The Supposes, translated from the Italian of Ariosto by George Gascoigne, and acted at Gray’s Inn in 1566, is chiefly remarkable as being the oldest extant play in English prose. Jocasta, also acted at Gray’s Inn the same year, is the second known play in blank-verse.  It was avowedly taken from Euripides, but can hardly be called a translation, since it makes “many omissions, retrenchments, and transpositions”; though the main substance of the original is retained.

The example of making English plays out of Italian novels appears to have been first set, unless the lost play of Romeo and Juliet should be excepted, in 1568, when the tragedy of Tancred and Gismunda was performed before Elizabeth at the Inner Temple.  It was the work of five persons, each contributing an Act, and one of them being Christopher Hatton, afterwards known as Elizabeth’s “dancing Chancellor.”  Except in the article of blank-verse, the writers seem to have taken Gorboduc as their model; each Act beginning with a dumb-show, and ending with a chorus.  The play was founded on one of Boccaccio’s tales, an English version of which had recently appeared in The Palace of Pleasure.

The accounts of the revels from 1568 to 1580 furnish the titles of fifty-two dramas performed at Court, none of which have survived.  Of these fifty-two pieces, judging by the titles, eighteen were on classical subjects; twenty-one on subjects from modern history, romance, and other tales; while seven may be classed as comedies, and six as Moral-Plays.  It is to be noted, also, that at this time the Master of the Revels was wont to have different sets of players rehearse their pieces before him, and then to choose such of them as he judged fit for royal ears; which infers that the Court rather followed than led the popular taste.

This may probably be taken as a fair indication how far the older species of drama still kept its place on the stage.  Moral-Plays lingered in occasional use till long after this period; and we even hear of Miracle-Plays performed now and then till after the death of Elizabeth.  And this was much more the case, no doubt, in the country towns and villages than in the metropolis, as the growing life of thought could not but beat lustiest at the heart; and of course all the rest of the nation could not bridle Innovation, spurred as she was by the fierce competition of wit in London.

Certain parts, however, of the Moral-Plays had vigour enough, it appears, to propagate themselves into the drama of comedy and tragedy after the main body of them had been withdrawn.  An apt instance of this is furnished in A Knack to know a Knave, entered at the Stationers’ in 1593, but written several years before.  It was printed in 1594, the title-page stating that it had been “acted sundry times by Edward Alleyn and his company,” and that it contained “Kempe’s applauded merriments of the men of Gotham."[4]