OTHER DRAMATIC WRITERS BEFORE SHAKSPEARE.
Thomas Lodge, 1556-1625: educated at Oxford. Wrote _The Wounds of Civil-War_, and other tragedies. Rosalynd, a novel, from which Shakspeare drew in his _As You Like It_. He translated _Josephus_ and _Seneca_.
Thomas Kyd, died about 1600: _The Spanish Tragedy, or, Hieronymo is Mad Again_. This contains a few highly wrought scenes, which have been variously attributed to Ben Jonson and to Webster.
Robert Tailor: wrote _The Hog hath Lost his Pearl_, a comedy, published in 1614. This partakes of the character of the _morality_.
John Marston: wrote _Antonio and Mellida_, 1602; _Antonio's Revenge_, 1602; _Sophonisba, a Wonder of Women_, 1606; _The Insatiate Countess_, 1603, and many other plays. Marston ranks high among the immediate predecessors of Shakspeare, for the number, variety, and vigorous handling of his plays.
George Peele, born about 1553: educated at Oxford. Many of his pieces are broadly comic. The principal plays are: _The Arraignment of Paris_, _Edward I._ and _David and Bethsabe_. The latter is overwrought and full of sickish sentiment.
Thomas Nash, 1558-1601: a satirist and polemic, who is best known for his controversy with Gabriel Harvey. Most of his plays were written in conjunction with others. He was imprisoned for writing _The Isle of Dogs_, which was played, but not published. He is very licentious in his language.
John Lyly, born about 1553: wrote numerous smaller plays, but is chiefly known as the author of _Euphues, Anatomy of Wit_, and _Euphues and his England_.
Robert Greene, died 1592: educated at Cambridge. Wrote _Alphonsus, King of Arragon_, _James IV._, _George-a-Greene_, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, and other plays. After leading a profligate life, he left behind him a pamphlet entitled, "A Groat's-worth of Wit, bought with a Million of Repentance:" this is full of contrition, and of advice to his fellow-actors and fellow-sinners. It is mainly remarkable for its abuse of Shakspeare, "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers;" "Tygre's heart wrapt in a player's hide;" "an absolute Johannes factotum, in his own conceyt the onely _shakescene_ in the country."
Most of these dramatists wrote in copartnership with others, and many of the plays which bear their names singly, have parts composed by colleagues. Such was the custom of the age, and it is now very difficult to declare the distinct authorship of many of the plays.