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Title: Representative English Comedies, v. 1. From the beginnings to
Shakespeare

Editor: Charles Mills Gayley

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Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
REPRESENTATIVE ENGLISH COMEDIES, V. 1. FROM THE
BEGINNINGS TO SHAKESPEARE ***

Transcriber's Note.

A list of the changes made can be found at the end of the book.

Representative English Comedies
FROM THE BEGINNINGS
TO
SHAKESPEARE

REPRESENTATIVE ENGLISH
COMEDIES

WITH INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS AND NOTES
AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF OUR EARLIER COMEDY
AND OTHER MONOGRAPHS
BY VARIOUS WRITERS

UNDER THE GENERAL EDITORSHIP OF
CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY, Litt.D., LL.D.
Professor of the English Language and Literature
in the University of California

FROM THE BEGINNINGS
TO
SHAKESPEARE

New York:
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1926
All rights reserved.

Copyright, 1903,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up, electrotyped, and published March, 1903.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

PREFACE
"'Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes
and ale ... nor ginger hot i' the mouth?' Or knowest not that while man,
casting the dice with Fate and Mistress Grundy, imagineth a new luck, there
shall be new comedy? Why, then, reprint these old?"
In part, because the comedies of a nation are for literature as well as for
the footlights, and literature, in most cases, begins after the footlights are
out. In part, because old comedies make good reading, not only for lovers
of fiction and the stage, but for the student of society and the historian.
Until rival forms of literary art began to usurp their function, comedies were
—in England, not to speak of other and older lands—the recognized and
cherished exponent of the successive phases of contemporary life. For us
they still are living sketches of the social manners, morals, vanities, and
ideals of generations of our ancestors; history "unbeknownst" as written by
contemporaries. Unfortunately, many of these old comedies are inaccessible
to the public; and, therefore, we venture to hope that the general reader may
find such a collection as the present acceptable, whether he care to enter
upon a historical and technical study of the subject or not.
To the student of literary history, however, this series will, we trust,
justify its existence for quite another reason. For the aim of this volume and
those which will follow is to indicate the development of a literary type by
a selection of its representative specimens, arranged in the order of their
production and accompanied by critical and historical studies. So little has
been scientifically determined concerning evolution or permutation in
literature that the more specific the field of inquiry, the more trustworthy
are the results attained,—hence the limitation of this research not merely to
a genus like the drama, but to one of its species. What is here presented to
the public differs from histories of the drama in that it is more restricted in
scope and that it substantiates the narrative of a literary growth by
reproducing the data necessary to an induction; it differs from editions of
individual plays and dramatists, on the other hand, because it attempts to
concatenate its texts by a running commentary upon the characteristics of

the species under consideration as they successively appear. It is an
illustrated, if not certified, history of English comedy.
The plays, in this series called representative, have been chosen primarily
for their importance in the history of comedy, generally also for their
literary quality, and, when possible, for their practical, dramatic, or
histrionic value. Of the studies accompanying them, some are special, such
as those dealing with the several authors and plays; some general, the
monographs upon groups or movements, and the sketch introductory to the
volume. The essay prefatory to a play includes, when possible, an outline of
the dramatist's life, a concise history of his contribution to comedy, with
reference, when appropriate, to his productions in other fields, an estimate
of his output in its relation to the national, social, literary, and technical
development of the type in question, and to such foreign movements and
influences as may be cognate, and, finally, an exposition and criticism of
the play presented. By the insertion in proper chronological position of
occasional monographs, it is intended to represent minor dramatists or
groups of the same school, period, or movement,—sometimes, indeed, an
author of exceptional importance,—in such a way that the historical
continuity of the species may be as evident in its minor manifestations as in
the better known. The general introductions to these volumes will usually
attempt to discuss matters of historical interest not covered by the editors of
special portions of the work. It has been necessary, therefore, to open the
series, in this book, with an historical view of the beginnings of comedy in
England. While the various contributors to the enterprise have exercised
their individual preferences in matters of literary treatment, judgment, and
style, the general editor has attempted to secure the requisite degree of
uniformity by requesting each to conform so far as his taste and historical
conscience might permit to a common but elastic outline of method
previously prepared. If the attempt has succeeded, there has been gained
something of continuity and scientific value for the series. The presence, at
the same time, of an occasional personal element in the several articles of
the history will enhance its value for our dear friend, the good old-fashioned
reader, who sets no store by literary science, but judges books by his liking,
and likes to read such judgments of them.
The texts of the comedies presented are, to the best ability of their
respective editors, faithful reprints of the best originals; where possible,

those published during the authors' lives. Spelling and language have been
preserved as they were; but for the convenience of readers, the punctuation
and the style of capitals and letters, such as i, j, u, v, s, have been, unless
otherwise specified, conformed to the modern custom.
The general editor regrets that it has not been feasible to preface the
series with some of the still earlier experiments in comedy, but he indulges
the hope that such a volume may later be added, and, also, that it may soon
be possible to publish in its proper proportions the materials which have
been condensed into the Historical View here submitted. He takes this
opportunity to express his appreciation of the courtesy of the scholars who
have engaged with him in this undertaking, and especially to thank Mr.
Pollard of the British Museum, and Mr. E. W. B. Nicholson of the Bodleian
Library, Professor Gummere, Professor Dowden, and the Master of
Peterhouse for assistance, encouragement, and counsel which have
contributed to make this labour a delight. Other volumes of this series are
well under way, and will follow with all reasonable celerity.
CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY.
University of California,
February 3, 1903.

CONTENTS
Page
I. An Historical View of the Beginnings of English Comedy
By Charles Mills
Gayley
Of the University of
xi
California
II. John Heywood: Critical Essay. Alfred W. Pollard
Of St. John's College, Oxford, and the British Museum 1
Edition of the Play of the Wether. The Same 19
Edition of a Mery Play betweene Johan
The Same 61
Johan, Tyb, etc.
Nicholas Udall: Critical Essay. Ewald
III.
Flügel
Of Stanford University 87
Edition of Roister Doister. The Same 105
Appendix on Various Matters. The Same 189
IV. William Stevenson: Critical Essay. Henry Bradley
Of the University of
195
Oxford
Edition of Gammer Gurtons Nedle. The Same 205
Appendix. The Same 259
V. John Lyly: Critical Essay. George P. Baker
Of Harvard University 263
Edition of Alexander and Campaspe. The Same 277
VI. George Peele: Critical Essay. F. B. Gummere
Of Haverford College 333
Edition of The Old Wives' Tale. The Same 349
Appendix. The Same 383

VII. Greene's Place in Comedy: A Monograph. G. E. Woodberry
Of Columbia
385
University
Robert Greene: His Life, and the Order of his Plays. Charles
VIII. 395
Mills Gayley
Edition of the Honourable Historie of
The Same 433
Frier Bacon.
Appendix on Greene's Versification. The Same 503
IX. Henry Porter: Critical Essay. Charles Mills Gayley 513
Edition of The Two Angry Women of
The Same 537
Abington.
X. Shakespeare As a Comic Dramatist. Edward Dowden
Of Trinity College,
635
Dublin
Index. 663

An Historical View

OF THE

BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH COMEDY

By Charles Mills Gayley

AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE BEGINNINGS OF
ENGLISH COMEDY

