with his father. But Immerito, the boorish son of a country bumpkin, is preferred to the benefice because his father can give one hundred 'thanks' in current coin. The Recorder approves the patron's choice, and seizes the occasion for a malignant outburst against the scholars and their colleges: But had the world no wiser men than I, Knights, Lords, and lawyers should be log'd and dwel But, later, the scholars prove themselves the Recorder's match in vituperation, and we get a foretaste of the yet more overwhelming ridicule of Brackyn in Ignoramus. To us, the Parnassus trilogy is without an equal among academic plays in the combined intimacy and breadth of its appeal. But contemporary taste seems to have been hit more successfully by another Cambridge drama, Lingua, or The Combat of the Tongue and the five Senses for Superiority. This comedy, first printed in 1607, went through six editions before the Restoration. Its date is uncertain, though it must be later than 1602, which is mentioned in one of the scenes. Its author, as we learn from a memorandum by Sir John Harington, a high authority on the university plays of his day, was Thomas Tomkis of Trinity college, who graduated in 1600-1, and whose name appears on the title-page of Albumazar, acted before James I at Trinity in 1615. Lingua falls in with the contemporary fashion of personifying or allegorising the parts and faculties of man, which finds its chief expression in Phineas Fletcher's Purple Island. The scene 'is Microcosmus in a Grove,' and the plot is concerned with the attempt of Lingua, the tongue, to vindicate her claim to be a sixth sense. To breed strife among the five recognised senses, she leaves in their path a crown and a royal robe with the inscription: He of the five that proves himself the best, Tactus first finds the royal emblems, and invests his 'brows and body' with them. Thereupon, the other senses dispute his sovereignty, and make preparation for deadly combat. But Communis Sensus, the vicegerent of queen Psyche, undertakes 'to umpire the contention' and orders them 'their arms dismissed to appear before him, charging everyone to bring, as it were in a shew, their proper objects, that by them he may determine of their several excellencies.' Visus's show includes Lumen, Coelum, Terra and Colour, whom he 'marshaleth about the stage, and presents before the bench.' Auditus afterwards leads in Tragedus and Comedus, whose likeness and unlikeness are delineated in words of admirable critical insight. Olofactus presents 'the mighty emperor Tobacco, king of Trinidado, that, in being conquered, conquered all Europe, in making them pay tribute for their smoke.' Gustus has in his train Bacchus and Ceres; but Tactus has to appear alone, because his show was to have included 'a nice gentlewoman,' and in five hours a dozen maids have not had time to attire a boy for the part. Finally, Communis Sensus delivers judgment. On not very cogent grounds, he assigns the crown to Visus and the robe to Tactus, while the three other senses are consoled with appointments to high offices under queen Psyche. Lingua's claim to be a sense is rejected-with a significant reservation: The number of the Senses in this little world is answerable to the first bodies in the great world: now, since there be but five in the universe, the four elements and the pure substance of the heavens, therefore there can be but five senses in our Microcosm correspondent to those... wherefore we judge you to be no sense simply: only this much we from henceforth pronounce, that all women for your sake shall have six Senses, that is, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and the last and feminine sense, the sense of speaking. Lingua, enraged at being proclaimed 'half a sense,' revenges herself by making the senses drink a drugged wine at a supper to which Gustus invites them. Their wits become deranged, and strife threatens to be renewed among them; but Somnus charms them, and the mischief-maker Lingua, into sleep. In her sleep, Lingua confesses her trickery', and is punished by being committed 'to close prisin, in Gustus's house... under the custody of two strong dons, and... well guarded with thirty tall watchmen, without whose licence she shall by no means wag abroad.' It is not, however, in the plot, ingeniously worked out as it is, that the chief attraction of the play lies. Its distinguishing excellence is the style, or variety of styles, in which it is written. In the prose scenes, Tomkis proves himself a master of polished and flexible dialogue, which has often a curiously modern note. The wit is sparkling and unforced, but lacks the Aristophanic pungency of Club Law and the Parnassus plays. In the few 1 In The Modern Language Review, vol. iv, no. 4, pp. 518-520, the present writer has suggested that this episode is probably a parody of the sleep-walking scene in Macbeth. verse passages where the author aims at a serious effect, he writes with scholarly grace. But most of the metrical speeches are in a vein of burlesque, or are parodies of lines in plays of the day. Thus, there are intentionally ludicrous imitations of famous speeches in Kyd's Spanish Tragedie, besides what appear to be caricatures of phrases or situations in several Shakespearean dramas. A hundred and one incidental allusions show the width of the author's reading, and the remarkably detailed stage directions prove his interest in matters of costume and heraldry. The statement made in 1657, and elaborated by later tradition, that Oliver Cromwell acted in the play, is, probably, a bookseller's figment, but might, conceivably, be true if a revival took place about 1617, when the third edition of the work appeared. The last decade of Elizabeth's reign, which was very fruitful in Cambridge plays, has left few memorials of dramatic activity at Oxford, which seems to have been more dependent on the external stimulus of royal visits. But, at St John's college, which, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, rivals Christ Church as a centre of academic stagecraft, there was produced in 1602/3 the 'twelfe night merriment,' Narcissus. The prologue declares that 'the play wee play is Ovid's own Narcissus,' and it is true that the plot is taken from book III of the Metamorphoses. But