product and the crown of a particular dramatic convention; he did not
compose his plays according to an ideal pattern; he was an Elizabethan,
working so consistently according to the methods of his age and country
that, as we know, he passed 'unguessed at' among his contemporaries. But
what were these methods and this convention? To judge of them properly
we must look, not at Shakespeare's masterpieces, for they are transfused
and consecrated with the light of transcendent genius, but at the
average play of an ordinary Elizabethan play-wright, or even at one of
the lesser works of Shakespeare himself. And, if we look here, it will
become apparent that the dramatic tradition of the Elizabethan age was
an extremely faulty one. It allowed, it is true, of great richness,
great variety, and the sublimest heights of poetry; but it also allowed
of an almost incredible looseness of structure and vagueness of purpose,
of dullness, of insipidity, and of bad taste. The genius of the
Elizabethans was astonishing, but it was genius struggling with
difficulties which were well-nigh insuperable; and, as a matter of fact,
in spite of their amazing poetic and dramatic powers, their work has
vanished from the stage, and is to-day familiar to but a few of the
lovers of English literature. Shakespeare alone was not subdued to what
he worked in. His overwhelming genius harmonized and ennobled the
discordant elements of the Elizabethan tradition, and invested them not
only with immortality, but with immortality understanded of the people.
His greatest works will continue to be acted and applauded so long as
there is a theatre in England. But even Shakespeare himself was not
always successful. One has only to look at some of his secondary
plays--at _Troilus and Cressida_, for instance, or _Timon of Athens_--to
see at once how inveterate and malignant were the diseases to which the
dramatic methods of the Elizabethans were a prey. Wisdom and poetry are
intertwined with flatness and folly; splendid situations drift
purposeless to impotent conclusions; brilliant psychology alternates