I. Liturgical Fragments, Early Saints' Plays and Parodies

The earliest evidence of dramatic effort in England is to be found in Latin
tropes of the Easter service, composed for use in churches at different
periods between 967 and the middle of the eleventh century. While these
are, of course, serious in nature and function, they interest the historian of
comedy because they show that the dramatic spirit was at work among our
ancestors before the Anglo-Saxons had passed under the yoke of the
Normans. Likewise naturally devoid of comic interest, but of vital
importance in the development of a dramatic technique, are certain
fragments of liturgical plays, belonging to the library of Shrewsbury
School, which were published in 1890 by Professor Skeat.[1] Each of these
deals, as an integer, with a crisis in the career of our Lord; and, except for
occasional choruses and passages from the liturgy in Latin, the plays are
English—the English, in fact, translating and enlarging upon the Latin of
the service. Though the manuscript is probably not older than 1400, it is a
fragment, as Professor Manly has said, of a series of plays of much earlier
date, which were "performed in a church on the days and in the service
celebrating events of which the plays treat."[2] These fragments are of great
importance as constituting a link between the dramatic tropes of the tenth
and eleventh centuries and the scriptural pageants presented at a later period
outside the church: first by the clergy, with the assistance, perhaps, of
townspeople (as may have been the case when a Resurrection play was
given in the churchyard of St. John's, Beverley, about 1220); afterward by
the civic authorities and the several gilds when church plays had come to be
acted commonly in the streets, that is, after the reinstitution of the feast of
Corpus Christi in 1311.
The existence of tropes at a period earlier than that in which mention is
made of plays based upon the miracles of the saints appears to me to

negative Professor Ten Brink's conjecture that in the development of our
sacred drama legendary subjects preceded the biblical. Indeed, the fact that
dramas on subjects both biblical and legendary, and of a technique even
more highly developed than that of the Shrewsbury, were, as early as 1160,
produced for liturgical functions in France, not only by Frenchmen, but by
one Hilarius, who was presumably an Englishman, favours the opinion that
the earliest saints' plays in England, also, were as frequently derived from
scriptural as from legendary sources. It is, moreover, likely that the first
saints' plays on legendary subjects in England of which we have record
were neither the first of their kind in the period attributed to their
presentation, nor a notable advance in dramatic art when they were
presented. There is nothing in the earliest record of a legendary saint's play,
the miracle of St. Katharine, presented by Geoffrey, afterwards Abbot of St.
Albans, at Dunstable about 1100, to warrant the inference that it was a
novelty, even at that date. Since Geoffrey was at the time awaiting a
position as schoolmaster, he was probably within his function, de
consuetudine magistrorum et scholarum,[3] when he produced the play; and
it is to be noticed that when Matthew of Paris writes concerning the matter,
about 1240, he appears to be much more interested in an accident which
attended the performance than in the mere composition and presentation of
what he calls "some play or other of St. Katharine, of the kind that we
commonly call Miracles."[4] Indeed, William Fitzstephen, writing some
seventy years before Matthew, speaks of such plays of the saints as in his
time quite customary. The probabilities are, then, that this first legendary
saint's play recorded as acted in England had been preceded by others of its
kind, and they in turn by miracles of biblical heroes and by liturgical plays
and dramatic tropes of the services of the church.
It is not unreasonable to surmise that this legendary kind of miracle,
although sometimes used as part of the church service on the saint's day,
and originally possessed of serious features, speedily developed
characteristics helpful in the progress of the comic drama. All we know of
the St. Katharine play is that it was written for secular presentation at a date
when no mention is yet made of the public acting of scriptural plays. The
dramatist would, however, be more likely to adorn the useful with the
amusing in the preparation of a play not necessarily to be performed within
the sacred precincts; and while the technique of the legendary miracle was

presumably akin from the first to that of the biblical, it is natural to suppose
that the plot was handled with larger imaginative freedom.
But our knowledge of these early saints' plays need not be entirely a
matter of surmise. We may form a fair idea of their character from
contemporary testimony, from the style of the Latin or French saints' plays
of the time that have survived, from the nature of the legends dramatized,
and from the analogy of contemporary biblical plays. To the locus classicus
of contemporary testimony in William Fitzstephen's Life of Thomas à
Becket (1170-82) I have already made reference. Speaking of the theatrical
shows and spectacular plays of Rome, the biographer says that "London has
plays of a more sacred character—representations of the miracles which
saintly confessors have wrought, or of the sufferings whereby the fortitude
of martyrs has been displayed." According to this, the ludi sanctiores, or
marvels, as they seem later to be called,[5] are of two classes: the marvel of
the faith that removes mountains, the marvel of the fortitude that endures
martyrdom. In either case the saint's play is of the stuff that produces
comedy; for, whether the miracles are active or passive, the Christian saint
and soldier always proceeds victorious, and with increasing merit abides as
ensample and intercessor in the church invisible.
This relation of the saint's play to comedy appears the more evident when
we read in the Golden Legend and elsewhere the histories of the saints who
became favourites in English or foreign drama or pageant,—St. Katharine,
St. George, St. Susanna, St. Botulf, and the like. In most cases the triumph
of the marvel naturally outweighed the terror; and in the one of the few
English plays of the purely legendary kind that survives, the St. George—
degenerate in form and now merely a folk drama—the self-glorification of
the saint and the amusing discomfiture and recovery of himself and his foes
are the only elements that have outlived the stress of centuries. The Miracle
of St. Nicholas, written in the middle of the twelfth century, affords still
better opportunity of studying the dramatic quality of the kind in question.
For the author, Hilarius, wrote also in a like mixture—Latin with French
refrains—a scriptural play of Lazarus; and in collaboration with others, but
entirely in Latin, a magnificent dramatic history called Daniel. These, like
the St. Nicholas, were adapted to performance in church at the appropriate
season in the holy year, and no better illustration can be found of the
essential difference between the scriptural or so-called 'mystery' play, on the

one hand, and the saint's play, on the other, than is offered by them. The two
scriptural plays, stately, reverent, adapted to the solemn and regular ritual of
which they are an illustration in the concrete betray not a gleam of humour;
the play of the other kind, written as it is for the festival of a jovial saint,
leaps in medias res with bustle and surprise; and from the speech with
which Barbarus entrusts his treasure to the saint even to the last French
refrain, after Nicholas has forced the robbers to restitution, we are well over
the brink of the comic. By the concluding scene, serious and in Latin of the
church, setting forth the conversion of the pagan, the feelings of the
congregation are restored to the level of the divine service, momentarily
interrupted by the comedy but now resumed.
These, and all saints' plays not, like the St. Anne's play, of a cyclic
character, were, from the first, dramatic units; they represented a single
general plot, generally of a single hero; the action was focussed on the
critical period of his life; and a considerable incitement was consequently
offered to invention of incident and development of character. A
comparative study of the plays concerning St. Nicholas will justify the
statement that the dramatist was by way of taking liberties with, or varying,
his selection from legend. The Einsiedeln Nicholas play of the twelfth
century deals with a different miracle from that dramatized by Hilarius; and
of the four Fleury plays of St. Nicholas, probably composed in the same
century, the two that deal with these miracles vary the treatment; the other
two are on different themes, but all would appear, from the editions which
we have of them, to be promising little comedies. The possibilities of this
kind of drama are best displayed in still another play of St. Nicholas,
written in the vernacular by a Frenchman of Arras, Jean Bodel, about the
year 1205. Throwing the traditional legends entirely overboard, he gives his
imagination free course with favouring winds of knightly adventure, but
over the waters of everyday life. He produces a play at once comic,
fanciful, and realistic, the first of its kind—of so excellent a quality that
Creizenach says that it would appear as if dramatic poetry were even then
well on the way of development from the ecclesiastical model to a romantic
kind of art in the style of the later English and Spanish drama: chivalric,
fantastic, and realistic.[6]
Unfortunately, other plays of this kind, like the Theophilus of Rutebeuf,
do not always avail themselves of their chances; but we may in general

surmise that such plays in English—and we have evidence of many—
contributed as much as the biblical miracle to the cultivation of a popular
taste for comedy and the encouragement of inventive power in the handling
of dramatic fable. I believe that they contributed more than the pre-
Reformation morals, and from an earlier period.
I have said that in all probability there was nothing unusual in the
presentation of saints' plays by Hilarius and Geoffrey. Latin plays were not
a novelty in the twelfth century, at any rate to men of culture and the
church. When we consider the history of the Terentian and Plautine
manuscripts, how carefully the former were cherished, and with what
appreciation a portion at least of the latter, during the Middle Ages, we
cannot but apprehend the extent of their influence, even when unapparent,
upon taste, style, and thought. Plautus (in whose comedies, with those of
Terence, St. Jerome was wont to seek consolation after seasons of strenuous
fasting and prayer) was imitated in a Querolus and probably a Geta, as early
as the fourth century; and Terence was adapted by Hrosvitha in the tenth.
We are, therefore, not at all surprised when we find Latin comedy during
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries clothing itself through France and Italy
in the verdure of another spring. To be sure the new style of production—a
declamation by way of dialogue or conversational narrative, in elegiac verse
—was not intended for histrionic presentation; but it was nevertheless of the
dramatic genus; little by little the narrative outline dwindled and the
mimetic opportunities of the speaker were emphasized. His success was
measured by his skill in representing diverse characters merely by changes
of voice, countenance, and gesture. He is the impersonator in transition to
the actor. These elegiac comedies indicate the continuing influence of Latin
comedy upon the literary creativity of the day; they furnish, besides, both
the material for the regular drama that was coming, and the taste by which it
should be controlled. I am, indeed, of the opinion that from this source the
farce interludes of England, France, and Italy drew much of their content
during the next three centuries, and that the saint's plays of that period, at
least those in Latin, derived therefrom their dramatic technique. The revival
of Latin comedy during the twelfth century was partly by way of
adaptations, as in the dramatic poems of Vitalis of Blois; partly of
independent productions, fashioned upon classical models but dealing with
contes, fabliaux or novelle of contemporary quality. Of the latter kind the
more interesting examples upon the continent were the Alda of William of

