of the vice and his relationship to the devil of the medieval drama have not been freed from doubt by recent investigation, but it seems clear that in the early tragedies he was given some of the work later accomplished by the stage-villain and his accomplices. The part that women play in these early tragedies should also be noticed. Women and love, as Professor Creizenach has observed, receive far more attention in Renaissance tragedy than in Greek or Senecan. "Tancred and Gismunda" and "Promus and Cassandra" deal with stories of romantic love; Virginia and the queen in "Cambyses" present noteworthy though slight examples of the idealization of women so important in later drama. The purpose of all these plays, Senecan or popular, is superficially didactic, as is witnessed not only by the abundant moralizing in the Senecan imitations, but also in the popular plays by the emphasis in the closing scenes on the reward of virtue and the punishment of vice. In the last act of "Appius and Virginia" the lesson of the play is written on the tomb, and in "Horestes" the conduct of the hero is discussed by Nestor and Fame and finally rewarded by Hermione, Truth, and Duty. "Cambyses" is more in line with later tragedy in presenting the protagonist as a monster and in closing promptly after his punishment by death. The most certain accomplishment, however, in the development of the drama up to 1570 had been in the widening of its range of material. The bible narrative and moral allegory had been superseded by classical myth and history, and these in turn were being encroached upon by the romantic fiction of the Italian _novelle_ and by the chronicles of English history. Italian _novelle_ were open to dramatists mainly through a series of collections of translations, of which "Painter's Palace of Pleasure" (1566) was the chief. The interest in English history was stimulated and fed by "The Mirror for Magistrates" and the various editions of the chronicles; Grafton, Stowe, and the third edition of Fabyan appearing in the sixties, and Holinshed in 1577; while interest in the classics was maintained by numerous translations as well as by an increasing knowledge of Latin. Translation, indeed, had brought the stories of the world to the English mart, and the dramatic industry was now eager in its demand for material.