New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-09-13
!, Of

/ For the selection of comedies which he and
/ his associates have made there be only
/ hearty praise. 1t has as much variety "a in
terest as it's representative character permits
Nicholas Udaus Ralph Roster Doister" Is. OF
course, here, crude forerunner Of Pistol and Fall
staff and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Gam
mer Gurton's Needle" with the most rustic and
realistic Of English yokels. No other plays could
present in paIatable form the crude simplicity
+ Of mechanism and the scholastic poverty OF in
vention which characterize the farCiCaI drama of
their day. Nor could any other play reproduce
in such full measure their insuIar LONELINESS Of
tone. BY equal right place is demanded for
something OF the inevitable John Heywood-this
time. The Play of the Wether'' and "Johan
Jhan," perhaps spontaneous in their first
humorous impulses and as wearisome in their
iteratons and reiterations as anything from the
hand of that POlonius Of arts, that infinitely
| tedious Touchstone. Peeles odd Wives Tale
deserves place as an attempt, significant even
| in its failure, to do what Shakespeare later did
! in his Midsummer Nights Dream'-mingle the
fanciful and the grOtesquely clOwnish- Porter's
| Two Angry Women of Abingdon" Is mere
horsepIay. stun for the rabble; but Lyly Is rep
resented by Alexander and Campaspe.- the
sanest in phrasing. the most dextrous in situa-
ton, the wittiest and keenest in charazteriza-
ton OF all his smart and fashionable comedy,
and Greene by the freest, the most varied and
the most striking of his plays. "F'riar Bacon"
These eight attempts, Of which Lylys alone
shows any art. and Green-'s alone any reach Of
the imagination, render fairly proportiOned ac-
count Of those masculine but uninspired and
clumsy experimenters in comedy, the Eliza
bethan primitives.
To Ralph Rsister Doister" Professor Ewau
FTugeI. of Leland Stanford University. fur
nishes an introduction. This. with some viyac-
ity details the rescued minutise OF the authors
life, with painstaking scholarship recounts the
reasons for fixing the date of his comedy before
1541 and with the most patient explicitness
paraphrases the story which the reader may ex-
pect with reasonable gertrude to recognize for
himself as he peruses the play. An introduction
by Professor Bradley, Of Oxford, attributes
"Gammer Gurton's Needle to William Steven
son. and not to John Still, to whom it Is COM
monty ascribed, and has useful word or two
on the somewhat conventional dialect Pro-
fessor Baker, OF Harvard, gives an admirably
definite analysis Of the sources, limitations and
influence of Lyly's art. The impartial and tenn
perate essays Of Professor Pollard, of Oxford,
and Professor Woodbury., of Columbia, are de-
voted to placing Haywood and Greene. With
more detail. but less precision and less clarity,
Professor Gummere Of Haverford. attempts the
same service for Peele; he is somewhat ham
pered. however, by an EDITORS natural impulse TO
find good in that to which he has devoted SO
much of his energy, and by the scholars desire
to report what every one else has sail on the
subject To these special introductions may be
added one on Greene and Porter by the
general editor, two compact but exhaustive es-
/ says devoted IN about equal measure to dates,
attributions and incisive analysis.
| The general introduction which DR.. Gayley en-
titles An Historical View Of the Beginnings OF
English Comedy" might more properly be en-
titled Critical Review Of the Accepted or
Traditional History Of Those Beginnings" and
would hardly be Ineligible to one IMMERSED In
the subject Like most critical reviews it
breaks up the broad generalizations necessary
I for popular exposition into the innumerabe de-
tails from which they were originally composed
For the scientists in the domain Of letters ap-
parently never accept any very comprehensive
conclusions of their predecessors but, like chill
dren with blocks, are forever building up and
tearing down again. Yet some truths remain
indlsputable; that at some time before the elev-
enth century tentative dramatic efforts arose
within the English Church; that the optimism
OF Christian faith prevented this nascent drama
Of miracle triumphant martyrdom and allegory
toward a form OF comedy; that the inability OF
the medieval mind to sustain for long time
high, serious emotion the attempt TO mani
fest religious truth with comedy directness, and
the consequent incongruity between purpose and
manner. or some elemental confounding Of gro