They were introduced by Edward Blount | preceding volumes.* Surveying the whole
into the complete edition of 1632. With mass of songs presented to us in these
regard to Tourneur, there is no reason to anthologies, we first observe the common
suppose that he was incapable of writing note which marks them all out as the
songs superior to those of Ford, and not product of one period, the outcome of one
inferior to Webster's. The lyrisms in his national sensibility. The style through-
blank verse are magnificently poignantly out is the style of that Renaissance move-
fantastic.
ment which took hold of England in the
last quarter of the sixteenth century, and
which spent its force before the restora-
tion of the Stuarts. There is no mistak-
ing the similarity of tone and accent in all
the lyrics written during that memorable
space of somewhat more than fifty years.
They have a spontaneity, a bird-like fresh-
ness, an irrecoverable facility of singing,
which has never been recaptured in the
centuries which followed. This divine
quality of careless inspiration they possess
in common. But when we look closer, we
find that the dramatic lyrics differ in im-
portant respects from those of the song.
books. The latter are always more generic,
vaguer, broader in their emotion. They
were intended to be sung in every place
where men and women met together for
society and recreation. Consequently,
their authors tuned them to what Brown-
ing called "the common chord," "the C
major of this life." The songs of the
dramatists, on the other hand, cannot
easily be detached from their context, from
the situations they were meant to accen-
tuate. The playwrights wrote them, as I
have attempted to prove, in order to give
the highest value, to strike the keynote of
their compositions. Perhaps we ought
not to ascribe deliberate intention to the
authors of these stage songs. But being
penetrated with the dramatic situation, this
forced them, consciously or unconsciously,
to a special treatment of the lays they
wrote for it. Therefore, the emotion ex-
pressed is specific, definite, connected
with the particular movement and motive
of the plays where they occur. It follows
that the dramatic song is more intense,
high-pitched, and thrilling, than the lyric
meant for chamber music. There is more
concentrated stuff of thought and passion
directed to a single psychological moment
in its poetry.

Two collections of dramatic lyrics have been published in this century. The first, called "Songs from the Dramatists," by Robert Bell, has long been out of print. The second, edited by Mr. A. H. Bullen, under the title of "Lyrics from Elizabethan Dramatists," bears the date of 1889. These books, both of which are valuable, have a somewhat different scope and diverse merits. Mr. Bell begins earlier, and ends later. His first entries are the five lyrics from "Ralph Roister Doister." His last are five songs from the comedies of Sheridan. Mr. Bullen starts with Lyly, and finishes with Jasper Mayne and Thomas Forde, contemporaries of Milton. Though Mr. Bell covers a larger ground, he is neither so complete nor so scholarly as Mr. Bullen. His anthology, delightful and useful as it is, bears the air of dilet tante reading and caprice. Mr. Bullen is well-nigh exhaustive within the limits he has assigned to himself. He has also reproduced for the first time many interesting pieces which were known to few but specialists. I may mention, in particular, the lyrics of Thomas Nash, all of which are well worth study; of Peter Hausted, William Habington, and Richard Brome, whose charming spring ditty from "The Jolly Beggars was unaccountably omitted by Mr. Bell. I must here express my hope that, when Mr. Bullen issues a new edition of his book, he will incorporate those earlier pieces, which we find in Bell's anthology, adding perhaps the fresh and simple April song which opens the morality of "Lusty Juventus." No scholar in England is better fitted than Mr. Bullen to unlock all the treasures of Elizabethan dramatic literature, and to present a thoroughly complete collection of its lyrics.

This mention of Mr. Bullen's recent publication calls to mind the splendid services he rendered to English literature by bis publication of two volumes of "Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books," and by bis edition of the works of Dr. Thomas Campion. These three books present us with a body of lyrical poetry, which was written expressly for music, but which had no connection with the drama. His fourth book, "Lyrics from Elizabethan Dramatists," invites a comparison with the three

I do not wish to assert that this is invariably the case. Examples might be culled from the drama in which the song is only interpolated as a pleasing ditty. Examples, again, might be selected from Campion, in which the song seems to demand a dramatic setting. But, broadly

have called attention, are published by Mr. John C. Nimmo.