Blois, and two elegiac poems, perhaps Italian, of lovers and go-betweens,—
a graceful and passionate comedy of Pamphilus and a dramatic version by
one Jacobus of the intrigue, so dear to mediæval satirists, between priest
and labourer's wife. The subject and treatment of the last of these suggest, at
once, a kinship with an Interludium de Clerico et Puella in English of the
end of the thirteenth century, and with an earlier English story from which
that is derived; also with Heywood's much later play of Johan. That there
was a Latin elegiac comedy in England during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries,—comedy of domestic romance with all or some of the characters
common to the kind—youth and maid, wife and paramour, enamoured
cleric, faithless husband, cuckold, enraged father, parasite, slave, go-
between, and double,—is rendered probable by the survival of two such
poems, one of which bears internal evidence of its origin in England, while
the only manuscripts extant of the other were found in that country. The
first lacks a title, but has been called the Baucis after the manipulator of the
intrigue, a procuress; the second is named Babio for the unhappy hero who
is at one and the same time fooled by his wife whom he doesn't love, and
his step-daughter whom he does. Both comedies display the influence of
classical Latin, but the latter sparkles with the humour and spontaneity of
the comedy of contemporary life.[7]
I agree, therefore, with Dr. Ward that the burden of proof is with those
who assert that the Latin comedy of the Middle Ages made no impression
upon the earlier drama of England. That the former was one of the
tributaries of the farce interlude and the principal source of the romantic
play of domestic intrigue I have no doubt whatever. And, considering the
influx of French clerics and culture during the eleventh, twelfth, and
thirteenth centuries, and the French affiliations of Geoffrey of St. Albans
and Hilarius, our earliest recorded writers of saints' plays, not to speak of
the latinity of our Maps, Wirekers, and other scholars of Henry II.'s reign,
and their familiarity with the literature of the Continent, which was Latin,—
it would be unreasonable to assume that the authors of our saints' plays,
whether in Latin or not, did not derive something of their technique from
the elegiac comedies of their contemporary latinists in France and England,
or indeed from the adaptations of Plautus and Terence in previous centuries,
or from the originals themselves.

When the religious drama passed into the hands of the crafts, it carried
with it such individual plays, of both scriptural and legendary kinds, as
were suitable to the collective character which it was assuming. The Corpus
Christi, Whitsuntide, Easter, or Christmas cycle, though it aimed to
illustrate sacred history and so justify God's ways to man, drew its
materials, not only from the scriptures of the canon, but from the
Apocrypha, the pseudo-Gospels, and mediæval legends of scriptural and
sometimes non-scriptural saints. There was no real ground for distinction,
and there is none now, dramatic or didactic, between the non-scriptural
stories of scriptural characters, St. Joseph, and St. Thomas, stories of the
Death, Assumption, and Coronation of the Virgin, stories of St. Paul and St.
Mary Magdalene, which happened to be absorbed into this or the other
miracle cycle, and the non-scriptural stories of extra-biblical saints in plays
which have retained their independence: that of Nicholas, for instance, or of
Katharine or Laurence or Christina, except that these and their heroes are
concerned with events later than those which conclude the earthly career of
our Lord and of the Virgin Mary. All religious historical plays, biblical or
legendary, cyclic or independent, of events contemporaneous with, or
subsequent to, the scriptural, were miracles, properly so called by our
forefathers; and as the didactic intent of the species waned, one was as
likely as another to develop material for amusement. Indeed, the authors of
the Manuel des Pechiez and The Handlynge Synne,—the preacher of that
fourteenth-century attack upon miracle plays which has been preserved in
the Reliquiæ Antiquæ,—these, and Chaucer, Langland, and Wyclif make no
distinction between miracles of the central mystery from the Old and New
Testaments and miracles worked and suffered by saints, whether legendary
or biblical. The distinction, if any, made by them, is between miracles acted
to further belief by priests and clerks in orders in the church, and those
acted for amusement by these or by laymen in the streets and on the greens.
And it is safe to say that as soon as a play became more amusing than
edifying, it fell under the censure of the church. This happened as early as
1210, when a decretal of Innocent III. forbade the acting of ludi theatrales
in churches. Indeed much earlier, for Tertullian and St. Augustine and the
Councils had consistently condemned the performances of histriones, mimi,
lusores, and others who perpetuated the traditions of the pagan Roman
stage. In 1227 the Council of Treves took such action. Gregory IX.
attempted to put a stop to the growing participation of the clergy, "lest the

honour of the church should be defiled by these shameful practices."[8] And
during the succeeding decades more than one Synod issued orders of the
same tenor. Now, even though it is practically certain that these
fulminations were directed against perversions of divine worship, mock
festivals and profane plays with the monstrous disguisings or mummings
involved,[9] there is also no doubt that the prohibition came speedily to
apply to the use of masks and other disguises in sacred plays, and then to
the presentation of plays in church for any other than devotional purposes.
Such for instance was the animus with which William of Wadington, in the
Manuel des Pechiez, about 1235, called attention to the scandal of the
foolish clergy who, in disguise, acted miracles 'ky est defendu en decré.' To
play the Resurrection in church, pur plus aver devociun, was permissible;
but to gather assemblies in the streets of the cities after dinner, when fools
more readily congregate, that was a sacrilege. At this early date, we may be
sure that the kind of drama which was extruded from the church had already
invested such of its subjects as were biblical or legendary with the realistic
and comic qualities which made for popularity, and so was fitting itself for
adoption by the crafts. Indeed, we are told by a thirteenth-century historian
of the Church of York,[10] that, at a date which must be set near 1220, there
was a representation as usual of the Lord's Ascension by masked
performers, in words and acting; and that a large crowd of both sexes was
assembled, led there by different impulses, some by mere pleasure and
wonder, others for a religious purpose. This was the play in the churchyard
of St. John's, Beverley, to which I have referred before. The miracula of the
story cited by Wright[11] and conjecturally assigned to the thirteenth
century, had also passed beyond the sheer didactic stage, for the auditors,
who resorted to the spectacle in the "meadow above the stream," expressed
their appreciation nunc silentes nunc cachinnantes. When, after the
reinstitution of the festival of Corpus Christi, in 1311, these plays began to
be a function of the gilds, their secularization, even though the clerks still
participated in the acting, was but a question of time; and the occasional
injection of crude comedy was a natural response to the civic demand. It
would be erroneous, however, to imagine that the church abandoned the
drama when the town took it up: the church maintained a liturgical drama,
in some places, until well into the sixteenth century; and as late as 1572
individual clergymen are condemned for playing interludes in churches.[12]

