Rotrou was the first who ventured to introduce several persons in the same scene; before his time they rarely exceeded two persons; if a third appeared, he was usually a mute actor, who never joined the other two.  The state of the theatre was even then very rude; the most lascivious embraces were publicly given and taken; and Rotrou even ventured to introduce a naked page in the scene, who in this situation holds a dialogue with one of his heroines.  In another piece, “Scedase, ou l’hospitalite violee,” Hardi makes two young Spartans carry off Scedase’s two daughters, ravish them on the stage, and, violating them in the side scenes, the spectators heard their cries and their complaints.  Cardinal Richelieu made the theatre one of his favourite pursuits, and though not successful as a dramatic writer, his encouragement of the drama gradually gave birth to genius.  Scudery was the first who introduced the twenty-four hours from Aristotle; and Mairet studied the construction of the fable, and the rules of the drama.  They yet groped in the dark, and their beauties were yet only occasional; Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Crebillon, and Voltaire perfected the French drama.

In the infancy of the tragic art in our country, the bowl and dagger were considered as the great instruments of a sublime pathos; and the “Die all” and “Die nobly” of the exquisite and affecting tragedy of Fielding were frequently realised in our popular dramas.  Thomas Goff, of the university of Oxford, in the reign of James I., was considered as no contemptible tragic poet:  he concludes the first part of his Courageous Turk, by promising a second, thus:—­

    If this first part, gentles! do like you well,
    The second part shall greater murthers tell.

Specimens of extravagant bombast might be selected from his tragedies.  The following speech of Amurath the Turk, who coming on the stage, and seeing “an appearance of the heavens being on fire, comets and blazing stars, thus addresses the heavens,” which seem to have been in as mad a condition as the poet’s own mind:—­

    —­How now, ye heavens! grow you
    So proud, that you must needs put on curled locks,
    And clothe yourselves in periwigs of fire!”

In the Raging Turk, or Bajazet the Second, he is introduced with this most raging speech:—­

Am I not emperor? he that breathes a no Damns in that negative syllable his soul; Durst any god gainsay it, he should feel The strength of fiercest giants in my armies; Mine anger’s at the highest, and I could shake The firm foundation of the earthly globe; Could I but grasp the poles in these two hands I’d pluck the world asunder.  He would scale heaven, and when he had ——­got beyond the utmost sphere, Besiege the concave of this universe, And hunger-starve the gods till they confessed What furies did oppress his sleeping soul.

These plays went through two editions:  the last printed in 1656.