and so forth? What had happened to the ear of England in seventy years?

As a matter of fact the perfection of dramatic song scarcely survived
Shakespeare himself. The early Jacobeans, Heywood, Ford, and Dekker in
particular, broke out occasionally in delicate ditties. But most
playwrights, like Massinger, were persistently pedestrian. The only man
who came at all close to Shakespeare as a lyrist was John Fletcher,
whose "Lay a garland on my hearse" nobody could challenge if it were
found printed first in a Shakespeare quarto. The three great songs in
"Valentinian" have almost more splendour than any of Shakespeare's,
though never quite the intimate beauty, the singing spontaneity of
"Under the greenwood tree" or "Hark, hark, the lark." It has grown to be
the habit of anthologists to assert Shakespeare's right to "Roses, their
sharp spikes being gone." The mere fact of its loveliness and perfection
gives them no authority to do so; and to my ear the rather stately
procession of syllables is reminiscent of Fletcher. We shall never be
certain; and who would not swear that "Hear, ye ladies that are coy" was
by the same hand that wrote "Sigh no more, ladies," if we were not sure
of the contrary? But the most effective test, even in the case of
Fletcher, is to see whether the trill of song is, or is not, an inherent
portion of the dramatic structure of the play. This is the hall-mark of
Shakespeare, and perhaps of him alone.




CATHARINE TROTTER,

THE PRECURSOR OF THE BLUESTOCKINGS