If the writers of saints' plays, with their attempt to satisfy the yearning for
ideal freedom which is natural in all times and places, took, in their fictions
of the religious-marvellous, a step towards what may be called romantic
comedy,—a step no less important, though nowadays often unnoticed, was
taken toward the comedy of ridicule, satire, and burlesque, at a date quite as
remote, by the contrivers of religious parodies. It is curious, though not at
all unnatural, that some of the earliest efforts at comic entertainment should
proceed from the revolt against ecclesiastical formality and constraint. I
cannot in this place do more than remind the reader of the antiquity of three
of the most notable of these dramatic travesties: the Feast of Fools, the
election of the Boy Bishop, and the Feast of the Ass. The first of these was
celebrated on the Continent as early as 1182, one may say with reasonable
certainty, 990. It is indeed more than a conjecture that the Feasts of Fools
and the Ass inherited the license of the Roman Saturnalia, the season and
spirit of which were assimilated by the Christian Feast of the Nativity.
Whether adopted by the church in its effort to conciliate paganism, or
tolerated for reasons of secular policy, these mock-religious festivals were
soon the Frankenstein of Christianity; and it was doubtless against them
rather than the seductions of the sacred drama that most of the ecclesiastical
prohibitions of the Middle Ages were aimed. With its necessary comic
accessories, the Feast of Fools was well established in England before 1226,
and it was still flourishing in 1390 when Courtney forbade its performance
in London. "The vicars," he said, "and clerks dressed like laymen, laughed,
shouted, and acted plays which they commonly and fitly called the Feast of
Fools." They travestied the dignitaries of the church, they turned the service
inside out, put obscenity for sanctity and blasphemy for prayer. While it
does not appear that in England, as on the Continent,[13] the procession of
the Boy Bishop was attended with frivolity or profanity, it was certainly
celebrated with mummings and plays of suitable kind, not altogether
serious. This ceremony dates as far back as St. Nicholas day, 1229, and was
still to the fore in 1556. The Feast of the Ass appears to have been
recognized by the church as early as the Feast of Fools. I do not know when
it was introduced into England, but it was played upon Palm Sunday as late
as the middle of the sixteenth century. In France it had been notoriously
wanton since the beginning of the thirteenth; and it could not exist
anywhere without promoting the spirit of burlesque and farce. Although the
initial purpose of these festivals was to satirize the hierarchy and

ecclesiastical convention, they applied themselves after they had been
repudiated by the church to the ridicule of social folly in general; and,
according to the descriptions of Warton, Douce, Hone, Klein, Petit de
Julleville, and others, they came to be a vivid interpreter of the popular
consciousness, a most potent educator of critical insight and dramatic
instinct, an incitement to artistic even though naïve productivity. In France,
indeed, the Fraternities of Fools produced national satirists and dramatic
professionals in one. In England, if they did nothing else, they helped to
stimulate a taste for realistic and satiric drama.

2. The Miracle Cycles in their Relation to Comedy

Miracle plays and 'marvels,' morals too as we soon shall see, were a
propædeutic to comedy rather than tragedy. For the theme of these dramas
is, in a word, Christian: the career of the individual as an integral part of the
social organism, of the religious whole. So also, their aim: the welfare of
the social individual. They do not exist for the purpose of portraying
immoderate self-assertion and the vengeance that rides after, but rather the
beauty of holiness or the comfort of contrition. Herod, Judas, and Antichrist
are foils, not heroes. The hero of the miracle seals his salvation by
accepting the spiritual ideal of the community. These plays contribute in a
positive manner to the maintenance of the social organism. The tragedies of
life and literature, on the other hand, proceed from secular histories,
histories of personages liable to disaster because of excessive peculiarity,—
of person or position. Whether the rank of the tragic hero be elevated or
mean, he is unique: his desire is overweening, his frailty irremediable, or
his passion unrestrained,—his peril unavoidable; and in his ruin not the
principal only, but seconds and bystanders, are involved. Tragedy, then, is
the drama of Cain, of the individual in opposition to the social, political,
divine; its occasion is an upheaval of the social organism.
While the dramatic tone of the miracle cycle is determined by the
conservative character of Christianity in general, the nature of the several
plays is modified by the relation of each to one or other of the supreme
crises in the career of our Lord. The plays leading up to, and revolving
about, the Nativity, are of happy ending, and were doubtless regarded, by
authors and spectators, as we regard comedy. The murder of Abel, at first

sombre, gradually passes into the comedy of the grotesque. The massacre of
the innocents emphasizes, not the weeping of a Rachel, but the joyous
escape of the Virgin and the Child. In all such stories the horrible is kept in
the background or used by way of suspense before the happy outcome, or
frequently as material for mirth. Upon the sweet and joyous character of the
pageants of Joseph and Mary and the Child it is unnecessary to dwell. They
are of the very essence of comedy. The plays surrounding the Crucifixion
and Resurrection are, on the other hand, specimens of the serious drama, the
tragedy averted. It would hardly be correct to say tragedy; for the drama of
the cross is a triumph. In no cycle does the consummatum est close the
pageant of the Crucifixion; the actors announce, and the spectators believe,
that this is "goddis Sone," whom within three days they shall again behold,
though he has been "nayled on a tree unworthilye to die." By this
consideration, without doubt, the horror of the buffeting and the scourging,
the solemnity of the passion, the inhuman cruelty—but not the awe—of the
Crucifixion, were mitigated for the spectators. Otherwise, mediæval as they
were, they could have taken but little pleasure in the realism with which
their fellows presented the history of the Sacrifice.
To indulge in a comprehensive discussion of the beginnings of comedy in
England would be pleasant, but I find that I cannot compel the materials
into the limits at my command. Accordingly, since the miracle cycles (to
which Dodsley, following the French, gave the convenient, but un-English
and somewhat misleading, name of 'mysteries') have been more frequently
and generously treated by historians than those other miracles, non-
scriptural, which I would call 'marvels,' and the no less important popular
festival plays and early farces, and 'morals' or moral and 'mery' interludes, it
seems that, in favour of the latter, I should defer much that might be said
about the cycles until a more spacious occasion.
The manuscript of the York plays appears to have been made about 1430-
40; that of the Wakefield, or so-called Towneley, toward the end of the same
century; the larger part of the N-town, or so-called Coventry, in 1468; and
the manuscripts of the Chester between 1591 and 1607. The last are,
however, based upon a text of the beginning of the fifteenth or the end of
the fourteenth century; and there is good reason to believe that some of the
plays were in existence during the first half of the fourteenth. A tradition,
suspicious but not yet wholly discredited, assigns their composition to the

period 1267-76. The York cycle, according to Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith,
was composed between 1340 and 1350. As to the Towneley plays, Mr.
Pollard decides that they were built in at least three distinct stages, covering
a period of which the limits were perhaps 1360 and 1410. While the
composition of the so-called Coventry (apparently acted by strolling
players) may in general be assigned to the first half of the fifteenth century,
some parts give evidence of earlier date. The authenticated dates of the
representation of miracles in Coventry, 1392-1591, I prefer to attribute not
to this N-town cycle, but to the Coventry Gild plays, two of which still
exist.[14] They possess no special importance for our present purpose. The
Newcastle Shipwrights' Play is the much battered survivor of a cycle that
was in existence in 1426. The Ms. of the three Digby plays of interest to us
is assigned by Dr. Furnivall to the latter half of the fifteenth century. The
subject of the first of them, the Killing of the Children, is of early dramatic
use, and the treatment of the poltroon knight corresponds suggestively with
Warton's account of the Christmas play given by the English bishops at the
Council of Constance in 1417. The two Norwich pageants which survive
are by no means naïve: they were touched up, if not written, during the
second third of the sixteenth century.
Other cycle plays which might be enumerated must be omitted, with the
exception of the Cornish. These were written in Cymric, apparently
somewhat before 1300. They are suggestive to the historian of comedy
particularly because they yield no faintest glimmer of a smile, save at their
exquisite credulity and unconsciousness of art. They are a noble instance of
the sustained seriousness of the scriptural cycle in its early, if not its
original, popular stage, and, also, of that familiar handling of the sacred that
prepares the way for the liberty of the comic.
In approaching the English miracle plays we notice that, as in the
Cornish, the earliest secular form of the older cycles was principally, if not
entirely, serious. Reasons which I cannot stay to enumerate prove that
comic plays in the older cycles are not of the original series, and that
humorous passages in plays of the older series are of later interpolation.
Now, so far as the direct effect upon the comedy of Heywood, Greene, and
Shakespeare is concerned, it may appear to some of no particular
importance in what order the cycles in general were composed or the plays
within the cycles. But the Tudor dramatists did not make their art, they

