructions to his "lad in pickle," Lazarotto, Horatio and Andrea meet as dearest friends, and Bellimperia, Lorenzo's sister, takes leave of Andrea in the presence of his friend. Then Lorenzo talks with his lad Lazarotto, his "soul's spaniel," his "life's jetty substance," his "sweet mischief, honey damnation," and plots with him to cross the love of Andrea and Bellimperia. Jeronimo and his son Horatio enter behind, and hear the plot arranged by Lazarotto. Alcario, the Duke Medina's son, loves Bellimperia. Lorenzo shall place him in his private gallery to court his sister with rich gifts. If she be not so won, Lazarotto will murder Andrea upon his return to Portugal. These being gone, Jeronimo and Horatio express their feelings. Horatio will write letters to his friend. "Murder Andrea!" Jeronimo's wife, Isabella, enters, and the little household is together on the stage. She departs, and Horatio remains astonished at Lorenzo's plot. "Murder Andrea!" But Jeronimo says he will foil the plotters. "My mind's a giant, though my bulk be small." Several such allusions in this piece to the small bulk of Jeronimo show that the part was acted, or meant by its writer to be acted, by Burbage, who was the first Hieronimo of "The Spanish Tragedy." We pass to Portugal, where Andrea, unable to persuade, defies, and is gallantly answered by the king and his son, Balthazar. Between Balthazar and Andrea there are friendly valiant challenges to meet and charge each other in the coming fight. We return to Spain, where Alcario is set by Lorenzo on his sister Bellimperia. Lorenzo tells him that he is in person exactly like Andrea, and would be mistaken for him by Bellimperia if he wore Andrea's clothes. "I have a suit just of Andrea's colours, Proportioned in all parts :-nay, 'twas his own: Andrea is expected home in a few days. The suit is worn. Bellimperia mistakes Alcario for Andrea; but so also does Lazarotto, who had arranged to kill Andrea upon his return. Having been kept ignorant of Lorenzo's after-thought, he kills Alcario believing him to be Andrea. Then Andrea returns. Lazarotto is carried off to execution, persuaded by Lorenzo that he will plead for him, while Lorenzo makes sure of his death. There are some superfluous touches of eccentric business for Jeronimo in dictating to his son a letter. This had no object but to satisfy a public that would think nothing of Jeronimo unless he were a little mad. Last comes the fight between Spaniards and Portuguese, in which single heroes slay each other. Andrea and Balthazar meet, miss each other, meet again, till at last Balthazar in distress is rescued by Portuguese, who kill Andrea. Horatio rescues his friend's body, |