express profession) of the caprice of the individual and the irony of fortune. He is the Vice, efficient for evil, but in process of evolution into the inclination or humour of a somewhat later period of dramatic history: the inclination not immoral but unmoral, the artistic impersonation of comic extravagance, in accordance with which Every Man is in his Vice, and every Vice is but a Humour. The Ambidexter of the latter tragedy plays "with both hands finely" in the main action, and at the same time serves to provoke the jocosity of those admirably concrete ruffians, Huf, Ruf, and Snuf, and of the clown of the play. The _Horestes_, written by John Pikerynge in 1567, must, although a tragedy, also be mentioned here.[86] The Vice under his dual designation of Corage and Revenge is of the weathervane variety; and in realistic and humorous qualities the play closely resembles the preceding two. They were a noble but futile effort to bottle the juices of tragedy, classical-historical at that, in the leathers of moral interlude. =13. The Movement towards Romantic Comedy= We may now proceed with the main current of comedy. Between 1570 and 1590 the best plays are coloured by a distinctively romantic element; and this is noticeable, not only in the productions of the greater authors, Lyly, Peele, Greene, and the like, elsewhere discussed in this volume, but in those of minor writers too frequently ignored. As I have already said, the romantic in life appears to spring from a desire to assert one's independence and realize the possibilities of the resulting freedom. "Our pent wills fret And would the world subdue." But since the conditions of life are largely opposed to the complete fulfilment of our desires, it is the privilege and function of romance, and of romantic comedy according to its kind, to idealize the stubborn facts--the "limits we did not set" in favour of our ecstatic but still human urgency. This privilege the comedy of romance exercises sometimes with an eye to nature and probability, and sometimes with some respect for imaginative possibility, but quite frequently with no other guide than mere caprice. The subjects of such comedy may be briefly summarized as passion, heroism, and wonder. Of these the first is manifest in examples of ideal friendship, its devotion and self-sacrifice; and a play of such nature we have already considered in the _Damon and Pithias_. It also yields the furnishings of love, the resulting obstacles, and the issue; and a play of this kind we have considered in _The Supposes_, which is a domestic comedy of intrigue. Of heroism the possibilities are suggested by the words travel, adventure, chivalry, war, conquest; those of wonder are as various as the chances of birth, wealth and fortune, pomp and power, myth and fable: they are fostered by that which is remote, preternatural, supernatural.