་ Prat. Nay, I am ones charged with the, Wherfore, by saynt John, thou shalt not escape me, Lay hande on hym, and com ye on, syr frere! Ye had none suche this vii yere, I swere by God and by our Lady dere. For, yf ye do, it wyll not be for your honesty. Make no stroglynge! com forthe soberly! For it shall not avayle the, I say. Frere. Mary, that shall we trye even strayt-way. stocks An, if The reede blood so ronneth downe aboute my hede. Nay, and thou canst, I pray the, helpe me! Parson. Nay, by the mas, felowe, it wyll not be ! I have more tow on my dystaffe than I can well spyn! The cursed frere dothe the upper hand wyn! Frere. Wyll ye leve than, and let us in peace departe? Parson, Prat. Ye, by our Lady, even with all our harte ! Frere, Pard. Than adew, to the devyll, tyll we come agayn. Parson, Prat. And a myschefe go with you bothe twayne. That the rogues should thus have the best of the fray is quite in accordance with Heywood's humour. In The Foure PP.: a very mery enterlude of a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Potecary, and a Pedlar, the Pedlar acts as judge while the others contend which can tell the greatest lie, the prize being won by the Palmer with the remark, most innocently introduced, that in all his travels he never yet saw 'any one woman out of patience.' In A playe between Johan Johan the husbonde, Tyb the wyfe, and Sir Johan the preste, vice is again triumphant. Tyb and the priest have an intrigue, which the husband rightly suspects. At the opening of the play he is boasting of the drubbing he will give Tyb when she comes home, but she sends him to bid the priest sup with them on a pie. Johan's cowardice incites the worthy pair to an amazing effrontery, and he is set to mend a pail while they eat the pie; its final disappearance rouses him to a flash of courage, but the priest and Tyb run off together, and after a moment's triumph it occurs to Johan that he must follow to see what they are after-an edifying conclusion on which the curtain drops. It is evident that when such a play as this could be acted the secular drama had fully come into existence. In addition to the medley of plays which we have already described, we must mention those of John Bale (b. 1495; d. 1563), Bishop of Ossory under Edward VI. To the controversies in which his virulence earned him the epithet 'bilious,' Bale contributed an attack on monasticism entitled The Actes of Englyshe Votaries, and also The Image of both Churches. His Illustrium Majoris Britanniæ Scriptorum Summarium (1549), a useful though inaccurate account of five hundred British authors, has given him a better claim to remembrance. Of his twenty-two plays only five are extant-A Tragedy or interlude manifesting the chief promises of God unto man, The Three Lawes of Nature, Moses and Christ, a Life of John the Baptist, The Temptacyon of our Lorde; and his historical play, King John, in which the king is represented as the guardian of English freedom against papal aggression. The religious plays are formless productions, which certainly had no influence on the development of the drama. Perhaps the same should be said of King John, which seems to have been originally written about 1550 and revised in the reign of Elizabeth. The allegorical element from the old moralities is still present in it, for Simon of Swynsett, who poisons John, must needs call himself' Monastycall Devocion,' and be called by Bale Dissimulation;' and we find among other characters Privat Welth' (lyke a Cardynall’), 'Sedycyon,' and more notable than these a personification of England. But as a first attempt to dramatise history the play is not without interest, and there are some few dramatic touches, such as the poisoner's attempt to avoid sharing the draught, and his courageous acquiescence when he finds it the only way to secure his victim. Bale's plays stand apart; the others here noticed have been arranged so as to exhibit the gradual triumph of the secular over the didactic interest in the drama, which can actually be traced, despite its intermittent progress and what seems to us the strange persistence of the didactic element. Of two points which remain to be noticed in the history of these interludes, one is that the plays which have been presented to us, diverse as they are, do not cover the whole ground. It is clear that there were popular performances of a much cruder character, which never attained the honour of print, for we find allusions by Ben Jonson and others to the parts played by the Devil and the Vice, of which only faint traces survive. The Vice (there is no doubt that the obvious etymology of the name is