A few preliminary remarks on the literature of the earlier part
of the seventeenth century will form a necessary introduction to this
biographical memoir.
[1]When James I. ascended the throne of England he came to rule a court
and people, as much distinguished for literature as for commerce and
arms. Shakespeare was in the zenith of his reputation, and England
possessed other poets inferior to Shakespeare alone; or, indeed, the
higher order of whose plays may claim to be ranked above the inferior
dramas ascribed to him. Among these we may reckon Massinger, who
approached to Shakespeare in dignity; Beaumont and Fletcher, who
surpassed him in drawing female characters, and those of polite and
courtly life; and Jonson, who attempted to supply, by depth of learning,
and laboured accuracy of character, the want of that flow of
imagination, which nature had denied to him. Others, who flourished in
the reign of James and his son, though little known to the general
readers of the present age even by name, had a just claim to be
distinguished from the common herd of authors. Ford, Webster, Marston,
Brome, Shirley, even Chapman and Decker, added lustre to the stage for
which they wrote. The drama, it is true, was the branch of poetry most
successfully cultivated; for it afforded the most ready appeal to the
public taste. The number of theatres then open in all parts of the city,
secured to the adventurous poet the means of having his performance
represented upon one stage or other; and he was neither tired nor
disgusted by the difficulties, and disagreeable observances, which must
now be necessarily undergone by every candidate for dramatic laurels.
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