hand
Of Pallas first, doth not complayne that shee,
Conveyde hath back, the kynges unto theyr land.
Eche whirry boate now scuddes about the deepe
All stynts and warres are taken cleane away,
The Cities frame new walles themselves to keepe,
The open worlde lettes nought rest where it lay;
The Hoyes of Ind Arexis lukewarme leake,
The Persians stout in Rhene and Albis streame
Doth bath their Barkes, time shall in fine outbreake
When Ocean wave shall open every Realme,
The Wandering World at Will shall open lye,
And Typhis will some newe founde Land survay
Some travelers shall the Countreys farre escrye,
Beyonde small Thule, knowen furthest at this day."

As given by Sherburne these lines are:—

That the influence of Seneca's plays upon the English stage came very directly may be seen from the facts known concerning their long popularity, and the consideration in which they were held as literature, whether in the original or in translation. But their influence was exerted not only by direct means; the revival of learning in Europe brought with it a general revival of the Latin influence, and England in borrowing from Italy and France borrowed indirectly from Rome. Among the English translations made in the time of Elizabeth from French and Italian authors, we find the names of dramas modelled closely after Seneca, and intended in their English dress for presentation on the English stage; thus indirectly also was Senecan style and thought perpetuated in the English drama.

II
TENDENCIES OF SENECAN INFLUENCE AS FELT BY ENGLISH DRAMA

It would hardly be possible to find a stronger contrast than that between these Senecan tragedies and the early English drama as it existed in moralities and miracle plays before the classic influence made itself felt. With perhaps the single exception of "The Sacrifice of Isaac," which in its touching simplicity is truly dramatic, the moralities and miracle plays are little more than vivid narrative in which events of equal magnitude follow one another in epic profusion; the classic unities of time and place are unknown, and, so far as unity of action is observed, it is epic unity rather than dramatic. The characters are little more than puppets that pass across the stage, moved by no single inward spring of action, but determined in their movements by outward forces or temporary emotions.

In contradistinction to this epic profusion of inchoate external action, we find the authors of the Senecan tragedies choosing for their material only the closing portion of the myth which is the basis of their drama, and centring the little action they admit around the crisis of a soul's life, the real subject of their drama being some spiritual conflict. This introspectiveness, this interest in spiritual problems and soul processes, we find in the English drama only after it has come under the Senecan influence, and it is found in its most exaggerated form in those dramas which are most closely modelled after the Senecan pattern. While the first effect of this influence was to lessen the dramatic interest, it is only as the interest in the spiritual life is added to the wealth of external action that the English drama finds any true principle of dramatic unity. How far the stirrings of the Reformation aided in the development of this interest in soul problems is a question that the student of dramatic literature cannot ignore, but which is outside the present inquiry.

The consciousness of the importance to dramatic art of an inner spiritual theme as a central formative principle led to the nicer differentiation of character,—to the evolution of true dramatic personages from the puppets of the earlier drama, through a deeper inquiry into the inward springs of action.

The centralizing of the visible presentation around a spiritual theme brought about several secondary changes in English drama. The narrowing of the field of action necessitated the description of past and passing actions, which, though not admitted on the stage, were necessary to the understanding of the drama; this led to the introduction of the stock character of messenger and of the long descriptive monologues so familiar in the classic drama. The widening of the interest in the spiritual conflict necessitated the objectifying of that conflict, and led to the introduction of the stock character of confidant, also well known to the Greek and Roman drama, and to the further introduction of long and passionate soliloquy.

This influence exercised by the Senecan tragedies on the material of the English drama had its counterpart in an influence on the outward form,—an influence no less dominant and abiding. The tragedies of Seneca are divided, without regard to their true organic structure, into five acts; these acts are separated by choruses, that bear much the same relation to the acts they separate as does the orchestral interlude of to-day—that is, no real relation; such hard-and-fast division into five parts by choruses unconnected with the action is unknown to the Greek drama. The acts are again divided into scenes, this sub-division being dependent on the exits and entrances of the dramatis personæ, every exit and entrance necessitating a new scene.

The early imitators of Seneca copied their model closely in the arrangement of acts and scenes, and with them, as with Seneca, chorus and act division are wholly unconnected with the action of the drama; "Gorboduc," "Tancred and Gismunda," and "The Misfortunes of Arthur," are the earliest and most faithful English copies of the Latin model. In the Shakespearian drama the adherence to this classic form is less rigid, and the playwright adds or omits the choruses at will: in "Henry Fifth," the chorus not only separates the acts, as in Seneca, but also speaks the prologue; in "Pericles," where Gower speaks the prologue and act interludes, there is also added a lyrical monologue by the same speaker at the opening of the fourth scene of Act IV.; while in "The Winter's Tale" the use of a chorus has dwindled to a single monologue spoken by Time at the opening of Act IV.

In the later