was, in the stage of development at which the drama had then arrived, no mean achievement.  The dramatic effects are carefully prepared for and led up to, reminding us almost at times of the recurrence of a musical motive.  Thus the song between Paris and Oenone, just before the shepherd goes off to cross Dame Venus’ path, is a fine piece of dramatic irony as well as a charming lyric; while the effect of the reminiscences of the song scattered through the later pastoral scenes has been already noticed.  Another instance is Venus’ warning of the pains in store for faithless lovers, which fittingly anticipates the words with which Paris leaves the assembly of the gods.  Again, we find a conscious preparation for the contention between the goddesses in their previous bickerings, and a conscious juxtaposition of the forsaken Oenone and the love-lorn Colin.  Lastly, there are scattered throughout the play not a few graphic touches, as when Mercury at sight of Oenone exclaims: 

    Dare wage my wings the lass doth love, she looks so bleak and thin!

Such then is Peele’s mythological play, presented in all the state of a court revel before her majesty by the children of the Chapel Royal, a play which it is more correct to say prepared the ground for than, as is usually asserted, itself contained the germ of the later pastoral drama.  In spite of the care bestowed upon its composition, the Arraignment of Paris remains a slight and occasional production; but it nevertheless claims its place as one of the most graceful pieces of its kind, and the ascription of the play to Shakespeare, current in the later seventeenth century, is perhaps more of an honour to the elder than of an insult to the younger poet.  Nor, at a more recent date, was Lamb uncritically enthusiastic when he said of Peele’s play that ’had it been in all parts equal, the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher had been but a second name in this sort of Writing.’

Before leaving Peele, mention must be made of one other play from his pen, namely the Hunting of Cupid, known to us unfortunately from a few fragments only.  This is the more tantalizing on account of the freshness of the passages preserved in England’s Helicon and England’s Parnassus, and in a commonplace-book belonging to Drummond of Hawthornden, and also from the fact that there is good reason to suppose that the work was actually printed[212].  So far as can be judged from the extracts we possess, and from Drummond’s jottings, it appears to have been a tissue of mythological conceits, much after the manner of the Arraignment, though possibly somewhat more distinctly pastoral in tone[213].

About contemporary with the Arraignment of Paris are the earliest plays of John Lyly, the Euphuist.  Most of these are of a mythological character, while three come more particularly under our notice on account of their pastoral tendency, namely, Gallathea, Love’s Metamorphosis, and the Woman in the Moon[214].