s not until Goethe brought his genius to bear on the
subject, that the Germans acquired any drama worthy of the name.
Whether in his national play Gotz von Berlichingen or in his classical
drama of Iphigenia, this great German master stands at the summit of
his art. Lessing attacked French drama as enacted in Germany prior to
Goethe, and brought forward the Shakespearian plays as a model.

Schiller's Wallenstein obtained a worldwide reputation, and among the
Romantic dramatists Werner's Attila and Grillparzer's Ancestress are
the best examples of the extravagant and fertile mind of the German
romanticist.

Modern German drama has found the highest art it has ever attained in
the compositions of Richard Wagner, whose operas are entirely German
and National, and mostly founded on the old German legends. Tannhauser
is taken from the epic poem of "Parzifal," written by Wolfram von
Eschenbach in the Middle Ages. Lohengrin, which is touched on in the
"Parzifal," Wagner also found in the poem of an obscure Bavarian poet;
and a more complete account of the celebrated "Swan Knight" appears in
a collection of stories edited by the brothers Grimm. Lohengrin is a
Knight of the Holy Grail, so part of the legend is borrowed from
ancient Britain.

All dramatic effort in England before the sixteenth century was so rude
as to be of little account. The Miracle and Mystery plays were
introduced into England in the reign of Henry VI, and many of them had
a personage called "Iniquity," a coarse buffoon, whose object was to
amuse the audience. After the Reformation the Protestant Bishop Bale
wrote plays on the same plan as the Mysteries, intended to instruct the
people in the supposed errors of Popery. These plays, which deal
largely in satire, became popular and after the era of Henry VIII were
known as Interludes. In the beginning of the sixteenth century real
comedy and tragedy began to exist in a rude form. The oldest known
English comedy, Ralph Royster Doyster, was written by Nicholas Udall,
and describes a character whose comic misadventures are somewhat akin
to Don Quixote.

The earliest tragedy, Gorboduc, known also Ferrex and Porrex, was
played in the Lower Temple. It is founded on the legends of fabulous
British history. The tragedies of Marlowe and the legendary plays of
Greene come next in order, followed by the golden age of English drama,
from the dawn of the Shakespeare plays in 1585 until the closing of the
theatre in 16