tself as containing a
recommendation to Queen Elizabeth to marry, or at least name her
successor, will also serve as a specimen of the new verse, Blank Verse,
which here, for the first time, finds its way into English drama.
Meeting with small favour from writers skilful in the stringing together
of rhymes, it suffered comparative neglect for some years until Marlowe
taught its capacities to his own and future ages. With Sackville's stiff
lines before us we shall be better able to appreciate the later
playwright's genius. But we shall also be reminded that the credit of
introducing blank verse must lie with the older man.

The chief question of all remains to be asked. Does _Gorboduc_, with all
its borrowed devices, _and because of them_, rise to a higher level of
tragedy than _Cambyses_ and _Appius and Virginia_? To answer this
question we must examine the effect of those devices, and understand
what is precisely meant by the term tragedy. Let it be first understood
that the arrangement of acts and scenes is comparatively unimportant in
this connexion, though most helpful in giving clearness to the action.
Marlowe's _Doctor Faustus_ (in the earlier edition) dispenses with it;
so does Milton's _Samson Agonistes_; and we have just seen that the
great Greek dramatists knew nothing of it. What is important is the
exclusion of that comic element which, in some form or another, had
hitherto found a place in almost every English play; the removal of all
action from the stage--for the Dumb Shows stand apart from the play--;
and the substitution of stately speeches for natural conversation and
dialogue. Of all three the purpose is the same, namely, to impress the
audience with a sense of greater dignity and awe than would be imparted
by a more familiar style. The long speeches give importance to the
decisions, and compel a belief that momentous events are about to
happen or have happened. In harmony with this effect is the absence of
all comic relief--although Shakespeare was to prove later that this has
a useful place in tragedy. A smile, a jest would be sacrilege in the
prevailing gloom. Two effects alone are aimed at; an impression of
loftiness in the theme, and a profound melancholy. Not warm gushing
tears. Those are the outcome of a personal sorrow, small and ignoble
beside an abstract grief at 'the falls of princes', 'the tumbling down
of crowns', 'the ruin of proud realms'. What does the reader or
spectator know of Ferre