therefore, if the plot was to hold. Even the verse reflects the healthy
desire to avoid artificiality. We shall not attempt to praise it: the
roughness in the flow of lines constantly and quite irregularly varying
in length can find little to defend it and many sensitive critics to
denounce it. But there is hardly any doubt that this unevenness was due,
not to a false ear for metre, but to a deliberate attempt to get rid of
the unnatural formalism of correct rhymed verse. Rhyme is retained; but
blank verse had only recently appeared and was still in ill favour.
Edwards's device was another experiment in the same direction. Needless
to say, alliteration is not called in to reinforce weak sentiments.

Possibly attributable to classical influence is the adoption of the
serious, half-philosophical tone noticed in _Gorboduc_ and _The
Misfortunes of Arthur_. This quality the author judged to be a
harmonious element in tragedy, and judged aright, though, as was natural
at so early a stage, he tended to exaggerate it. Shakespeare's greatest
tragedies abound in passages of deep reflexion upon life, death, and the
problems of right and wrong. We may choose to place the origin of this
grave spirit in the 'classics', but it may be pointed out, with reason,
that the persistent traditions of the Moralities, the pious moralizings
retained in such Interludes as _Like Will to Like_, may just as easily
have passed over naturally into Edwards's work along with the Vice. In
support of this other source may be cited the absence from this play of
the long speeches which went hand in hand with the learned reasoning and
soliloquies of Sackville and Norton. Quite undeniably of classical
influence, however, is the refinement and restraint noticeable
throughout the play. These we welcome. They prune the tree of native
drama without hacking off its stoutest limbs. Under their control
tragedy steps upon the stage in an English dress to prove herself worthy
of her Roman sister and ultimately capable of far greater achievements.