he soul shine through. But, in order that passion should fill comedy
with the breath of life, it was necessary that both sexes should walk
the stage on an equal footing. That which comedy before 1580 lacked,
that which alone could round it off into a poetic whole, was the female
element. "Comedy," writes George Meredith, "lifts women to a station
offering them free play for their wit, as they usually show it, when
they have it, on the side of sound sense. The higher the comedy, the
more prominent the part they enjoy in it." But the dramatist cannot lift
them far; the civilized plane must lie only just beneath the comic
plane; the stage cannot be lighted by woman's wit if the audience have
not yet realised that brain forms a part of the feminine organism. In
the days of Elizabeth this realisation began to dawn in men's minds; but
it was Lyly who first expressed it in literature, in his novel and then
in his dramas. Those who preceded him were only dimly conscious of it,
and therefore they failed to seize upon it as material for art. It was
at Court, the Court of a great virgin Queen, that the equality of social
privileges for women was first established; it was a courtier who
introduced heroines into our drama.

[112] Bond, II. p. 237.

[113] George Gascoigne, whose importance does not seem to have been
realised by Elizabethan students, also produced a drama in blank
verse.

SECTION II. _The Eight Plays._

Concerning the order of Lyly's plays there is, as we have seen, some
difference of opinion. The discussion between Mr Bond and Mr Baker in
reality turns upon the interpretation of the allegory of _Endymion_, and
it is therefore one of those questions of literary probability which can
never hope to receive a satisfactory answer. Both critics, however, are
in agreement as to the proper method of classification. They divide the
dramas into four categories: historical, of which _Campaspe_ is the sole
example; allegorical, which includes _Sapho and Phao_, _Endymion_, and
_Midas_; pastoral, which includes _Gallathea_, _The Woman in the Moon_,
and _Love's Metamorphosis_; and lastly realistic, of which again there
is only one example, _Mother Bombie_. The fault which may be found with
this classification is that the so-called pastoral plays have much of
the allegorical about them, and it is perhaps better, therefore, to
consider them rather as a subdivision of class two than as a distinct
species.

For the mome