TABLE V. SOVEREIGNS. Henry V., 1413-1422. Henry VI., 1422; died Wars of the Roses, 1455. RISE OF THE DRAMA-II10-1566. The first known dramatic production in England, Institution of the Festival of Corpus Christi (1264) 1268. Whitsuntide plays at Chester about 1268; prob. ably in French at this date. East Midland play, "Abraham and Isaac," middle of fourteenth century. York cycle of plays about 1340-1350; earliest Townley cycle of about thirty plays belonging to Coventry plays, 1485-1509. Chester Whitsun-plays, "Fall of Lucifer"; "Noah's Flood," etc.; composed probably early part of 14th century; earliest MS., 1581. Morality Plays: one setting forth the goodness of the Lord's Prayer, performed 1480, Impatient Poverty," etc. INTERLUDES. John Heywood, (?)-d. 1565. Earliest extant Regular Comedy. Henry VIII., 1509-1547. Nicholas Udal, 1506-1557. 66 "Ralph Roister Doister" (acted 1551), (published 1566.) "Gammer Gurton's Needle," by Bishop Still, about 1566. Thomas Sackville, 1536-1608. "Ferrex and Porrex," or the Tragedy of Gorboduc, played 1561, printed in 1565. TABLE VI.-ELIZABETHAN PERIOD, cir. 1557-1637. Persecution of Protestants be- "The Shepherd's Calendar," Richard Hooker, 1553-1600. Drake sails for the Pacific, 1577. Francis Bacon, 1561-1626. Culmination of the Drama Lope de Vega, 1562-1635. GERMANY. TABLE VI.-ELIZABETHAN PERIOD, cir. 1557-1637-continued. ENGLAND. FOREIGN COUNTRIES. William Warner, 1558-1606. Expedition of Essex in Ireland," England's Heroical Epistles.' " De livered," by Edward Homer, by George Chap- " Thos. Middleton, 1570-1627. "Cynthia's Revels," acted, Thos. Dekker, 1570-1637. John Marston, 1575-1633. 1598. Alexandre Hardy, 1560-1631. "Pastor Fido." Vasari, 1513-1574. Titian, 1477-1576. Tintoretto, 1518-1594. Literature: Hans Sach, 1494-1576, Paul Flemming, 1609 1640, Poems. Science : NOTES AND REFERENCES. 1. History.-(a) Renaissance.-Symond's article under that title, "Ency. Brit.," 9th ed.; Burkhardt's "Renaissance." An article on Pico della Mirandola (whose life was written by Sir T. More) will be found in Pater's "Renaissance." (b) England. -Thornbury's "Shakespeare's England"; Goadby's "Shakespeare's England"; Drake's "Shakespeare and His Times." The class may be advised to read Scott's "Kenilworth," Kingsley's "Westward Ho," also "With Essex in Ireland," by Hon. Emily Lawless. Froude's "History of England" covers this period. 2. Spenser. Church's Life of, in English Men of Letters Series; Lowell's essay on, in "Among my Books"; "One Aspect of Spenser's Faery Queen," Andover Review, October, 1889. "Spenser," Grosart's ed. 3. Elizabethan Drama, etc.-For history of drama, introduction to Hudson's "Shakspere's Life, Art, and Characters"; Pollard's "English Miracle Plays" and Keltie's "British Dramatists' give specimen extracts. Symond's "Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama "; Thayer's Six best English Plays"; will be found useful for study of Shakespeare's contemporaries. Shakespeare.-Dowden's "Shakespeare Primer "; Lowell's essay on, in "My Study Windows"; Hunter's "Illustrations of the Life and Studies of Shakespeare"; Dowden's "Shakespeare, His Mind and Art"; Elze's" Life of Shakespeare "; Knight's "Life of Shakespeare"; White's "Shakespeare's Scholar "; Craik's "English of Shakespeare"; Abbott's "Shakespearian Grammar." Bayne's article on, in "Ency. Brit.," 9th Ed. is especially valuable for study of early environment. 4. Bacon.-Church's Life of, in English Men of Letters Series; Macaulay's Essay on. 5. Elizabethan Songs.-Palgrave's "Golden Treasury "; A. H. Bullen's "England's Helicon"; "Lyrics from the Dramatists of the Elizabethan Age"; Bell's "Songs from the Dramatists." Chapter 11. THE PURITAN IN LITERATURE. THE ENGLAND OF MILTON. ALTHOUGH Shakespeare and Milton are familiarly linked together in our ordinary speech as the two greatest poets of England, in the whole spirit and Shakespeare and Milton Ex press the Spirit of Different Times. nature of their work they have hardly any thing in common. It is not merely that they are, for the most part, distinguished in separate provinces of poetry; that Shakespeare is above all the dramatic, and Milton the epic poet of the literature: the difference lies much deeper, and declares itself unmistakably at almost every point. Now, this is not entirely due to an inborn, personal difference in the genius of these two representative poets; it is due also to the difference in the spirit of the times they represent. For in a sense even Shakespeare was "of an age," as well as "for all time."* So far as we can guess from his work, he seems to have shared the orthodox politics of the Tudor times, distrusting the actions of the populace, and stanch in his support of the power of the king. In the true spirit of the Renaissance, Shakespeare's work is taken up chiefly with humanity in this world, rather than with its relations to any other; his dramas are alive with the crowding interests and activities which came with the Revival of Learning. But the England in which Milton lived and worked was stirred by far different emotions; its finest spirits were inspired by far different ideals. Milton interprets and expresses the England of Puritanism, as Shakespeare does the England of Elizabeth, and to understand the difference in the spirit of * "He was not of an age, but for all time." From Ben Jonson's poem to the memory of Shakespeare, |