the right one) was dressed as a Jester, presented a humorous contrast to the stupider Devil, and at the end of the performance carried him off to hell on his back. In extant plays the Devil only appears once, while of the Vice we have no other traces than the attaching of his name to a humorous character, such as Mery Report in Heywood's Play of the Wether. Our second point is, that in Henry VIII.'s reign we begin to hear of companies of players of two kinds, boys and men. The boys were school-children, probably the choir-boys of royal chapels; the men were in the service of the king, or of some great nobleman, but probably took up acting as a profitable amusement rather than as their main employment. In a suit brought by John Rastell before 1530 against a costumier who had confiscated some dresses left in his keeping as a set-off against a bill for erecting a stage in Rastell's garden at Finsbury, the witnesses called to appraise the dresses are a tailor, a currier, a skinner, a plasterer, and others of the like condition. It is thus evident that the love of acting which the miracle-plays had fostered in the members of the Trade-Guilds was still alive, and that, as we might be sure without corroborative evidence, Bottom the weaver and Snug the joiner in the Midsummer Night's Dream are not mere absurdities, but the actual players of Shakespeare's boyhood amusingly caricatured. Heywood's play of Johan Johan the husbonde, &c., bears some resemblance to a contemporary French farce; but, with that exception-and the probable Dutch origin of Everyman-there is no trace of foreign influence in the English plays at which we have been looking. But Terence in the sixteenth century was probably more read in schools than he is at the present day; many of these plays were produced amid scholastic surroundings, and by the middle of the century the influence of Latin comedy upon English at last becomes apparent. In Ralph Roister Doister, Gammer Gurton's Needle, and Jacob and Esau we have plots definitely worked out, and the earliest instances of division into acts and scenes. With the examination of these three plays and of the tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, written under the influence of Seneca, this section of the history of the drama will come to a convenient haltingplace. The first of these, which was quoted from in the third edition of Wilson's Art of Logique in 1553, was the work of Nicholas Udall (b. 1505; d. 1556), who was headmaster of Eton College from about 1534 till his dismissal for immorality in 1541, was employed in Protestant controversy under Edward VI., and yet remained in favour under Mary. During 1553 he acted as schoolmaster to the boys brought up in Bishop Gardiner's household, and from 1554 to a month before his death, in December 1556, as headmaster of Westminster school. On the ground of an allusion to a balladmonger (Jack Raker), also mentioned by Skelton, Udall's play has been referred to the period of his Eton headmastership—that is, before 1541; but the fact that it is not mentioned in the 1551 and 1552 editions of Wilson's Art of Logique suggests the year 1553, when he was acting as Bishop Gardiner's domestic school master, as a more likely date; and we may imagine, if so, that it was the success of the play which caused Queen Mary in 1554 to direct Udall to prepare dialogues and interludes for performance before her. In 1533 Udall had edited for scholastic use a selection of sentences entitled Floures for Latine spekynge selected and gathered out of Terence, and the same translated into Englysshe, which went through several editions; and this play, though essentially original, shows marked traces of his studies in Latin comedy. Ralph Roister Doister is a rich fool who believes that every woman loves him, a boaster and a coward (cf. the Miles Gloriosus). In Matthew Merygreeke, who gets money and good dinners on the score of imaginary services, while he mocks him behind his back, we have the typical parasite' of Greco-Latin comedy. Ralph insists on making love to Dame Custance, who is already affianced to Gawyn Goodlucke. Merygreeke, by changing the punctuation,1 turns a love-letter written for Ralph by a scrivener into an open insult; and when the Dame remonstrates with him for helping Ralph to pester her, frankly gives his patron away. Ralph, attempting to carry off Dame Custance, is defeated by her and her wenches, and the play ends happily with the return of Goodlucke, the collapse of Ralph, and the reconciliation of Dame Custance and her lover. The scene in which, despite the Dame's loyalty, the suspicions of Goodlucke's messenger