All the books edited by Mr. Buller, to which I

66

speaking, I think that this distinction | tius von Döllinger. I was on my way to holds good. If the distinction appears witness the decennial representation of the paradoxical, its validity can be tested by a Oberammergau Passion Play," which comparative study of the two kinds of was then very little known in England, lyrics. Paradoxes at any rate have this and of which I had promised Mr. Delane value, that they suggest new points of a description for the Times. It was the view, and stimulate the critical faculty. year of the Vatican Council, and Dr. Döllinger was the foremost figure in the opposition to the dogma of Papal Infallibility, which was then in debate. For this reason, and also because of his immense learning and of his great personal charm (of which I had heard from friends of his),

I have treated our romantic drama from the point of view of lyric poetry, and have tried to demonstrate its constant striving after lyrical expression in the handling of blank verse, and the culmination of that effort in the songs written to illustrate certain leading motives or decisive situa-I was anxious to make his acquaintance. tions of the action.

On

I chanced to mention my wish to Mr. This position is confirmed when we Gladstone, who at once kindly offered me pass from the Elizabethan to the Resto- an introduction, and gave me, at the same ration playwrights. The comedy of the time, an interesting account of his first Restoration was essentially non-lyrical; meeting with Dr. Döllinger twenty-five and that is equally true of its tragedy. years previously. I called on Dr. DöllinEven in Otway we do not discover the ger in company with a friend who bears a lyrical interbreathings which were so not very distinctively Welsh name. marked a feature of Elizabethan literature. greeting him, Dr. Döllinger said: "You Dryden gives us plenty of robust decla- are Welsh," and went off forthwith into a mation and sonorous rhetoric; but the note most interesting digression on the unsusof his drama is not poetical. As might pected traces of Keltic origin which still be expected, the songs of this period are survive in the language and nomenclature defective in poetic feeling and fancy. of persons and places in England. His Some of Congreve's have an exquisite mind was a wonderful storehouse of knowlfinish, a sparkling brilliancy; but their edge on a vast variety of subjects, and the finish and their sparkle are those of a knowledge was so well digested and aspaste diamond. Dryden wrote rough, sorted that it was ever at his command. commonplace, and tawdry lyrics for the He was a great linguist and an omnivorous stage. I will quote a stanza from "The reader in the literatures of Europe and Spanish Friar," which deserves attention, America, as well as of ancient Greece and not only because it illustrates the extraor- Rome. And his acquaintance with men dinary want of charm in Dryden's stage-was as various as his acquaintance with songs, but also because it first exemplified books. Hardly any man of note passed the metrical scheme which Swinburne near Munich without calling- not always adopted for his "Garden of Proserpine: with an introduction on the great German theologian and scholar; and many made long journeys on purpose to see him. He was not a good correspondent; indeed, he could not have been. He was the recipient of an immense number of letters, from royalties downwards; but he never allowed his correspondence to interfere with his hours of study, and his let

Farewell, ungrateful traitor,

Farewell, my perjured swain! Let never injured creature

Believe a man again.

The pleasure of possessing
Surpasses all expressing:

But 'tis too short a blessing,

And love too long a pain.

Mr. Swinburne deserves credit for hav-ters therefore, though numerous in the ing perceived the capacities of this stanza, and for constructing the silk purse of his immortal poem out of such a veritable sow's ear.

aggregate, were sparse to individuals. He preferred to write in German, but wrote fluently in English, French, and Italian. He read Spanish with ease, but I do not know whether he wrote or spoke that language.

