war, worthy of the barbarism of the feudal ages.
Gervase Markham, who was the portionless younger son of a
Nottinghamshire gentleman of ancient family, became the most voluminous
miscellaneous writer of his age, using his pen apparently as his chief
means of subsistence. He wrote on a vast variety of subjects, and both
in verse and prose; but his works on farriery and husbandry appear to
have been the most useful, and those on field sports the most
entertaining, of his performances.

[Note 111: See Historical Collections, by Collins.]

The progress of the drama is a subject which claims in this place some
share of our attention, partly because it excited in a variety of ways
that of Elizabeth herself. By the appearance of Ferrex and Porrex in
1561, and that of Gammer Gurton's Needle five years later, a new impulse
had been given to English genius; and both tragedies and comedies
approaching the regular models, besides historical and pastoral dramas,
allegorical pieces resembling the old moralities, and translations from
the ancients, were from this time produced in abundance, and received by
all classes with avidity and delight.

About twenty dramatic poets flourished between 1561 and 1590; and an
inspection of the titles alone of their numerous productions would
furnish evidence of an acquaintance with the stores of history,
mythology, classical fiction, and romance, strikingly illustrative of
the literary diligence and intellectual activity of the age.

Richard Edwards produced a tragi-comedy on the affecting ancient story
of Damon and Pithias, besides his comedy of Palamon and Arcite, formerly
noticed as having been performed for the entertainment of her majesty at
Oxford. In connexion with this latter piece it may be remarked, that of
the chivalrous idea of Theseus in this celebrated tale and in the
Midsummer Night's Dream, as well as of all the other _gothicized_
representations of ancient heroes, of which Shakespeare's Troilus and
Cressida, his Rape of Lucrece, and some passages of Spenser's Faery
Queen, afford further examples, Guido Colonna's _Historia Trojana_,
written in 1260, was the original: a work long and widely popular, which
had been translated, paraphrased and imitated in French and English, and
which the barbarism of its incongruities, however palpable, had not as
yet consigned to oblivion or contempt.

George Gascoigne, besides his tragedy from Euripides, translated also a
comedy from Ariosto,