worked with what they found, and they found a dramatic medium of
expression to which centuries and countless influences had contributed. An
extended study of the beginnings of English comedy should determine, so
far as possible, the relative priority, not only of cycles, but of the comic
passages within the cycles: what each composition has contributed to the
enfranchisement of the comic spirit and the development of the technical
factors of the art; to what extent each has expressed or modified the
realistic, satirical, romantic, or humorous view of life, and in what ways
each has reflected the temper of its time, the manners and the mind of the
people that wrote, acted, and witnessed. If I arrange the plays that bear upon
the development of comedy according to my conclusions regarding priority
of composition, the order, broadly stated for our present rapid survey, is as
follows: first, the Cornish and the Old Testament portions of the Chester
and Coventry; then the productions of the second and third periods of the
York, and, closely following these, the crowning efforts of the Towneley;
then the New Testament plays of the Chester and Coventry; and, finally, the
surviving portions of the cycles of Digby and Newcastle. This order, which
is roughly historical, has the advantage, as I perceive after testing it, of
presenting a not unnatural sequence of the æsthetic values or interests
essential to comedy: first, as a full discussion would reveal, the humour of
the incidental; then of the essential or real, and, gradually, of the satirical in
something like their order of appearance within the cycles; afterwards, the
accession of the romantic, the wonderful, the allegorical, the mock-ideal;
and, finally, of the scenic and sensational.
Of the significant lack of humour in the Cornish plays I have already
spoken. I find, though I may not stay to illustrate, a livelier observation and
a superior faculty of characterization and construction in the early comic art
of Chester than in that of Coventry, but in both a cruder sense of the
humour of incident than in the other English cycles. In the York cycle there
are fewer situations that may be called purely comic than in the Chester,
and none of these occurs in the oldest plays of the series; but for its other
contributions to dramatic art and its relation to the remarkable productions
of the Wakefield or Towneley school of comedy it deserves special
attention. A comparative study of its versification, phraseology and
dramatic technique, leads me to the conclusion that the original didactic
kernel of the York cycle was enlarged and enriched during two well-defined
periods, which may be termed the middle and the later, and that there was at

least one playwright in each of these periods or schools who distinctly made
for the development of English comedy. Of the middle period, to which
belong Cain, Noah, and the Shepherds' Plays, the playwright or playwrights
are characterized by an unsophisticated humour; the distinctive playwright
of the later or realistic period is marked by his observation of life, his
reproduction of manners, his dialogue, and the plasticity of his technique.
That the later school or period, to which belongs a group of half a dozen
plays[15] gathering about The Dream of Pilate's Wife, and The Trial before
Herod, was, moreover, influenced by the manner of its predecessor is
indicated by the fact that of its two most efficient stanzaic forms one,
namely that used in The Conspiracy, is anticipated (though in simpler
iambic beat) by that of Noah, the typical play of the middle, that is the first
comic, school,[16] while the other, of which the variants are found in The
Mortificacio and The Second Trial, has its germ more probably in The
Cayme of that same school than in any other of the middle or of the earlier
plays.[17] With these two stanzaic forms the later group, so far as we may
conclude from the mutilated condition of the surviving plays, seems to
experiment; and the second of them, that of the Mortificacio, may be
regarded as the final and distinctive outcome of York versification. To the
leading playwrights of each of these schools,—the former the best
humorist, the latter the best realist, of the York drama,—to these anonymous
composers of the most facile and vivid portions of the York cycle our
comedy owes a still further debt; for from them it would appear that a poet
of undoubted genius derived something of his inspiration and much of his
method and technique—our first great comic dramatist, the Playwright of
Wakefield.
We know that Wakefield actors sometimes played in the Corpus Christi
plays of York, and it was only natural that the smaller town should borrow
from the dramatic riches of its metropolitan neighbour. We are, therefore,
not surprised to find in the Wakefield cycle a number of plays which have
been taken bodily from the York cycle.[18] None of these is in the distinctive
stanzaic form of which we have just spoken; but imbedded in certain other
Wakefield plays[19] that in other respects show marks of derivation from
earlier and discarded portions of the York cycle, we find occasional
affiliated forms of the distinctive later York strophe evidently in a
transitional period of its development. We find, furthermore, passages in

this transitional York strophe side by side with Wakefield stanzas which
display the strophe in a more highly artistic technique than anything found
in the York.[20] The writer of the perfected York-Wakefield stanza, such as
appears in the Towneley plays, must have, consciously or unconsciously,
been influenced by the middle and later York schools of dramatic
composition. This fully developed outcome of the distinctive York stanza of
the later school is found in the guise of a nine-line stanza in certain
Towneley plays which we see reason for attributing to a Wakefield genius,
and which we shall presently consider. Suffice it in this place to say that of
the Wakefield stanza the first four lines, when resolved, according to their
internal rhymes, into separate verses, run thus: abababab². If to this we add
the cauda, our stanza runs abababab²c¹ddd²c². Sometimes, indeed, a three-
accented line occurs among the first eight, showing the more plainly that
this thirteen-line stanza of Wakefield (though set down in nine lines) is a
variant or derivative of the thirteen-line York XXXVI.,—ababbcbc³d¹eee²d³.
And that in itself is, as I have already said, a refinement upon the fourteen-
line stanza of the earlier comic school of York, as used in the Noah.
Whether the rapid beat and frequently recurring rhyme of the Wakefield are
a conscious elaboration of the York or a happy find or accident, the stanzaic
result is an accurate index to the superiority in spirit and style achieved over
their congeners of York by these comedies of Wakefield.
Now, the contiguity of what is undoubtedly borrowed from the York with
what is imitated from it and what is elaborated upon it, is strong proof of a
conscious relation between these Wakefield productions and those of York;
and since the work of the poet, especially the provincial poet, was in those
days (though verse forms, like air, are free to all) likely to be cast in a fixed
mould—his favourite metrical and strophaic medium, there is at any rate a
possibility that the plays and portions of plays in the Wakefield cycle,
written in this fully developed and distinctive stanza, were the work of one
man. When we examine the contents of the plays and their style, we find
that the possibility becomes more than a probability, practically a certainty;
and that being so, I can hardly deem it an accident that the most dramatic
portions of the Wakefield cycle show so close an external resemblance to
the best comic and realistic portions of the York. It is, then, with something
of the interest in an individual, not a theory, that one may segregate the
plays and bits of plays bearing this metrical stamp, look for the personality

behind them, and attempt to discover the relation of the Wakefield group of
comedies to its forerunners of York.
The Wakefield cycle is still in flux when its distinctive poet-humorist
takes it in hand. Insertions in his nine-line stanza are found in one[21] of the
five plays derived from the York cycle. Of the two plays which show a
general resemblance to a corresponding York, one[22] is in this stanza, and
to the other[23] a dozen of the stanzas are prefixed. The Fflagellacio
(XXII.), the second half of which is an imitation, sometimes loose,
sometimes literal, of York XXXIV. (Christ Led up to Calvary), opens with
twenty-three of these stanzas,—nearly the whole of the original part. One of
them, No. 25, is, by the way, based upon stanza 2 of that part of York
XXXIV. which is not taken over by the Wakefield play. In the Wakefield
Ascension (XXIX.), which adapts, but in no slavish manner, a few passages
from the York (XLIII.), we find two of this playwright's nine-line stanzas;
[24]
and in the Wakefield Crucifixion (XXIII.), which has some slight
reminiscence of York XXXV. and XXXVI., we find one. In that part of the
Wakefield less directly, or not at all, connected with the York cycle, four
whole plays,[25] the Processus Noe, the two Shepherds' Plays, and the
Buffeting, and occasional portions of other plays[26] are written in this
stanza. This contribution in the nine-line stanza amounts to approximately
one-fourth of the cycle; and, allowing for modifications due to oral and
scribal transmission, is of one language and phraseology. Not merely the
identity of stanza and diction, however, leads one to suspect an identity of
authorship; but the prevalence in all these passages, and not in others, of
spiritual characteristics in approximately the same combination,—realistic
and humorous qualities singularly suitable to the development of a vigorous
national comedy. "If any one," says Mr. Pollard, "will read these plays
together, I think he cannot fail to feel that they are all the work of the same
writer, and that this writer deserves to be ranked—if only we knew his
name!—at least as high as Langland, and as an exponent of a rather
boisterous kind of humour had no equal in his own day." And, speaking of
the Mactacio Abel, where we lack the evidence of identity of metre, this
authority continues, "The extraordinary youthfulness of the play and the
character of its humour make it difficult to dissociate it from the work of the
author of the Shepherds' Plays, and I cannot doubt that this, also, at least in
part, must be added to his credit."[27]

