By the numerous body of poets who, contemporary with Shakespeare or in the next generation, cultivated the wide field of the national drama, every form commending itself to the tastes and sympathies of the national genius was essayed. None were neglected except those from which the spirit of English literature had been estranged by the Reformation, and those which had from the first been artificial importations of the Renaissance. The mystery could not in England, as in Spain, produce such an aftergrowth as the _auto_, and the confines of the religious drama were only now and then tentatively touched.[186] The direct imitations of classical examples were, except perhaps in the continued efforts of the academical drama, few and feeble. Chapman, while resorting to use of narrative in tragedy and perhaps otherwise indebted to ancient models, was no follower of them in essentials. S. Daniel (1562-1619) may be regarded as a belated disciple of Seneca,[187] while experiments like W. Alexander's (afterwards earl of Stirling) _Monarchicke Tragedies_[188] (1603-1605) are the mere isolated efforts of a student, and more exclusively so than Milton's imposing _Samson Agonistes_, which belongs to a later date (1677). At the opposite end of the dramatic scale, the light gaiety of the Italian and French farce could not establish itself on the English popular stage without more substantial adjuncts; the Englishman's festive digestion long continued robust, and he liked his amusements solid. In the pastoral drama and the mask, however, many English dramatists found special opportunities for the exercise of their lyrical gifts and of their inventive powers. The former could never become other than an exotic, so long as it retained the artificial character of its origin. Shakespeare had accordingly only blended elements derived from it into the action of his romantic comedies. In more or less isolated works Jonson, Fletcher, Daniel, Randolph, and others sought to rival Tasso and Guarini--Jonson[189] coming nearest to nationalizing an essentially foreign growth by the fresh simplicity of his treatment, Fletcher[190] bearing away the palm for beauty of poetic execution; Daniel being distinguished by simpler beauties of style in both verse and prose.[191] The mask.