[7] One play should be mentioned here as standing in some ways between the classical and popular plays. _Promus and Cassandra_, by George Whetstone, published 1578, cannot be placed in any of our four classes, for there is no evidence that it was ever acted. Like _Tancred and Gismunda_, it was based on an Italian _novella_, also the source of _Measure for Measure_, and it follows Latin comedy rather than tragedy. In its division into five acts, its frequent soliloquies, its attempted observance of decorum (especially vaunted in the preface), and in its serious purpose and moral sentiments, the play shows a pedantic clinging to classicism. In the main, however, it belongs with _Damon and Pithias_ and _Appius and Virginia_, and seems to have been intended for performance by children. It is a mixture of tragedy, comedy, farce, and songs; and this abundance of incongruous material seems to have led to its division into two plays, as Whetstone says, for the purpose of decorum. Here, as elsewhere in the period, the experiment of putting new material into old dramatic structures burst the bottles. Clowns, parasites, tyrants, prostitutes, hangmen, Egyptians, and girls in boys' clothing make up a pageant which is a sort of tragicomedy but which the learned author called by the more popular title, "a history."
[8] _Ariodante and Genevra_ (_Orlando Furioso_), _Ajax and Ulysses_, _Agamemnon and Ulysses_, _Cæsar and Pompey_, _Cloridon and Radimanta_ _Duke of Milan_, _Effigenia_ (_Iphigenia_), _Four Sons of Fabius_, _Mutius Scævola_, _Quintus Fabius_, _Perseus and Andromeda_, _Sarpedon_, _Scipio Africanus_, _Timoclea at the Siege of Thebes_, _Telemo_, _Twelve Labors of Hercules_. Some titles suggesting medieval romance are: _Knight of the Burning Bush_, _Red Knight_, _Paris and Vienna_, _Solitary Knight_.
The growing national consciousness that reached its triumphant culmination in the defeat of Spain made itself felt in the drama, specifically in efforts to present the glories of English history, and still more potently in an awakened responsiveness to the new fields and new incentives for artistic ambition. The beginning of the greatness of the national drama is significantly coincident with the victory over the Armada. By that time the spirit of noble endeavor had found lodgment in every worthy breast. It animated Marlowe no less than Drake, and the author of the least successful chronicle play as well as admiral or counselor. The extraordinary achievements that had been contributing to the might of England as a political power were, indeed, but one expression of the freedom and eagerness of individual initiative that characterized this English Renaissance and found other expression in the activities and accomplishments of literature. In comparison with the men of preceding generations, the Elizabethan Englishman faced a world of new horizons, new ideas, boundless opportunities, and alluring rewards. Every career was open and promised an untrod pathway and unworn laurels. He might win fame as a pirate, philosopher, or poet; or in the new excitement of living he might crowd not one but many careers into the span of life. The versatility of a Raleigh only typifies the excitement and energy of deed, the lively movement of thought which quickened mind and body, and resulted, now in a voyage to Virginia, now in a conspiracy, now in a sonnet, and now in a history of the universe. And this feverishness to make trial of thronging opportunities was symptomatic not only of vigor of intellect, celerity of emotion, and independence of will, but also of an imaginative idealism that enlightened the daily living of many a sorry citizen, and was destined to live resplendent in the verses of Spenser and Shakespeare. In the stir of free ideas, the surprise of discovery, and the glow of accomplishment, life grew heroic, attainment seemed easy, and no ideals too lofty for the scaling ladders of human aspiration. Men achieved much and they dreamt of more. The apprentice went to the theatre to don Fortunatus's cap or to triumph with Tamburlaine; every one had his El Dorado distant only a short voyage; and, with the new world before them, poets and playwrights set sail in blithe confidence of splendid discovery. Never before, or perhaps since, have so many new things seemed within grasp, whether in literature or in life; never has all living so throbbed with a sense of the nearness of the unattainable, the kinship of the real and the ideal.