TIME OF SHAKESPEARE

BY

J. J. JUSSERAND

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY

ELIZABETH LEE

REVISED AND ENLARGED BY THE AUTHOR

NEW IMPRESSION

London
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE

MDCCCXCIX

First Edition, May, 1890.
Reprinted November, 1895.
Reprinted March, 1899.

The work here presented to English readers was published in French three years ago in an abbreviated form. Worthy of attention as are the older novelists of Great Britain, it was not to be expected that details about Chettle, Munday, Ford, or Crowne, would prove very acceptable south of the Channel, especially when it is remembered that the history of French fiction, not an insignificant one, from "Aucassin" to "Jehan de Saintré," to "Gargantua," and to "Astrée," still remains to be written. A compressed account of the subject, amounting to scarcely more than a hundred pages of the present volume, was therefore deemed sufficient to satisfy such craving as there was for information concerning Nash, Greene, Lodge, and the more important among their peers. According to the publishers of the book this estimate was not fallacious, and there were no complaints of omission.

When the honour of a translation was proposed for the small volume, it appeared that a more thorough account of the distant forefathers of the novelists of to-day would perhaps be acceptable in England; for here the question was of countrymen and ancestors. The work was for this reason entirely remodelled and rewritten in order to furnish fuller particulars on our authors' lives and works, and to extract from their darksome place of retirement such forgotten heroes as Zelauto, Sorares, Parismus, who had, some of them, once upon a time, been known to fame, and had played their part in the toilsome task of bringing the modern English novel to shape.

In writing of Shakespeare's contemporaries, care has been taken to enable the reader to judge them on their own merits. With this view an effort has been made to illustrate their spirit by what was best in their books, and not necessarily what would recall the master-dramatist's works, and would expose them to the extreme danger of being dwarfed by him beyond desert, and of fading away in his light as moths in the sunshine. Considered from this standpoint, they will not, however, cease to offer some degree of interest to the Shakespearean student, for this process makes us aware not merely of what materials Shakespeare happened to use, but from what stores he chose them. On this account such works as Greene's tales of real life have been studied at some length, and a chapter has been devoted to Nash, who, high as he stands among the older novelists, has been allowed to pass unnoticed as a tale writer by all historians of fiction. If, therefore, a large use has been made of the publications of learned societies devoted to the study of Shakespeare, liberal recourse also has been had to the depositories of old original pamphlets, to the Bodleian library especially, where, surprising as it may be in this age of reprints, single copies of early novels, not to be met anywhere else, are even now to be found. Some other writings of the same kind, even less known, such as "Zelinda," a very witty parody of a romantic tale by Voiture, the "Adventures of Covent Garden," illustrative of the novel and the drama in the seventeenth century, were found in the primitive and only issue nearer at hand, in that matchless granary of knowledge, whose name no student can pronounce without a feeling of awe, because it is so noble, and of gratitude, because it is so generously administered, the British Museum.

Engravings have been added, for it seemed that scattered as the rare originals of our tales remain, it would be of assistance to gather together those curious characteristics. They give an idea of the kind of illustrations then in fashion, of the sort of appearance some of our authors wore; they show how in the course of centuries, Guy of Warwick was transformed from an armour-clad knight into a plain squire with a cane and a cocked hat; and they exemplify the way in which foreign artists were in several cases imitated with the burin, in the same books in which foreign literary models were imitated with the pen. Objection having been taken, in the very kindly criticisms passed upon this work, to the absence of the only known representation of Greene, this defect has been supplied in the present edition.

I need not say that the translator of the portions written originally in French took the trouble to overlook my additions, and to revise my revisions. I need say that my heartiest thanks are due also to the well-known Elizabethan scholar, Mr. A. H. Bullen, who, putting aside for a while much more important work, has shown me the great kindness of reading the proofs of this volume.

Saint Haon-le-Chatel,
Nov., 1890.