To this conclusion I had come before reading Mr. Pollard's significant
introduction to the Towneley Plays; and I may say that I had suspected the
Wakefield master in the Processus Talentorum as well; for though, with the
exception of some insertions, the stanzaic form of that pageant is not his
favourite, the humour, dramatic method, and phraseology of the whole are
distinctly reminiscent of him. In the revising and editing of the Wakefield
cycle as he found it this playwright was brought into touch with the York
schools of comic and realistic composition. What he derived from them and
what he added may be gathered from a comparative view of the related
portions of these cycles. That, however, I must defer until another time. The
best of his plays are of course the Noe and the Secunda Pastorum; the latter
a product of dramatic genius. It stands out English and alone, with its
homespun philosophy and indigenous figures,—Mak and Gyll and the
Shepherds,—its comic business, its glow, its sometimes subtle irony, its
ludicrous colloquies, its rural life and manners, its naïve and wholesome
reverence: with these qualities it stands apart from other plays of cycles
foreign or native, and in its dramatic anticipations, postponements, and
surprises is our earliest masterpiece of comic drama. A similar dramatic
excellence characterizes all this poet's plays, as well as the insertions made
by him in other plays. But he is no more remarkable for his dramatic power
than for his sensitive observation and his satire.
Of the realism of his art much might be said. To be sure, we cannot
accredit to him the grim photography of certain plays—the preparations for
the crucifixion, for instance, which are the counterpart of scenes in the
York. But the Buffeting proves his power in this direction, and parts of the
Scourging—each a genre picture on a background of horrors. Of
conversations caught from the lip those in the second and fourth scenes of
the Processus Noe are his, and those between the shepherds in Prima and
Secunda Pastorum,—all of them unique. So also the description of the
dinners in these Shepherds' Plays: the boar's brawn, cow's foot, sow's
shank, blood puddings, ox-tail, swine's jaw, the good pie, "all a hare but the
loins," goose's leg, pork, partridge, tart for a lord, calf's liver "scored with
the verjuice," and good ale of Ely to wash things down. What more
seasonable than the afterthought of collecting the broken meats for the
poor? what more naïve than the night-spell in the name of the Crucified just
preceding the angelic announcement of his birth? what more typical of
unquestioning faith than the reverence of these "Sely Shepherds" before the

Saviour Child, the simplicity and acceptability of their rustic gifts? This is
the fresh and sympathetic handling of a well-worn theme. But the
Wakefield poet is no sentimentalist: his anger burns as sudden as his pity.
Otherwhere genially ironical, it is in his revision of the Judicium that he
displays his full power as a satirist. Here his hatred of oppression, his scorn
of vice and self-love, his contempt of sharp and shady practice in kirk or
court, upon the bench, behind the counter, or by the hearth are welded into
one and brought to edge and point. He strikes hard when he will, but he has
the comic sense and spares to slay. We may hear him chuckling, this
Chaucerian "professor of holy pageantry," as he pricks the bubble of
fashion, lampoons Lollard and "kyrkchaterar" alike, and parodies the
latinity of his age. When his demons speak the syllables leap in rhythmic
haste, the rhymes beat a tattoo, and the stanzas hurtle by. Manners, morals,
folly, and loose living are writ large and pinned to the caitiff. But the poet
behind the satire is ever the same, sound in his domestic, social, political
philosophy, constant in his sympathy with the poor and in godly fear.
Though there are comic scenes of some excellence in the later Chester
and so-called Coventry plays, they add little to the variety of the Wakefield.
I would, however, call attention to a few other comparatively modern, but,
generally speaking, contemporaneous, characteristics of these and the
remaining cycles: the foreshadowing of the chivalrous-romantic in the
Joseph and Mary plays of York, Wakefield, and especially Coventry; of the
melodramatic in the wonder and mediæval magic of the York and Chester
cycles, and again especially in the Coventry; of the allegorical in the
Coventry, and of the burlesque in all cycles when Pride rides for a fall or
Cunning is caught in his own snare.
In respect of the sensational, the older cycles are surpassed by the
surviving plays of Newcastle and Digby; so also in the increasing
complexity of motive and interest. These Digby plays were acted, probably
one by one in some midland village from year to year during the latter half
of the fifteenth century, and maybe somewhat earlier. They are of interest,
not only because they emphasize the sensational element, but because they
stand half-way, if not in time, at any rate in spirit and method, between the
miracles that we have so far discussed and the moral plays of which we
shall presently treat. The Digby Killing of the Children of Israel lends a
decided impetus to the progress of the comic and secular tendencies of the

drama. The Herod brags as usual, but he is artistically surpassed in his
metier by a certain miles gloriosus, the descendant of Bumbommachides
and Sir Launscler Depe, and himself the forerunner of Thersites and Roister
Doister, and countless aspirants for knighthood, whose valour "begynnes to
fayle and waxeth feynt" under the distaff of an angry wife. Such is the
Watkyn of this Digby play. Both here and in the Conversion of St. Paul, the
joyous element has been enhanced, as Dr. Furnivall points out, by the
introduction of dancing and music. In the Conversion the charm supplied by
the ammoniac Billingsgate of Saul's servant and the ostler adds thrills
galore. Saul, "goodly besene in the best wyse, like an aunterous knyth," the
thunder and lightning, the persecutor felled to earth, "godhed speking from
hevyn," the Holy Ghost, the "dyvel with thunder and fyre" sitting cool upon
a "chayre in hell, another devyll with a fyeryng, cryeng and roryng,"—the
warning angel, Saul's escape,—there is sign enough of invention here. To be
sure, these seductions are counterbalanced by a didactic on the Seven
Deadly Sins, worthy of a preceding or contemporary moral drama; but that
was part of the bargain. The spectacular plays of this group, especially the
Mary Magdalene, comic and didactic by turns, denote a further advance in
a still different direction. They portray character in process of formation:
the rejection of former habits and motives, and the adoption of new, the
resulting change of conduct, and the growth of personality. From this point
of view Mary Magdalene is a figure of as rare distinction in the history of
romantic comedy as the Virgin Mary,—perhaps even of greater importance.
Interesting as the sensational elements of the play may have been, and novel
—the vital novelty here is that of character growing from within. Wonderful
as the career of the virgin mother was,—an essential propædeutic to that
woman worship which characterizes a broad realm of Christian romance,—
her career could never have awakened the peculiar interest, dramatic and
humane, that was stirred by the legend so often dramatized of the wayward,
tempted, falling, but finally redeemed and sainted Mary of Magdala.
With regard to the transitional character of the Digby plays, it has been
maintained that this particular play, combining materials of the biblical
miracle and the saint's play or marvel, approaches more nearly than any
other of the group to the morals and moral interludes, because of the
prominence of the Sensual Sins in the dramatic career of the Magdalene.
Professor Cushman, in his excellent thesis on The Devil and the Vice, even
asserts that the downfall of the heroine, as the result of sensual temptation

which is the office of seven personified deadly sins "arayyd lyke vij dylf,"
is a special 'development' of this play. I can hardly go so far: the church of
the Middle Ages, Caxton's Golden Legend of 1483, and Voragine's of 1270-
90 had already amalgamated the biblical narratives of the Mary of seven
devils, Mary of Bethany, and the woman who was a sinner. In fact, the
suggestion of the 'device,' if such was necessary, is contained in seven
consecutive lines of Caxton's Life of the Magdalene. This biblical and
legendary play is, however, undoubtedly well on the way toward the drama
of the conflict of good and evil for possession of the human soul. And this
appears, as the author just cited has pointed out, when we consider a later
work on the same subject, called a Moral Interlude, by Lewis Wager.
Although the Seven Deadly Sins no longer figure as such, their place is here
supplied by four characters,—Infidelitie the Vice, and his associates, Pride
of Life, Cupiditie, and Carnal Concupiscence,—who, arrayed like gallants,
instruct the Magdalene in their several follies, and are themselves all
"children of Sathan." These later Vices are nothing other than selected
Deadly Sins,—the Pride, the Covetyse, and the Lechery of the earlier
miracle play.