A man may be highly intellectual and wonderfully learned without being neces From The Contemporary Review. sarily a good talker. It is impossible to DR. VON DOLLINGER. define a good talker, for the accomplishBY CANON MACCOLL. ment is infinitely various. There are IT was in the month of May, 1870, that divers styles of good talking, each excelI first made the acquaintance of Dr. Igna- | lent in its way, and there are men who

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20

excel in more styles than one, of whom the bishop took his place among the minority
late Mr. Robert Browning may be given of the Council, but he yielded at last, and
as an example. In general society his excommunicated Dr. Döllinger for not
conversation was so light and sparkling, following his example. Yet I never heard
so full of anecdote and repartee and breezy Dr. Döllinger speak bitterly of him. On
fun, that admirers of his poetry who met the contrary, he made excuses for him;
him for the first time were sometimes urged that he had acted under pressure
grievously disappointed. They had pic from Rome; pleaded that he had more
tured to themselves a man of austere and piety than strength of character; and de-
dignified mien, who spoke like his poems, clared that he was bound to act as he did,
instead of which they met a very cheery, or resign his see. To illustrate the arch-
well dressed, old gentleman whose speech bishop's esprit exalté, which subordinated
was by no means oracular, but was, on the his judgment to his religious emotions,
contrary, an excellent specimen of good Dr. Döllinger one day told me the follow-
dinner talk. But Browning could talk in ing anecdote, on the authority of Arch-
a very different strain when the opportu- bishop Scherr himself. When the arch-
nity presented itself. I remember a sum- bishop received information from Rome
mer evening, two years ago, when, after that he was to be presented with the archi
retiring from the dinner-table, he started a episcopal pallium on a given day, he imme-
discussion on the doctrine of evolution, diately began to prepare himself for this
from which the conversation passed to great honor by devoting the interval to
Plato's dialogues; and Browning's conver-retirement and religious exercises. The
sation was so brilliant and stimulating pallium is generally, but not invariably,
that the hours sped on without reckoning;
and when we thought it was verging upon
midnight we found that it was already the
dawn of another day. Browning, so far
from feeling tired, playfully proposed that
we should continue the discussion till
breakfast.

made by the nuns of one of the Roman
convents from the wool of lambs kept on
purpose - a fact which added to the
honor of the gift. On the stated day, the
archbishop's servant announced the arrival
of the messenger with the pall. The
archbishop expected a special envoy from
To this class of talkers Dr. Döllinger the Vatican and a formal investiture sanc
belonged. He seldom dined out; but he tified by the papal benediction, instead of
once did me the bonor of dining with me which there walked into his presence a
in the Four Seasons Hotel, Munich, to Jewish banker with a bundle under his
meet some friends of both sexes, includ- arm, out of which he presently produced
ing the present vicar of Leeds and Mrs. the pall with a bill for £200. Keenly as
Talbot. He charmed the ladies, young Dr. Döllinger entered into the humor of
and elderly, with the brightness and light- the story, he really told it as an illustra-
ness of his conversation, and with his tion of the archbishop's simplicity of char-
familiarity with topics which they had acter, and by way of excusing his conduct
supposed must have been beneath his no- in excommunicating himself.
"To him,"
tice. He was full of humor, and I have he said, "the dogma presents no insuper-
never known a man who had a keener able difficulty, and he cannot understand
sense of the ridiculous, or laughed more why it should present any to me.
heartily. But there was no malice in his bows to authority, and cannot see that
humor; like sheet-lightning, it irradiated authority has no more to do with historical
without hurting the objects on which it facts than it has to do with mathematical
played. I can confirm Mr. Gladstone's facts." He was always prone to make
experience in affirming that I never heard excuses for the bishops who accepted the
Dr. Döllinger speak an unkind word even dogma of infallibility- -even for those
of those whom he might reasonably have who had been among its most prominent
regarded as his adversaries. Archbishop opponents at the Vatican Council.
Scherr, of Munich, was a personal friend showed me once a letter from one of the
of Dr. Döllinger, and was at first one of latter, in which the writer- -a distin-
the opponents of the dogma of infallibil-guished prelate-declared that he was in
ity. At the railway station of Munich, sad perplexity. He had proclaimed the
as he was starting to attend the Vatican dogma, he said, while still remaining in
Council, he assured Dr. Döllinger that in the same mind in which he had opposed
the event (which the archbishop thought it at the Council. "But what could I
improbable) of the dogma being proposed do?" he asked. "Can one be in the
in the Council, it should have his deter- Church and be out of communion with
mined opposition. For a time the arch- the pope? Yet can it be right to proclaim

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