REVIEWS
For twenty years past it has been the habit to refer to Dr. Chambers’ “great work on the Mediaeval Stage”; we may now refer to his greater work on the Elizabethan Stage. It is indeed a splendid achievement, this cyclopaedia of the whole of the material side of the vast growth of the English drama from the accession of the Virgin Queen to the death of Shakespeare, in four goodly and packed volumes. Progressing leisurely through the author’s pages—for, excellent as literature, they hardly form light reading—one grows ever more impressed at once with the amplitude of the subject and the mastery of the treatment. And if any one should feel inclined here and there to question the relevance of the discussion, let him remember that, apart from the constitution of the royal household, the position and activities of the Lord Chamberlain and his subordinate Master of the Revels, and with them much of the theatrical history of the times, are unintelligible; and without a topographical and architectural survey of the Blackfriars property no adequate account can be given of the playhouses that were formed within its walls. At the same time few literary students are likely to digest the chapters in which these questions are treated, and should any misguided pedant think them fit subjects for examination, I rejoice that I am unlikely to be among his victims.
Dr. Chambers’ work is one of those which perhaps no living person is in a position to criticise adequately. Specialists will doubtless examine it closely, bit by bit, and may detect flaws in the structure. Meanwhile it is perhaps some tribute to the solidity with which the author has built that, in those comparatively restricted portions with regard to which I am in any way qualified to offer an opinion, our points of disagreement should be so few and generally trivial.
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