are aroused, may be quoted as one of the most human incidents in the play : C. C. I have nought to them, nor they to me in sadnesse. S. S. Let us hearken them; somewhat there is, I feare it. R. R. I will speake out aloude best, that she may heare it. M. M. Nay alas, ye may so feare hir out of hir wit. R. R. By the crosse of my sworde, I will hurt hir no whit. M. M. Will ye doe no harme in deede, shall I trust your worde? R. R. By Roister Doisters fayth I will speake but in borde. jest S. S. Let us hearken them, somwhat there is I feare it. R. R. I will speake out aloude, I care not who heare it ; 1 For example, the opening lines are read as Swete maistresse, wheras I love you nothing at al, whereas the stops should come, clumsily enough, after 'I love you,' and 'substaunce.' It is this passage that is quoted by Wilson as 'an example of soche doubtful writing, whiche by reason of poincting maie haue double sense, and contrarie meaning, taken out of an entrelude made by Nicolas Udal.' Sirs, see that my harnesse, my tergat, and my shield, That I might therwith dimme mine enimies sight; I would have it cast beames as fast, I tell you playne, As doth the glittryng grasse after a showre of raine. And see that in case I shoulde neede to come to arming, All things may be ready at a minutes warning; For such chaunce may chaunce in an houre, do ye heare? M. M. As perchance shall not chaunce againe in seven yeare. R. R. Now draw we neare to hir, and here what shall be sayde. M. M. But I woulde not have you make hir too muche afrayde. R. R. Well founde! sweete wife (I trust) for al this your soure looke. C. C. Wife, why cal ye me wife? S. S. Wife? this gear goth acrook. M. M. Nay, mistresse Custance, I warrant you our letter weene. C. C. I did not refuse hym for the letters sake. R. R. Then ye are content me for your husbande to take. C. C. You for my husbande to take? nothing lesse truely. R. R. Yea, say so, sweete spouse, afore straungers hardly. M. M. And though I have here his letter of love with me, Yet his ryng and tokens he sent, keepe safe with ye. C. C. A mischiefe take his tokens, and him and thee too. But what prate I with fooles? have I nought else to doo? Come in with me Sym Suresby to take some repast. S. S. I must, ere I drinke, by your leave, goe in all hast, To a place or two, with earnest letters of his. C. C. Then come drink here with me. S. S. I thank you. C. C. Do not misse. You shall have a token to your maister with you. S. S. No tokens this time, gramercies. God be with you. [Exeat. C. C. Surely this fellowe misdeemeth some yll in me ; Which thing but God helpe, will go neere to spill me. R. R. Yea, farewell fellow, and tell thy maister Goodlucke That he commeth to late of thys blossome to plucke. Let him keepe him there still, or at least wise make no hast, As for his labour hither he shall spende in wast. His betters be in place nowe. M. M. As long as it will hold. C. C. I will be even with thee, thou beast; Thou mayest be bolde. R. R. Will ye have us then? C. C. I will never have thee. R. R. Then will I have you? C. C. No, the devill shal have thee. I have gotten this houre more shame and harme by thee, Of our other two comedies, the second, A newe, mery, and wittie Comedie or Interlude, treating upon the Historie of Jacob and Esau, has obtained less attention than it deserves, perhaps because of its Scriptural subject; it is, however, really a comedy, and a very pleasantly and brightly written one. Besides the Scriptural characters there are two neighbours, an old nurse, and three servants-Ragau, the unwilling attendant of Esau in his hunting; Mido, a boy who leads the blind Isaac; and Abra, 'a little wench, servant to Rebecca.' Mido, who practises walking with his eyes shut against the day when he may himself be blind, and offers to 'scud like a little elf' on a message, is a really delightful small boy; and Ragau is an admirable comic servant, his unkind treatment by Esau being skilfully emphasised to deprive the latter of the spectators' sympathy. The earliest extant edition of the play is dated 1568, but it was licensed in 1557-58, the probable date of its composition. Without any specific evidence its authorship has been attributed to William Hunnis, a minor poet who versified some psalms in 1549, and was entrusted with the charge of the children of the Chapel Royal by Queen Elizabeth, during whose reign he published several volumes of verse with pleasant titles, such as A Hiveful of Honey, A Handful of Honeysuckles, &c. Our third comedy, Gammer Gurton's Needle, comes still farther over the Elizabethan border, for it was played