Such, in barest outline, was the progress of dramatic entertainments in the principal countries of Europe, before the revival of classical studies brought about a return to the examples of the classical drama, or before this return had distinctly asserted itself. It must not, however, be forgotten that from an early period in England as elsewhere had flourished a species of entertainments, not properly speaking dramatic, but largely contributing to form and foster a taste for dramatic spectacles. The _pageants_--as they were called in England--were the successors of those _ridings_ from which, when they gladdened "Chepe," Chaucer's idle apprentice would not keep away; but they had advanced in splendour and ingenuity of device under the influence of Flemish and other foreign examples. Costumed figures represented before gaping citizens the heroes of mythology and history, and the abstractions of moral, patriotic, or municipal allegory; and the city of London clung with special fervour to these exhibitions, which the Elizabethan drama was neither able nor--as represented by most of its poets who composed devices and short texts for these and similar shows--willing to oust from popular favour. Some of the greatest and some of the least of English dramatists were the ministers of pageantry; and perhaps it would have been an advantage for the future of the theatre if the legitimate drama and the _Triumphs of Old Drapery_ had been more jealously kept apart. With the reign of Henry VIII. there also set in a varied succession of entertainments at court and in the houses of the great nobles, which may be said to have lasted through the Tudor and early Stuart periods; but it would be an endless task to attempt to discriminate the dramatic elements contained in these productions. The "mask," stated to have been introduced from Italy into England as a new diversion in 1512-1513, at first merely added a fresh element of "disguising" to those already in use; as a quasi-dramatic species ("mask" or "masque") capable of a great literary development it hardly asserted itself till quite the end of the 16th century. 11. THE MODERN NATIONAL DRAMA Influence of the Renaissance.