mas Randolph, the most gifted (according to general estimate rather than
to specific performance) of the Tribe of Ben, was a much younger man than
Shirley, though he died more than thirty years earlier. Randolph was born
near Daventry in 1605, his father being a gentleman, and Lord Zouch's
steward. He was educated at Westminster, and at Trinity College, Cambridge,
of which he became a fellow, and he was also incorporated at Oxford. His
life is supposed to have been merry, and was certainly short, for he died,
of what disease is not known, in his thirtieth year. He left, however, no
inconsiderable literary results; and if his dramas are not quite so
relatively good as his poems (there is certainly none of them which is in
its own kind the equal of the fine answer to Ben Jonson's threat to leave
the stage and the Ode to Anthony Stafford), still they are interesting and
show a strong intellect and great literary facility. The two earliest,
_Aristippus_ and _The Conceited Pedlar_, the first a slight dramatic
sketch, the second a monologue, are eminent examples of the class of
university, not to say of undergraduate, wit; but far stronger and fuller
of promise than most specimens of that class. _The Jealous Lovers_, a play
with classical nomenclature, and at first seeming to aim at the Terentian
model, drifts off into something like the Jonsonian humour-comedy, of which
it gives some good studies, but hardly a complete example. Much better are
_The Muses' Looking-Glass_ and _Amyntas_, in which Randolph's academic
schemes and names do not hide his vivid and fertile imagination. _The
Muses' Looking-Glass_, a play vindicating the claim of the drama in general
to the title, is a kind of morality, but a morality carried off with
infinite spirit, which excuses the frigid nature of the abstractions
presented in it, and not seldom rises to the height of real comedy. The
scene between Colax and Dyscolus, the professional flatterer and the
professional snarler, is really excellent: and others equally good might be
picked out. Of the two I am inclined to think that this play shows more
natural genius in the writer for its style, than the pretty pastoral of
_Amyntas_, which has sometimes been preferred to it. The same penchant for
comedy appears in _Down with Knavery_, a very free and lively adaptation of
the _Plutus_ of Aristophanes. There is no doubt that Randolph's work gives
the impression of considerable power. At the same time it is f