at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1566, and this (despite the earlier licensing of a play called Dyccon the Bedlam, a familiar character who appears in Gammer Gurton's Needle) was the probable date of composition. The earliest extant edition is one published in 1575, and in this it is said to have been made by Mr S. M[aste]r of Art.' This Mr S. was long identified with John Still, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells; but in an edition of the play in Professor Gayley's English Comedies (not published at the time of writing), Mr Henry Bradley, whose name is sufficient guarantee for the certainty of his conclusions, is to show that the real author is a certain William Stevenson, as yet unknown to fame. The play itself suffers sadly from its prolongation through the five acts, which had now apparently become the fashion. How Gammer Gurton lost her needle while mending her husband's breeches, and how every one in turn was suspected of the theft till the said husband, on sitting down, became painfully aware of its presence in the mended garment, offered an excellent subject for an interlude on the lines of those of John Heywood, but is rather a thin subject for a comedy. On the other hand, Gammer Gurton's Needle is well written and full of rustic humour, and is notable, moreover, for having preserved to us the old drinking-song: I can not eate but lytle meate, But sure I thinke that I can drynke, I stuffe my skyn so full within booth foote and hande go colde; whether it be new or olde. From this convivial song, of which this one verse must suffice as a specimen, we turn to our first English tragedy. This was published in 1565 by William Griffith, under the title The Tragedie of Gorbodu, whereof three Actes were wrytten by Thomas Nortone, and the two last by Thomas Sackvyle. Set forthe as the same was shewed before the Quenes most excellent Majestie, in her highnes court of Whitehall, the xviij day of January Anno Domini, 1561. By the Gentlemen of th' ynner Temple in London.' Five years later another edition was issued by John Day, under the title of The Tragedie of Ferrex and Porrex. In the preface to this, William Griffith is scoffed at as 'one W. G. [who] getting a copie therof at some yong mans hand, that lacked a litle money and much discretion,' had taken advantage of the absence of the authors to 'put it forth excedingly corrupted,' a statement which rather exaggerates the faults in the first issue. 'The argument of the Tragedie' is thus given: Gorboduc, King of Brittaine, divided his realme in his life time to his sonnes, Ferrex and Porrex. The sonnes fell to discention. The yonger killed the elder. The mother, that more dearly loved the elder, for revenge killed the yonger. The people, moved with the crueltie of the fact, rose in rebellion and slew both father and mother. The nobilitie assembled and most terribly destroyed the rebels. And afterwardes for want of issue of the prince whereby the succession of the crowne became uncertaine, they fell to civil warre, in which both they and many of their issues were slaine, and the land for a long time almost desolate and miserably wasted. Among its dramatis personæ we find these neatly arranged pairs: Dordan, a counsellor assigned by the king to his eldest sonne, Ferrex. Philander, a counsellor assigned by the king to his yongest sonne, Porrex. Hermon, a parasite remaining with Ferrex. Tyndar, a parasite remaining with Porrex. Nuntius, a messenger of the elder brother's death. Nuntius, a messenger of Duke Fergus rising in armes. For once English literature had come under a foreign influence which, in appearance at least, was stifling and harmful. Even in this case the reality was far otherwise, for to receive the concep tion of the tragic drama in any form was a great gift, though we may well lament that it came from the Latin rhetorician, Seneca, rather than from Æschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides. The latter, however, were but just beginning to be read, and Seneca to the men of the sixteenth century still stood out as the chief ancient tragedian, just as Plautus and Terence were chiefs in comedy, and his lifeless, unactable plays, with their long, declamatory speeches and their absence of action, were regarded, even twenty years later by so good a critic as Sir Philip Sidney, as the true models of the tragic drama. How this model was displaced belongs to the story of the Elizabethan drama. Here, meanwhile, is the beginning of Act v. in this first English tragedy: Clotyn. Did ever age bring forth such tirants harts? The brother hath bereft the brothers life, Gwenard. Shall subjectes dare