r, and so forth. But hardly a
clever boy at school ever devised anything so extravagantly puerile as the
plot, which turns on a set of banished men playing at hell and devils in
caverns close to a populous city, and brings into the action a series of
the most absurd escapes, duels, chance-meetings, hidings, findings, and all
manner of other devices for spinning out an unnatural story. Many who know
nothing more of Suckling's plays know that _Aglaura_ enjoys the eccentric
possession of two fifth acts, so that it can be made a tragedy or a
tragi-comedy at pleasure. _The Sad One_, which is unfinished, is much
better. The tragedy of _Brennoralt_ has some pathos, some pretty scenes,
and some charming songs; but here again we meet with the most inconceivably
bad verse, as here--a passage all the more striking because of its attempt,
wilful or unconscious, to echo Shakespere:--

"Sleep is as nice as woman;
The more I court it, the more it flies me.
Thy elder brother will be kinder yet,
Unsent-for death will come. To-morrow!
Well, what can to-morrow do?
'Twill cure the sense of honour lost;
I and my discontents shall rest together,
What hurt is there in this? But death against
The will is but a slovenly kind of potion;
And though prescribed by Heaven, it goes against men's stomachs.
So does it at fourscore too, when the soul's
Mewed up in narrow darkness: neither sees nor hears.
Pish! 'tis mere fondness in our nature.
A certain clownish cowardice that still
Would stay at home and dares not venture
Into foreign countries, though better than
Its own. Ha! what countries? for we receive
Descriptions of th' other world from our divines
As blind men take relations of this from us:
My thoughts lead me into the dark, and there
They'll leave me. I'll no more on it. Within!"

Such were the last notes of the concert which opened with the music, if not
at once of _Hamlet_ and _Othello_, at any rate of _Tamburlaine_ and
_Faustus_.

To complete this sketch of the more famous and fortunate dramatists who
have attained to separate presentation, we must give some account of lesser
men and of those wholly anonymous works which are still to be found only in
collections such as Dodsley's, or in single publications. As the years
pass, the list of independently published authors increases. Mr. Bullen,
who issued the works of Thomas Nabbes and of Davenport, ha