3. The Dramatic Value of the English Miracle Plays

Taken as a whole, the craft cycle possesses the significance, continuity,
and finality requisite to dramatic art; taken in its parts or pageants, however,
it presents to the modern reader the appearance of a mosaic, an historical
panel picture, or stereopticon show. I set down these words, "the modern
reader," because I do not believe that the audience of contemporaries was
aware of any break in the sequence of the collective spectacle. This
histrionic presentment of the biblical narrative lacked neither motive nor
method to the generations of the ages of belief. For them the history of the
world was thus unrolled in episodes the opposite of disconnected,—each a
hint or sign or sample, a type or antitype of the scheme of salvation, which
was itself import and impulse of all history. No serious scene, but was
confirmation or prophecy. Characters, institutions, and events of the Old-
Testament drama had their raison d'être not only in themselves but in the
New Testament antitype which each in turn prefigured. No profound
theological training was needed to comprehend each symbol and its
significance, to esteem all as centring in the Person of history, in the

sacrifice and atonement. And still it is largely because historians have failed
to appreciate the scriptural training of our ancestors that they have unfairly
emphasized the episodic nature of the miracle cycles, at any rate of the
English.
The integral quality of the English cycle is infinitely superior to that of
the French; and the separate plays are more frequently artistic units. This is
due, among other things, to facts long ago pointed out by Ebert.[28] The
smaller stage in England, which in turn restricted the scope of the play,
made it impossible to split up the action into two or more parallel
movements, such as frequently occupied the stage in France. The scene,
moreover, was in England limited to earth, save when the plot expressly
required the presentation of heaven or hell. It very rarely required all three
at once. The conduct of the English play is therefore less dependent upon
the supernatural, and the persons bear a closer resemblance to actual human
beings. Neither plot nor character is distracted by the irresponsible intrusion
of devils, whereas these, idling about the French stage, frequently turned
the action into horse-play,—if the fool (likewise absent from the English
miracle) had not already turned it into a farce out of all relation to the fable.
The comic element in the English play had to exist by virtue of its relation
to the main action or not at all. It was therefore compelled to conquer its
position within the artistic bounds of the drama. The comic scenes of the
English miracle should accordingly be regarded, not as interruptions, nor
independent episodes, but as harmonious counterpoint or dramatic relief.
Those who have witnessed in recent times the reproduction of the Secunda
Pastorum at one of the American universities bear testimony to the
propriety and charm, as well as the dramatic effect, with which the
foreground of the sheep-stealing fades into the radiant picture of the
nativity. The pastoral atmosphere is already shot with a prophetic gleam, the
fulfilment is, therefore, no shock or contrast, but a transfiguration—an
epiphany. I do not forget that a less humorous analogue of the Shepherds'
Play exists in such French mysteries as that of the Conception, but I call
attention to the fact that by devices, technical sometimes, sometimes naïve,
elaborated through the centuries in response to the demands of a popular
æsthetic consciousness, the cycles, preëminently in England, acquired a
delicacy and variety of colour, an horizon, and an atmosphere, not only as
wholes, but in the parts contributing to the whole.

It is, therefore, only with reservation that I can concur with what one of
our most scientific and suggestive historians has said concerning the
dramatic qualities of the English miracle play:[29] "In the mystery, not only
were the subject and the idea unalterable, but the way in which the subject
and idea affected each other was equally unchangeable. The power of
expression was exceedingly defective. The idea in the finished work still
seemed to be something strange and external—conception and execution
did not correspond. It is only by a whole cycle that the subject could be
exhausted, and this cycle was composed of the most heterogeneous
elements, and is, in fact, a work of accident. The cycle play very seldom
formed a unit or whole; it seldom contained anything that could be called a
dramatic action. The spectators were therefore interested only in the matter.
Only a few details made any æsthetic effect—such as character, situation,
scenes; the whole was rarely or never dramatic." I will grant that, since the
subject of the individual pageant was prescribed by tradition, and the
solution of the dramatic problem already fixed, the author did not always
penetrate the shell of his story and assimilate the conception. Consequently
the execution has frequently the faults of the ready-made suit of clothes: it
creases where it should fall free and breaks where it should embrace. As the
writer is not expected to exercise his invention, the onlooker estimates the
conduct of the fable as a spectacle, not as a revelation. Many of the
miracles, therefore, lack the element of dramatic surprise, and almost none
attempts anything in the way of character development. This is, in part,
because, severally, the plays are squares of an historical chessboard, upon
which the individual—king or pawn—is merely a piece; and even if the
board be not historic, the squares are over strait for the gradual deploy of
motive; many of these plays are scenes, consequently, and limited to single
crises of an individual life. In other words, the character, if familiar, is
regarded as an instrument toward a well-known end; if unfamiliar, as an
apparition momentarily vivid. Slight opportunity exists for interplay of
incident and character, for the production of conduct, in short, which is the
resultant of character and a crisis. It must also be conceded that, since each
play was the dear delight of its proprietary gild—and each rare performance
thereof the chance that should grace these craftsmen ever or disgrace them
quite—the effort of actor, if not always of playwright, was towards a speedy
and startling effect, such as might be procured by the extraneous quality of
the show, rather than by the story in itself or in its relation to the cycle.

But still we must be careful not to generalize from a play here and there
to the quality of a cycle as a whole or to the common qualities of various
cycles. When we say that the mysteries, that is, the scriptural miracles,
possessed this, that, or the other merit or defect, to what area and what
object does the remark apply? Do we refer to all the extant plays, or only to
the one hundred and fifty plays in the five cycles that may be called
complete? Do we draw the inference from a majority of all plays that might
fall within the purview, or from the plays of one cycle, or from a majority of
the plays in that cycle, or from a single striking example here or there in
one or another cycle or fragmentary collection? Do we draw the inference
from, or apply the conclusion indiscriminately to, later as well as earlier
cycles and plays? A generalization from the Chester does not prima facie fit
the Towneley, nor does a dramatic estimate of the Coventry characterize the
isolated miracle morals of the Digby. Between the composition of the
earliest and the latest of the Chester plays alone, centuries elapsed;
centuries between the earliest Coventry and the earliest Digby; generations
between Chester and Coventry plays upon the same subject, and
generations more between the York and Newcastle. York includes some of
the youngest pageants of the species and many of the oldest. Towneley is
generally later than York; but it sometimes retains an original which York
had long ago discarded for something more modern. Returning, therefore,
to Professor ten Brink's generalization, we must submit that most of the
defects which he lays at the door of the cyclic miracle were not inherent in
the species, but incidental to the period. Some attach to the crudeness of the
playwright, some to the simplicity of the audience; they no doubt attached
to the collective "morals" of the fourteenth century, such as the Paternoster
Play, and they would have characterized plays of any other species
attempted under like conditions. The best miracle plays are as mature
products of dramatic art as the best of the allegorical kind, except in one
point only—the development of character. That "the subject and its idea
should be unalterable" and their interrelation fixed, is by no means a
peculiarity of the scriptural play, but a characteristic of period or place. If
the reader will cast even a rapid glance by way of comparison over the
French Corpus of mysteries and the English, he will observe that the scope
of subjects possible to a religious cycle was amenable to widely different
conditions of restriction, selection, and enlargement, and that the treatment
of the same and similar subjects was infinitely varied. To illustrate at length

