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EDWARD DE VERE — MIDDLE PERIOD: DRAMATIC FOREGROUND
IV
Mention has been made of his association with and patronage of men of letters. One such instance of literary patronage carries us to the next landmark in the tracing out his dramatic activities. The object of De Vere's benevolence in this case was Lyly, who dedicated the second part of his celebrated work to his patron. Shakespeare's intimacy with Euphuism is one of the much debated points in connection with the authorship problem, the difficulties of which disappear almost automatically under our present theory. Mr. W. Creizenach, in "English Drama in the age of Elizabeth," speaking of Lyly and his struggles, against poverty, says, "He found more effective patronage at the hands of the Earl of Oxford, who himself practised the dramatic art. By him Lyly was entrusted with the management of the troupe known as the 'Oxford Boys,' which was under his protection. It is probable that the players who had named their company after this nobleman publicly acted the plays written by their patron."
In the same work occurs also, the following passage: "Side by side with the poets who earned their living by composing dramas we may observe a few members of the higher aristocracy engaged in the task of writing plays for the [266] popular stage, just as they tried their hands at other forms of poetry for the pure love of writing. But the number of these high-born authors is very small and their appearance is evanescent. Edward Earl of Oxford, known chiefly as a lyric poet, is mentioned in Puttenham's 'Art of English Poesie' as having earned, along with Edwards the choirmaster, the highest commendation for comedy and interlude. Meres also praises him as being one of the best poets, for comedy."
The contemporary testimony to his dramatic pre-eminence mentioned in the passage quoted is of first importance, for, although we have fixed upon his lyric work as the key to the solution of the problem, it is his position as a writer of drama with which we are most directly concerned.
Slight, then, as are the traces of his literary and dramatic activity during the fourteen years following his visit to Italy, they are of such a character as to prove that the greater part of the energy which he had sought at one time to devote to military or naval enterprises was largely directed to literature and the drama, and that he must have been expending his substance lavishly upon these interests. His position amongst the aristocratic patrons of drama was evidently quite distinctive. We do not find that any of the others were literary men of the same calibre, that they were associated so directly with the plays that were being staged by their companies, or that they shared in an equal degree the Bohemian life of the players as did the Earl of Oxford. Nor are any of the others singled out for the same kind of special notice in modern works on, the Elizabethan drama. Although other companies of actors are referred to as "Boys," it is to Oxford's company that the name seems to have been most particularly attached. This frequent reference to his company as "The Oxford Boys" is suggestive, too, of a personal familiarity, and the kindly interest of an employer in the needs and welfare of the men he [267] employed. From every indication we have of his character he was not the man to keep his gold "continually imprisoned in his bags," to use his own phrase, whilst there were playwrights or actors about him whom he could benefit. Everything betokens a relationship similar to that which had existed between Hamlet and his players, and which he expresses in his welcome to them on renewing his intercourse with them:
"You are welcome, masters; welcome all. I am glad to see thee well. Welcome good friends. O! my old friend."
Then there is Hamlet's admonition to Polonius:
"Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used ... Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve the more merit is in your bounty."
Seeing, moreover, that Oxford's company has passed into the history of English drama as the "Oxford Boys," what shall we make of Hamlet speaking of his company as "the boys"?
"Do the boys carry it away?"
More important, however, are the instructions and criticism which Hamlet as a patron of playactors offers, to his company. His whole attitude is just such as a patron of Oxford's social position, literary taste, and dramatic enthusiasm would naturally assume towards a company which he was not only patronising but directing. In this matter no quotation of passages would suffice for our purpose. We can only ask the reader, bearing in mind all we have been able to lay before him, of Oxford's poetic work, life and character, to read through the whole of that part of the play which treats of Hamlet's dealing with the players (Acts II. and III. s. 2). If he does not feel that we have here an exact representation of what Oxford's handling of his own company would be, our own work in these pages must have been most imperfectly performed.
As the management of the Oxford Boys was entrusted [268] to Lyly, it will be seen that the writer in most continuous association with the Earl of Oxford during those, years, in which he was producing the plays that are supposed to have perished, was the author of "Euphues." Now, it was precisely in this period that Lyly was himself giving forth plays; so that some kind of correspondence between his own work and his master's was inevitable. It becomes, then, a question of some importance, whether these plays of Lyly's link themselves on in any distinctive way with the plays of "Shakespeare." We invite, therefore, some special attention first of all to what Sir Sidney Lee has to say on this point:
"It was only to two of his (Shakespeare's) fellow dramatists that his indebtedness as a writer of either comedy or tragedy was material or emphatically defined" (Lyly and Marlowe).
Marlowe was a younger man, and the work from his pen (tragedy) which Sir Sidney Lee associates with Shakespeare's belongs to the later or "Shakespearean" period proper. Lyly is therefore the only dramatist of this earlier or preparatory period (1580-1592) whose work, in the opinion of Sir Sidney Lee, foreshadows the work of "Shakespeare."
"Between 1580 and 1592 he (Lyly) produced eight trivial and insubstantial comedies, of which six were written in prose, one was in blank verse, and one in rhyme. Much of the dialogue in Shakespeare's comedies from 'Love's Labour's Lost' to 'Much Ado About Nothing' consists in thrusting and parrying fantastic conceits, puns and antitheses. This is the style of the intercourse in which most of Lyly's characters exclusively indulge. Three-fourths of Lyly's comedies lightly revolve about topics of classical and fairy mythology — in the very manner which Shakespeare first brought to a triumphant issue in his 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' Shakespeare's treatment of eccentric characters like Don Armado in 'Love's Labour's [269] Lost,' and his boy Moth reads like a reminiscence of Lyly's portrayal of Sir Topas, a fat, vainglorious knight, and his boy Epiton in the comedy of 'Endymion,' while the watchmen in the same play clearly adumbrate Shakespeare's Dogberry and Verges. The device of masculine disguise for love-sick maidens was characteristic of Lyly's method before Shakespeare ventured on it for the first of many times in 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' and the dispersal through Lyly's comedies of songs possessing every lyrical charm is not the least interesting of the many striking features which Shakespeare's achievements in comedy seem to borrow from Lyly's comparatively insignificant experiments."
In the article on Lyly which the same writer contributes to the Dictionary of National Biography he raises doubts as to Lyly's authorship of certain lyrics, which appear in his dramas — on the grounds of their superiority. It cannot be questioned, then, that Lyly and his work constitute a most important link in the chain of evidence connecting the work of "Shakespeare" with the Earl of Oxford; only, under the influence of the Stratfordian theory, cause is mistaken for effect.