fancy of the genuine poet, there are in several of the pieces which remain, an unaffected ease and simplicity, and a power of touching the heart, which merit preservation in no common degree. He abounds, too, in pictures of domestic life very minutely finished, correct without being cold, and effective without being overcharged. To his skill in exciting pathetic emotion, his tragedy entitled A Woman killed with Kindness bears the most impressive testimony.

Heywood, as may be conceived, began early, and continued long to write. Of the dramas which are left us, the first published, was his Death of Robert Earle of Huntington, dated 1601, and the last, the tragi-comedy of Fortune by Land and Sea, dated 1655. He was occasionally assisted by Rowley, Brome, &c.

Greatly superior in poetic force and vigour to Heywood, but equally inferior as to truth of dramatic imitation, we have now to mention the venerably epic name of George Chapman, the translator of Homer, and the friend of Shakspeare and Jonson, with whom, as a writer for the stage, he was nearly coeval.

Though the author of more comedies than tragedies, the genius of Chapman was infinitely better calculated for the latter province. Many beauties, it must be granted, are to be found in some of his comedies, especially in his All Fooles, and Widdowe's Tears, but they stand aloof from the character of the department, in which they are included. It is, in fact, in the lofty and heroic drama, in the more elevated and descriptive parts of tragedy, that he excels; in a grandeur often wild and irregular, but highly animated and striking. Thus the two tragedies, entitled Bussy D'Ambois, breathe a chivalric spirit truly inspiring, and, however censured by Dryden[569:A] for tumour and incorrectness of style, excite in the reader a sensation of involuntary transport. It will readily be admitted, however, that such a mode of composition is by no means adapted to dramatic purposes, and presents no safe or legitimate model. Chapman wrote

sixteen plays, besides assisting Jonson and Marston in Eastward Hoe, and Shirley in at least two of his productions.

With nearly all the poets whom we have hitherto mentioned did William Rowley unite in the composition of various pieces for the stage; namely, with Massinger, Middleton, and Heywood, Ford, Decker, and Webster, and, it has even been said, with Shakspeare, in a play entitled The Birth of Merlin. For this last association, however, there appears to be no other foundation than the bookseller's assertion, who printed this play in 1662, and which is totally unsupported by any other evidence external or internal.

But Rowley wanted not talent and originality for independent exertion, and five dramas out of nine which have been attributed solely to his pen, have reached us from the press. That a writer who was deemed a worthy assistant in such plays as The Witch of Edmonton, The Thracian Wonder, and The Spanish Gipsey, must have possessed no very inferior abilities, can admit of little doubt, and is confirmed indeed by his own exclusive compositions; for A Match at Midnight, and All's Lost by Lust, the former in the comic, and the latter in the tragic, department of his art, evince, in incident and humour, in character and in pathos, powers which repel the charge of mediocrity. Upon the whole, however, we consider him as ranking last in the roll of worthies who have thus far graced our pages.

Among the crowd of poets who commenced writers for the stage during the dramatic life-time of Shakspeare, and who were peculiarly disciples of the same school, we have now, in our opinion, noticed the most eminent; and if we add to the list, the names of Tailor, Tomkis, and Tourneur, the first the author of The Hog hath lost his Pearl, the second of Albumazar, and the third of The Revenger's Tragedy, The Atheist's Tragedy, and The Nobleman, productions in which some very beautiful passages are to be found, and some entire scenes of great merit, we shall not probably be charged with the omission of any thing which could materially serve to heighten our idea of this unrivalled period of the Romantic drama. Beyond the limits, indeed, to which we are confined, one great name, that of

Shirley, meriting, in many respects, the celebrity which now accompanies the memory of Massinger and Fletcher, would require particular attention; but we must hasten to conclude this branch of the subject, by a simple enumeration, in alphabetical order, of those who, in any degree, contributed to fill the school of Shakspeare whilst its founder was in existence:—