with force O wretched state, where those rebellious hartes Fergus. There can no punishment be thought to great Eubulus. Ye all, my lordes, I see, consent in one, I holde it more than neede with sharpest law Tragedy, be it noted, has brought with it its appropriate metre, blank verse; but to account for this we must now take up the history of English poetry as distinct from the drama. Wyatt and Surrey. Here, with Wyatt and Surrey, we come again to the really living poetry which we quitted at Chaucer's death, and these two writers, in a far truer sense than Lydgate and Hoccleve, are his immediate successors, owing something to his own example, and much to the Italian influences to which he himself was so greatly indebted. Like Chaucer himself-and the point is of some importance Wyatt and Surrey were no needy clerics, bound to a professional didacticism, but were connected, only much more highly, with the court, and lived interesting and crowded lives. The elder of the two, Thomas Wyatt, was the son of a Sir Henry Wyatt who stood well in the favour of Henry VII. He was born in 1503 at his father's castle at Allington, in Kent, and entered St John's College, Cambridge, at the age of twelve. In 1520 he took his master's degree, and married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Brooke, Lord Cobham. His service at court seems to have begun as an esquire of the body. to the king, a dignity to which Chaucer rose through preliminary stages. In 1527 he enjoyed another of Chaucer's experiences, attaching himself to the suite of Sir John Russell in a mission to Italy, in the course of which he visited Venice, Ferrara, Bologna, Florence, and acquittal, but his connection with Spain cost him his life after all, for in October 1542 he caught a chill in riding hastily to Falmouth to escort a Spanish ambassador to London, and died of fever at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire. The career of Wyatt's younger contemporary, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (a title of courtesy), was even more eventful. His grandfather, Thomas, Earl of Surrey, had fought against Henry VII. at Bosworth field, but was pardoned and subsequently created Duke of Norfolk for his victory at Flodden. On the death of that duke, in 1524, the poet's father, another Thomas Howard, became Duke of Norfolk, and he himself, then a boy of seven or eight (he was probably born in 1516 or the following year), enjoyed the second title of Earl of Surrey. His youth was passed between Tendring Hall in Suffolk and Kenninghall in Norfolk, and he was fortunate in having as his tutor John Clerke, an Oxford scholar, who had travelled in Italy, and knew and wrote both French and Italian as well as Latin. From 1529, or earlier, Surrey was much in the company of the king's illegitimate son, the Duke of Richmond and Somerset, who in November 1533 was married to his sister, Lady Mary Howard, a union abruptly ended by the bridegroom's death in 1536. In October 1536 Surrey was knighted, and commanded a force sent against the Lincolnshire rebels. In 1537 he suffered a polite imprisonment at Windsor for a blow given within the precincts of the court, and wrote two of his happiest poems, one recalling an earlier stay there with the Duke of Richmond, the other in honour of the nine-yearold Elizabeth Fitzgerald, daughter of the Earl of Kildare, who had died a prisoner in the Tower in 1534. The poor little maid was now a pet at the English court, and Surrey wrote this sonnet, which has come down to us with the title, 'Description and praise of his lov Geraldine': SIR THOMAS WYATT. After Drawing by Holbein. Rome. In 1529-30 he was High Marshal at Calais, and in 1533 was ewerer at the marriage of Anne Boleyn, with whom a misplaced ingenuity has represented him as having been in love. In May 1536 his sister waited on Anne at her execution, and he himself was imprisoned in the Tower from 5th May to 14th June, apparently as a sympathiser with the queen. In the following October he was employed against the rebels in Lincolnshire, and in 1537 was knighted and sent, against his will, on an embassy to the Emperor Charles V., from which he was not released till April 1539. After he had been home but a short time he was sent on another mission to the emperor; but in July 1540, shortly after his second return, came the execution of Thomas Cromwell, the head of the Protestant party, to which Wyatt belonged, and he was promptly accused by one of his late colleagues of treachery and unseemly behaviour during his Spanish embassy, and again imprisoned in the Tower. A lively and straightforward defence procured his |