ess. And yet there is truly
a sense in which we may never be so small or so great again.

For the splendour of the Elizabethan age, which is always spoken of as a
sunrise, was in many ways a sunset. Whether we regard it as the end of
the Renascence or the end of the old mediaeval civilization, no candid
critic can deny that its chief glories ended with it. Let the reader
ask himself what strikes him specially in the Elizabethan magnificence,
and he will generally find it is something of which there were at least
traces in mediaeval times, and far fewer traces in modern times. The
Elizabethan drama is like one of its own tragedies--its tempestuous
torch was soon to be trodden out by the Puritans. It is needless to say
that the chief tragedy was the cutting short of the comedy; for the
comedy that came to England after the Restoration was by comparison both
foreign and frigid. At the best it is comedy in the sense of being
humorous, but not in the sense of being happy. It may be noted that the
givers of good news and good luck in the Shakespearian love-stories
nearly all belong to a world which was passing, whether they are friars
or fairies. It is the same with the chief Elizabethan ideals, often
embodied in the Elizabethan drama. The national devotion to the Virgin
Queen must not be wholly discredited by its incongruity with the coarse
and crafty character of the historical Elizabeth. Her critics might
indeed reasonably say that in replacing the Virgin Mary by the Virgin
Queen, the English reformers merely exchanged a true virgin for a false
one. But this truth does not dispose of a true, though limited,
contemporary cult. Whatever we think of that particular Virgin Queen,
the tragic heroines of the time offer us a whole procession of virgin
queens. And it is certain that the mediaevals would have understood much
better than the moderns the martyrdom of _Measure for Measure_. And as
with the title of Virgin, so with the title of Queen. The mystical
monarchy glorified in _Richard II._ was soon to be dethroned much more
ruinously than in _Richard II._ The same Puritans who tore off the
pasteboard crowns of the stage players were also to tear off the real
crowns of the kings whose parts they played. All mummery was to be
forbidden, and all monarchy to be called mummery.

Shakespeare died upon St. George's Day, and much of what St. George had
meant died with him. I do not mean that the patriotism of Shakespeare or
of Engla