in reading them if Shakespeare had never written
a line.

I have spoken of him as having forerunners for a
century. But from some points of view they go back
much further; and are to be found in the unknown
writers of the great cycles of religious plays ( Miracles),
followed by the series of allegorical plays ( Moralities) of
which Everyman is the best known. The Miracles and
Moralities kept up a continuous dramatic tradition in
England from the beginning of the fourteenth century
or before, and habituated the townsfolk whether as
actors or spectators to theatrical performances. Echoes
of these performances are heard in the plays of Shake-
speare and his fellows, and Moralities, as will be seen,
continued to be written during the sixteenth century.
But in its essential spirit Tudor drama was secular, and
it is therefore from the beginnings of secular drama in
England that this short survey may take its start.

It is fortunate for those entering upon the study of
our present subject that on no period of theatrical
history has more fresh light been recently thrown than
on the two first Tudor reigns. The traditional view has
been that English tragedy and comedy both took their
rise under the influence of the classical drama or, more
strictly speaking, the Latin drama of Seneca, Plautus,
and Terence. It is true that this influence, as we shall
see, was great and in many ways beneficial. But it has
now been made clear that in the early Tudor era there
was a group of playwrights who, though scholarly and
showing the stamp of the new learning, formed what
may be truly called a native English dramatic school.
They were indebted to foreign sources for part of their
material, but their technique and methods of charac-
terization were their own.

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