are the two great conservators of the English speech; and one who
habitually reads them finds himself possessed of a style and vocabulary
that are beyond criticism. Even those who read no Shakespeare are still
unconsciously guided by him, for his thought and expression have so
pervaded our life and literature that it is impossible, so long as one
speaks the English language, to escape his influence.

His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!"

V. SHAKESPEARE'S CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS IN THE DRAMA

DECLINE OF THE DRAMA. It was inevitable that the drama should decline after
Shakespeare, for the simple reason that there was no other great enough to
fill his place. Aside from this, other causes were at work, and the chief
of these was at the very source of the Elizabethan dramas. It must be
remembered that our first playwrights wrote to please their audiences; that
the drama rose in England because of the desire of a patriotic people to
see something of the stirring life of the times reflected on the stage. For
there were no papers or magazines in those days, and people came to the
theaters not only to be amused but to be informed. Like children, they
wanted to see a story acted; and like men, they wanted to know what it
meant. Shakespeare fulfilled their desire. He gave them their story, and
his genius was great enough to show in every play not only their own life
and passions but something of the meaning of all life, and of that eternal
justice which uses the war of human passions for its own great ends. Thus
good and evil mingle freely in his dramas; but the evil is never
attractive, and the good triumphs as inevitably as fate. Though his
language is sometimes coarse, we are to remember that it was the custom of
his age to speak somewhat coarsely, and that in language, as in thought and
feeling, Shakespeare is far above most of his contemporaries.

With his successors all this was changed. The audience itself had gradually
changed, and in place of plain people eager for a story and for
information, we see a larger and larger proportion of those who went to the
play because they had nothing else to do. They wanted amusement only, and
since they had blunted by idleness the desire for simple and wholesome
amusement, they called for something more sensational. Shakespeare's
successors catered to the depraved tastes of thi