himself surrounded by priests who were charged with treason because of their refusal to take the oath of supremacy. By associating with them Jonson became a Catholic and when released from prison married a Catholic wife. His child was baptized Mary, and Shakespeare was chosen as her sponsor. This choice of a godfather seems to indicate that Shakespeare was a Catholic at this time for, in his ardor as a new convert, Ben Jonson would scarcely have selected an Anglican for that office.

One more proof of Shakespeare's Catholicism in conclusion: About the close of the seventeenth century Archdeacon Davies, who was a local historian and antiquarian in the neighboring county of Staffordshire, but who was well acquainted with Stratford and its history, and who could easily have had very definite sources of information denied to us, declared that Shakespeare "dyed a papist." It would have been perfectly possible, it must be remembered, for Archdeacon Davies to have spoken with people who knew Shakespeare during the years that the poet spent in Stratford at the end of his life. After this review of the evidence I can not but conclude that Shakespeare not only "dyed a papist," but also lived as one.

Leaving those, to whom these lines may be of interest, to make their own deductions, the editors accept the conclusions of the distinguished Jesuit, Herbert Thurston, who, in discussing this point in the Catholic Encyclopedia, maintains that there is no real ground for the belief that Shakespeare either lived or died a Catholic. Thurston concludes his able study of this question by stating, "The point must remain forever uncertain."

III. SHAKESPEARE'S LEARNING

Of Shakespeare's learning it may be said that though classical quotations and allusions are numerous throughout his works, Ben Jonson credits him with "small Latin and less Greek." "His quotations from Latin literature are such as a schoolboy might make from Virgil, Ovid, and the other authors he had studied; and his allusions to classical history and mythology are mostly from the same sources, or from the familiar stock in English books of the period." (Rolfe.) In comparing Shake

speare with the dramatists of his time, Jasper Mayne, writing in 1637, mentions him as one of those who did his work "without Latin helps"; and Mayne's contemporary, Ramsey, in complimenting Ben Jonson on his knowledge of the classical languages, says that he (Jonson)

could command

That which your Shakespeare could scarce understand. Yet we are told that Shakespeare's work is "Art without art, unparalleled as yet," and though he borrowed nothing from Latin or Greek, his Julius Cæsar ravished the audience,

When some new day they would not brook a line

Of tedious (though well labour'd) Catiline,

and Jonson's "Sejanus too was irksome." In Fuller's Worthies we find the following reference to Shakespeare: "He was an eminent instance of the truth of that rule, Poeta non fit, sed nascitur-one is not made but born a poet. Indeed his learning was very little nature itself was all the art which was used on him. The wit combats between him and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning; solid but slow in his performances: Shakespeare, like the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk and lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention." Dryden in his Essay on Dramatic Poesy (1668), says: "Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards and found her there:" and in the same author's prologue to Julius Cæsar we find,

So in this Cæsar which today we see,

Tully ne'er spoke as he makes Antony.

Those then that tax his learning are to blame;
He knew the thing, but did not know the name.

Great Jonson did that ignorance adore,

And tho' he envied much, admired him more.

The material for his historical plays he obtained from Holinshed and Plutarch, and in the use of these rather unreliable authorities he makes many unscholarly mistakes.

During his mature years and in the time of his prosperity, he brought out his best works. Some writers credit him with the authorship of forty-three plays of a dramatic character. Seven of these are considered spurious. Thirty-three known to be his are divided as follows:

Besides these he wrote one hundred and fifty-four Sonnets and some Narrative Poems.

IV. THE DRAMA

A lengthy discussion of the drama cannot be conveniently introduced into a text of this kind; therefore, the chief heads only will be touched upon. Drama is a Greek term signifying action, and in its application it comprehends all forms of literature proper for presentation on the stage. In the drama, actors usually tell a story by means of word and action. This story may be tragic or comic;-tragic when the serious phases of life are discussed, comic when life's follies and foibles are depicted. Other phases of the drama which do not, strictly speaking, come under the heading tragedy or comedy, are the Greek Satyrs, the Morality Plays of the Middle Ages, the Pastoral Plays of the Renaissance, and the Melodramas still in vogue.

Although the drama was well established in the remote ages in India and China, the earliest examples of pure dramatic art are to be found in Greece. From the sacred songs and choruses in honor of the god Dionysus, the Greeks in time evolved a form of drama, the chief features of which, even in its highest stages of development, were lyric or choral. To Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, in the fifth century, and to Menander at a later period, the Greek drama owes its greatness and its influence in ancient and in modern dramatic literature.

The Roman drama, as it has come down to us in the works of Terence, Plautus, and Seneca, is but a slightly modified form of Menander, and shows some traces of the influence of Aeschylus and other dramatists of his time. This modification, in the comedies of Plautus at least, was not for the betterment of the drama; on the contrary, it was a concession to the depraved taste of his Roman audience. Unfortunately, Plautus' travesties of the old Greek masters later served as models for the dramatic writers of the Renaissance, and his influence is felt even to the

present day. Modern tragedy, generally speaking, is a direct offspring of the works of Seneca. Toward the close of the Roman Empire, the theaters became the scenes of the most degraded exhibitions of indecency and debauchery. Christianity attacked these indecencies and drove the mimes from their haunts of infamy into the streets and byways of Rome and its environs. These mimes practiced their mimicry in the villages and crossroads, and became the models for the strolling players of the middle ages.

Christianity, however, recognized the necessity of the drama as a humanizing influence, and though years elapsed before its restoration as drama proper, the leaders of the new religion set about the substitution of wholesome Christian plays for the Roman indecencies to which they had recently given the death blow. The Scriptures and the liturgy of the church were rich stores from which were drawn the materials for the Mystery, the Morality, and the Miracle Plays. After a time these exhibitions passed from the control of churchmen into the hands of the Guilds. Under the management of the Guilds these plays soon lost their religious aspect, and before the end of the fifteenth century they had been completely divorced from church influence, and were ready to be destroyed or absorbed by the spirit of the New Learning. This destruction or absorption, however, was not accomplished without a struggle. The leaders of the Renaissance advocated the complete dominance of classic influence in the reconstruction of the drama, while the Mediaevalists strenuously advocated the perpetuation of the Mystery, Morality, and Miracle Plays. Of this travail, however, was born the modern drama.

Italy, France, Germany, England, and Scandinavia contributed largely to the formation of the modern drama, but practically all the dramatic writers of these countries have been influenced by the Greek and Roman masters. These masters have been slavishly imitated by all but a few of their pupils. This