is frequently cleared. In fact it is perfectly easy to insert the
customary labels of acts and scenes at these latter points, in the
manner employed, for example, in the 1616 edition of Marlowe's
_Faustus_. There are no Dumb Shows, there is no Chorus, there is no
Ghost. But our old friend the Vice is there--without his Devil; the
clown too, and Herod; and we note with interest the modifications which
were considered necessary before they could figure creditably on the
tragic stage. Herod needed small alteration: the plot demands a tyrant
of ferocious injustice, who can 'fall in dump and foam like a boar' at a
moment's notice, or Damon cannot be judged worthy of death for his
offence. The clown, whose sins, when he committed any, were always
rather the product of evil influence than of original sin, is ennobled
to the standing of an honest faithful slave, simple in his notions,
shrewd to save his own skin, overjoyed at being made a freed man, and
withal one who keeps good time by his stomach; in a word, Stephano. The
Vice (of whom Will and Jack are lighter adaptations), the source of all
mischief, the Newfangle of _Like Will to Like_ and the Diccon of _Gammer
Gurton's Needle_, is Carisophus, the disappointed courtier, who
endeavours to creep back to favour by double-dealing with Aristippus and
by practising the base treachery of a common informer, and who finally
is kicked out of court and off the stage by Eubulus, the good
counsellor. These adaptations, then, of the stock Interlude characters,
are merely a continuation of the changes initiated by Heywood and others
of his day and amplified in the first regular comedies; they owe nothing
to classical influence. But the same feeling after naturalness which
makes Stephano and Carisophus such well-defined realities influences for
good the portraits of the other characters. Aristippus is a thoroughly
well drawn likeness of the easy-going, gracefully selfish, polished
courtier; and Damon and Pythias weary us only by reason of the weight of
virtue thrust upon them by the original story, and not to be avoided,