The greatest literary successes of the age were won in writing plays for the stage. In England the drama had for centuries slowly developed through Miracle plays, Moralities, and Interludes to the plays of Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson. These three are the greatest Elizabethan dramatists, but they are only the central figures of a group. The English drama in the hands of Sackville imitated Seneca and followed the rules of the classic stage. Marlowe and Shakespeare threw off the restraints of the classical unities; and the romantic drama, rejoicing in its freedom, speedily told the story of all life. The innyards were used for the public presentation of plays before the erection of theaters in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. The theaters were a great educational force in Shakespeare's time. They not only furnished amusement, but they also took the place of periodicals, lectures, and books. The actors, coming into close contact with their audience and unable to rely on elaborate scenery as an offset to poor acting, were equal to the task of so presenting Shakespeare's great plays as to make them popular. Shakespeare's plays, the greatest ever written, reveal wonderful sympathy, universality, humor, delineation of character, high moral ideals, mastery of expression, and strength, beauty, and variety of poetic form. Great as is Ben Jonson, he hampered himself by observing the classical unities and by stressing accidental qualities. He lacks Shakespeare's universality, broad sympathy, and emotional appeal. Other minor dramatists, like Beaumont and Fletcher show further decline, because they constructed their plays more from the outside, showed less development of character in strict accordance with moral law, and relied more for effect on sensational scenes. The drama has never since taken up the wand that dropped from Shakespeare's hands. REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY HISTORICAL In addition to the chapters on the time in the histories of Gardiner, Green, Lingard, Walker, and Traill, see Stephenson's _The Elizabethan People_, Creighton's _Queen Elizabeth_, Wilson's _Life in Shakespeare's England_, Stephenson's _Shakespeare's London_, Warner's _English History in Shakespeare's plays_. LITERARY General and Non-Dramatic _The Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vols. IV., V., and VI. Courthope's _A History of English Poetry_, Vol. II. Schelling's _English Literature during the Lifetime of Shakespeare_. Seecombe and Allen's _The Age of Shakespeare_, 2 vols. Saintsbury's _A History of Elizabethan Literature_. _Dictionary of National Biography_ for lives of Lyly, Sidney, Hooker. Bacon, Spenser, and the minor dramatists. Walton's _Life of Hooker_. Church's _Life of Bacon_. (E.M.L.) Church's _Life of Spenser_. (E.M.L.) Mackail's _The Springs of Helicon_ (Spenser). Dowden's _Transcripts and Studies_ (Spenser). Lowell's _Among My Books_ (Spenser). Erskine's _The Elizabethan Lyric_. The Drama[30]