nguished the
typical imagination or invention of his countrymen can only be
appreciated or conceived by students of what yet is left us of the
treasure bequeathed by the fellows and the followers of Shakespeare.
Every other man who could speak or write at all was a lyric poet, a
singer of beautiful songs, in the generation before Shakespeare's: every
other such man in Shakespeare's was a dramatic poet above or beyond all
comparison with any later claimant of the title among Shakespeare's
countrymen. One peculiarly and characteristically English type of drama
which then flourished here and there among more ambitious if not more
interesting forms or varieties, and faded forever with the close of the
age of Shakespeare, was the curious and delightful kind of play dealing
with records or fictions of contemporary adventure. The veriest failures
in this line have surely something of national and historical interest;
telling us as they do of the achievements or in any case of the
aspirations and the ideals, the familiar traditions and ambitions and
admirations, of our simplest and noblest forefathers. Even such a play
as that in which the adventures of the Shirleys were hurried and huddled
into inadequate and incoherent presentation as "The Travels of Three
English Brothers," however justly it may offend or dissatisfy the
literary critic, can hardly be without attraction for the lover of his
country: curiosity may be disappointed of its hope, yet patriotism may
find matter for its sympathy. And if so much may be said on behalf of a
poetic and dramatic failure, this and far more than this may be claimed
on behalf of such plays as "The Fair Maid of the West" and "Fortune by
Land and Sea." Of these the first is certainly the better play: I should
myself be inclined to rank it among Heywood's very best. He never wrote
anything brighter, sprightlier, livelier or fuller of life and energy:
more amusing in episodical incident or by-play, more interesting and
attractive in the structure or the progress of the main story. No modern
heroine with so strong a dash of the Amazon--so decided a cross of the
male in her--was ever so noble, credible and lovable as Bess Bridges:
and Plymouth ought really to do itself the honor of erecting a memorial
to her poet. An amusing instance of Heywood's incomparable good-nature
and sweetness of temper in dealing with the creatures of his
genius--incomparable I call it, because in Shakespeare the same
bea