It is, after all, the main contribution of humanism that through the study of the classics there had come new impetus and authority for individual effort. Art was to be based on classic precedents, but it was forbidden by the spirit of the new age to remain after medieval fashion satisfied with repetitions and translations. For the dramatist there were not only new models, but a circulation of ideas, free opportunity, and the incentive of fame. For him, too, there was a public long habituated to the drama and now well tutored in novelties and variations of the old forms, a public that no longer expected a conventionalized stage, but was possessed of what the apostle Paul deemed the chief characteristic of the classical spirit, the desire to hear some new thing. NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY The authorities on their respective subjects are: W. Creizenach, _Geschichte des neuren Dramas_, Halle, 1893-1903 (3 vols. and index, extending to 1570, have appeared); A. W. Ward, _A History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queen Anne_, 1899, new and revised edition, 3 vols.; E. K. Chambers, _The Mediæval Stage_, Oxford, 1903. These all cover the matter of the present chapter and contain bibliographies. Ward gives full bibliographical notes to editions and monographs; Creizenach's index is substantially complete for all European plays; Chambers's Appendix X contains references to editions and descriptions of all English plays up to Elizabeth's accession. Klein, _Geschichte des Dramas_, 13 vols., 1865-76, and Collier, _History of English Dramatic Poetry_, new edition, 1879, are both somewhat out of date, though the latter contains much useful material. R. Pröloss, _Geschichte des neueren Dramas_ (1881-83), and K. Mantzius, _The History of Theatric Art_, 3 vols. (1904), are slighter. The only rapid and readable survey of European drama is by Brander Matthews, _The Development of the Drama_ (1906). For France, the authority for medieval drama is L. Petit de Julleville, _Histoire du Théâtre en France au Moyen Age_, 1880-86, 4 vols.; for Germany, R. Froning, _Das Drama des Mittelalters_, 1891; for Italy, A. Ancona, _Origini del Teatro italiano_, 1891, 2d edition. J. J. Jusserand, _Le Théâtre en Angleterre_ (1881, 2d ed.); J. A. Symonds, _Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama_ (1884); G. Gregory Smith, _The Transition Period_ (1900, in _Periods of European Literature_); Gayley, _Plays of Our Forefathers_ (1907), are of value. Dealing more specifically with matters discussed in this chapter are the volumes of Cloetta and Spingarn cited in the last chapter, C. H. Herford's _The Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century_, Cambridge, 1886, J. W. Cunliffe's _The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy_, Manchester, 1893, and R. Fischer's _Zur Kunstentwickelung der Englischen Tragödie von ihren ersten Anfangen bis zu Shakespeare_, 1893. The Elizabethan translations of Seneca have been