the story is considerably expanded and treated throughout in a burlesque vein. Thus, Tiresias, 'the not seeing prophet,' adorned 'in byshoppes rochett,' is introduced to tell the fortune of the beautiful youth from the 'table' of his hand; and the trickery of the mischievous nymph Echo leads to mock tragedy. Throughout, the author shows a remarkable command of out-of-the-way phrases and grotesque rimes, and, in its farcical treatment of a classical legend, Narcissus is curiously akin to the interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Two and a half years later, in the summer of 1605, St John's took part with Christ Church in the series of entertainments provided for king James on his first visit to Oxford. The king, accompanied by the queen and Henry, prince of Wales, made his entry on 27 August. Special preparations had been made for the festivities. In Christ Church, where the king and queen lodged, a stage had been built close to the upper end of the Hall, as it seemed at the first sight. But indeed it was but a false wall fair painted, and adorned with stately pillars, which pillars would turn about, by reason whereof, with the help of other painted clothes, their stage did vary three times in the acting of one Tragedy. James I at Oxford, 1605 317 That the actors in the various plays might be suitably apparelled, a number of costumes and properties were supplied by the office of the revels. Lists of these are preserved in the university archives. The success of the performances seems, however, to have been scarcely on a level with the magnitude of the preparations. On the first evening, a pastoral play Alba was presented. 'In the acting thereof they brought in five or six men almost naked which were much disliked by the Queen and Ladies.' It needed the entreaties of the chancellors of both universities to prevent the king leaving 'before half the comedy had been ended.' On the following night, James saw Ajax Flagellifer. James would have done well to imitate his predecessor in countermanding', as he 'was very weary before he came thither, but much more wearied by it, and spoke many words of dislike.' Nor did matters fare much better on the third evening, when Vertumnus sive Annus Recurrens, by Matthew Gwinne of St John's, was performed on the Christ Church stage. Though it was well acted by a company consisting chiefly of St John's men, the king fell asleep in the middle. But the play produced on the following evening 'made amends for all.' It was The Queenes Arcadia of Samuel Daniel, memorable as the first English pastoral drama written for the academic stage2. Guarini's Il Pastor Fido had been acted a short time previously at King's college, Cambridge, in a Latin version, Pastor Fidus. Parthenia, a similar version of Luigi Groto's Pentimento Amoroso, preserved in manuscript at Emmanuel college, Cambridge, is of uncertain date. Daniel, as was natural, followed the general lines of Italian pastoral drama; but the statement of a contemporary Cambridge visitor to Oxford, that 'it was drawn out of Pastor Fidus,' is misleading. So far as Daniel's play owes a direct debt to a foreign original, it is to Tasso's Aminta rather than to Guarini's work, while the conception of the plot, though not of a number of episodes, must be put down to the English poet's own credit. It deals with the entanglements and evils produced in Arcadia by the machinations of sophisticated representatives of the outer world. Chief among these are Colax, 'a corrupted traveller,' and Techne, 'a subtle wench of Corinth,' who, by their nefarious schemes, delude the shepherd Amyntas into the belief that Cloris, whom he wooes in vain, is a wanton. In despair, he tries to take his own life, but, in an episode imitated 1 Cf. ante, p. 298. 2 For a brief sketch of the progress of the pastoral drama in England see the following chapter (XIII). from Aminta, is rescued by Cloris, whose heart has, at last, been touched by love. The arch evildoers, after plotting not only against the hero and heroine but against other Arcadian lovers, are banished for ever. Subordinate, but more amusing, mischiefmakers are Lincus, a pettifogging lawyer, and Alcon, a quack doctor, into whose mouth is put a description of tobacco as a certaine herbe wrapt up in rowles From th' Island of Nicosia where it growes: And this he said a wondrous vertue had, To purge the head, and cure the great catarre. This, of course, was intended to tickle the ears of the author of A Counterblaste to Tobacco. But the permanent attraction of Daniel's play lies not in its topical references or even in its plot and characterisation, but in the lyrical sweetness of its verse and the limpid grace of its diction and imagery. Its production at Christ Church is amongst the most memorable records of the Oxford stage. Probably, however, none of the Christ Church plays gratified the king so much as a more informal open-air interlude which took place in front of St John's college on the day of his entry into Oxford. Three young scholars, dressed as nymphs, suddenly appeared in his path. They announced that they were the sibyls who had formerly foretold to Banquo the rule of his descendants, and that they had come again to prophesy all happiness to James, and the perpetuity of Banquo's stock upon the British throne. They then saluted the king in turn with a triple salve, and greeted similarly the queen and prince Henry. James 'did very much applaude' the 'conceipt,' which was devised by Matthew Gwinne, and it is possible that some account of it reached the ears of Shakespeare and suggested the writing of Macbeth in the following year. The stimulus of the royal visit to theatrical activity at Oxford, especially at St John's college, seems to have lasted for some time afterwards. To this, we have remarkable testimony in a unique memorial of the academic stage preserved in the St John's library. It is a manuscript written by Griffin Higgs, a member of the college, who successively became fellow of Merton and chaplain to Elizabeth of Bohemia, and entitled A true and faithfull relation of the risinge and fall of Thomas Tucker, Prince of Alba Fortunata, Lord St Johns &c., with all the occurrents which happened throughout his whole domination. No extant document, not even Gager's |