olio volumes contain an account of
Britain "from its first inhabiting" up to his own day, largely made up
by combining the works of previous historians. The _Chronicle_ bears
evidence, however, of enormous and painstaking research which makes it
valuable even now. Holinshed's style was clear, but not possessed of
any distinctly literary quality. Much of what Shakespeare used was
indeed but a paraphrase of an earlier chronicler, Edward Hall.
Holinshed was uncritical, too, since he made no attempt to separate the
legendary from the truly historical material. So far as drama is
concerned, however, this was rather a help than a hindrance, since
legend often crystallizes most truly the spirit of a career in an act
or a saying which never had basis in fact. The work is notable chiefly
for its patriotic tone, of which there is certainly more than an echo
in Shakespeare's historical plays. But the effects of {108} steadfast
continuity of national purpose, of a belief in the greatness of
England, and of an insistent appeal to patriotism, which are such
important elements in Shakespeare's histories, are totally wanting in
Holinshed.

Not only are all of the histories of Shakespeare based either directly
or through the medium of other plays upon Holinshed, but his two great
tragedies, _Macbeth_ and _King Lear_ (the latter through an earlier
play), and his comedy _Cymbeline_ are also chiefly indebted to it. The
work was, moreover, the source of many plays by other dramatists.

+Plutarch+.--Plutarch of Chaeronea, a Greek author of the first century
A.D., wrote forty-six "parallel" Lives, of famous Greeks and Romans.
Each famous Greek was contrasted with a famous Roman whose career was
somewhat similar to his own. The _Lives_ have been ever since among
the most popular of the classics, for they are more than mere
biographies. They are the interpretation of two worlds, with all their
tragic history, by one who felt the fatal force of a resistless destiny.

A scholarly French translation of Plutarch's _Lives_ was published in
1559 by Jacques Amyot, Bishop of Bellozane. Twenty years after (1579)
Thomas North, later Sir Thomas, published his magnificent English
version.[2] The vigor and spirit which he flung into his work can only
be compared to that of William Tyndale in his translation of the New
Testament. Here was very different material for drama from the {109}
dry bones of history offered by Holinshed. Shakespeare pa