would be a work of supererogation. Everybody knows that the French
cycles have plays upon subjects, the Job, for instance, and Tobias and
Esther,[30] not touched by the English,—at any rate when in their prime; and
that the same subject or episode is frequently treated in a way dissimilar to
the English. When we turn to details we note likewise the independence of
the playwright: none of the English plays avails itself, for instance, of
Adam's difficulty in swallowing the apple, though the incident figures both
in Le Mistere de la Nativite and that of the Viel Testament; nor of the
attractive possibilities of Reuben and Rachel's maid, Joseph and Potiphar's
wife, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and many another conjunction
known to all readers of the French religious play. And these discrepancies
between national cycles hold true even where, as in the case of the Chester
plays, the influence of the French mysteries of the thirteenth century and of
the later collections is in other respects evident. Of the four English cycles,
moreover, each does not select exactly the same subjects for its pageants as
the others,—Balaam and his Ass, for instance, appear only in the Chester,—
nor do all introduce the same incidents in the handling of a common
subject.
Professor ten Brink is by no means alone in his estimate of the technical
quality of the English scriptural miracle, but I must say that the estimate
seems to me to be hardly up to the deserts of the species. The frequent
absence of such refinements as the unities of time and place was of the
essence both of play and period; but it was not of the essence of the miracle
cycle that the expression should be defective, or that conception and
execution should fail to correspond, or of the miracle play that it should be
unable economically and adequately to develop a dramatic action and
produce an artistic whole. It may be an insufficient argument to say that the
plays of the Wakefield dramatist are anything but defective in expression.
Let us, therefore, be somewhat more comprehensive in the scope of inquiry.
I have gone carefully through the four English cycles with Professor ten
Brink's censures in mind, and I conclude that at least twenty of the
individual plays have central motive, consistent action, and well-rounded
dramatic plot. Indeed I think a good case might be made for thirty. That
would be to say that one-fifth of the miracles of the great cycles were
artistic units in themselves, and must have interested their spectators, not
alone by the materials displayed, but by a subject that meant something, and
situations, scenes, and acting characters by which it was sometimes not at

all unworthily presented. The inheritors of English literature will indeed
carry away a false impression of the artistic achievements of their ancestors,
if they believe that in spite of a development of five hundred years the
miracle play was "rarely or never dramatic."
Even though the sacred and traditional character of the biblical narrative
must have exercised a restraint upon the comic tendencies of the cyclic poet
not likely to have existed in the case of the writers of saints' plays and
single morals, still it is when he attempts the comic that the cyclic poet is
most independent. For as soon as plays have passed into the hands of the
gilds, the playwright puts himself most readily into sympathy with the
literary consciousness as well as the untutored æsthetic taste of his public
when he colours the spectacle, old or new, with what is preëminently
popular and distinctively national. In the minster and out of it, all through
the Christian year, the townsfolk of York and Chester had as much of ritual,
of scriptural narrative, and tragic mystery as they wanted, and probably
more; when the pageants were acted, they listened with simple credulity, no
doubt, to the sacred history, and with a reverence that our age of
illumination can neither emulate nor understand;—but with keenest
expectation they awaited the invented episodes where tradition conformed
itself to familiar life,—the impromptu sallies, the cloth-yard shafts of civic
and domestic satire sped by well-known wags of town or gild. Of the
appropriateness of these insertions, spectators made no question, and the
dramatists themselves do not seem to have thought it necessary to apologize
for æsthetic creed or practice. The objections thereto proceeded from the
authorities of the church, but the very tenor and tone of them are a
testimony to the importance attained by the comic element in the religious
plays. It is principally the "bourdynge and japynge" which attended the
"pleyinge of Goddis myraclys and werkes," that called forth the wrath of
the sermon that I have already cited from the end of the fourteenth century.
[31]
And it was for similar reasons that Bishop Wedego ordered, in 1471, the
suppression of both passion play and saints' plays within his continental
diocese. In France, indeed, not only horse-play characterized the
performance of the mysteries, but absolutely irrelevant farces invaded them,
merely afin que le jeu soit moins fade et plus plaisans.
I have alluded to the distinctively national note that characterizes the
comic contributions to the sacred plays, and I find that my opinion is

confirmed by the examples cited by Klein and Creizenach. The French
mystery poets, while they develop, like the English, the comic quality of the
shepherd scenes, introduce the drinking and dicing element ad lib.,—and
sometimes the drabbing; they make, moreover, a specialty of the humour of
deformity, a characteristic which appears nowhere in the English plays. The
Germans, in their turn, elaborate a humour peculiar to themselves,—
elephantine, primitive, and personal. They seem to get most run out of
reviling the idiosyncrasies of Jews, whose dress, appearance, manners, and
speech they caricature,—even introducing Jewish dramatis personæ to sing
gibberish, exploit cunning, and perform obscenities under the names of
contemporary citizens of the hated race. In general a freer rein seems to
have been given to the sacrilegious, grotesque, and obscene on the
Continent than in England. In the Passion of A. Greban (before 1452),
Herod orders Jesus into the garb of a fool; and in some of the German plays
the judges dance about the cross upon which the Saviour hangs. Much of
the ribaldry was of course impromptu, and on that account the more
grotesque; as in the story related by Bebel of how a baker playing the part
of Christ in the Processus Crucis bore the gibes of his tormentors with
admirable composure, until one actor Jew insisted upon calling him a corn
thief,—"Shut up," retorted the Christ, "or I'll come down and break your
head with the cross." There is, of course, an occasional license in the
English plays, such as the dance about the cross in the Coventry; but the
excess of ribaldry, grotesquerie, and diablerie does not assault the
imagination as in the continental mysteries.

4. The Contribution of Later "Marvels" and Early Secular
Plays

The advance which remained to be made upon the quality of play
presented in the miracle cycle before England could have an artistic comedy
were threefold: first, from the collective to the single play; second, from the
reproduction of traditional or accidental events to the selection of such as
possessed significance and continuity; and third, from the employment of
the remote in material and interest to the employment of the immediate and
familiar.

To attribute to the allegorical play all improvements that were made in
this transition is a mistake. Some steps in the right direction were already
necessitated by the popular demand, and had been taken by the later miracle
plays before the allegorical drama had itself passed out of the experimental
stages,—by the Digby Magdalene, for instance. In that play, the dramatic
management of a plot, invented and romantic rather than scriptural in its
nature and interest, and the portrayal of commonplace events and characters
side by side with the occasional allegory, are evidence not only of
contemporary taste, but, as Mr. Courthope has said, of an artistic approach
to the representation of fables of simple secular interest. The play, in fact,
bears a close resemblance to and was apparently influenced by the popular
life of St. Mary Magdalene which appeared in Caxton's translation of 1483
of the Golden Legend,—or perhaps by the French edition which Caxton
follows, or the original of Voragine. In the St. Paul of the Digby collection
we note a similar fusion of secular and legendary material, and an
imaginative handling of the plot. Although the dramatist has buried his
opportunities of psychological invention in the apostle's homily upon the
deadly sins, he has at the same time crossed the border of the "moral play"
rich with psychological opportunity. In the same direction of advance
various steps had also been taken by other saints' plays, purely legendary,
like the Sancta Katharina already mentioned, and by such a 'marvel' as the
Sacrament Play, or Miracle of the Host, which we shall presently describe.
A movement in advance had, moreover, been made by our early secular
drama, which comprised, besides the farce interlude prepared by scholars
for profane consumption, like the Interludium de Clerico et Puella, certain
popular festival plays, for instance, the Hox Tuesday and Robin Hood, and
plays of saints turned national heroes like St. George and St. Edward.
Concerning the plays of the miracles of saints I have already expressed
the belief that, whether these workers of marvels got off with their lives or
not, the representations in which they figured were, generally speaking, of
the essence of comedy: the persistent optimism which in the end routs the
spectres of temptation, persecution, and unbelief. This would hold, with
even greater probability, of the purely legendary miracles, the nature of
which is, of course, that of popular religious thought and faith in the Middle
Ages, and is embalmed for us in the Golden Legend, in Eusebius and St.
Jerome, and other writers from whom the legend was derived. In spite of
their exceeding interest, these legendary saints' plays and pageants can be

considered in this place only with brevity; but in order that the reader may
better appreciate the variety of their subjects and the extent of the period
over which they were acted, I subjoin a list of some that we know to have
been presented.[32]
I have little doubt that the romantic combination of tragic, marvellous,
and comic later noticeable upon the Elizabethan stage was in some degree
due to the ancient and continuous dramatization of the irrational adventures,
blood-curdling tortures, and dissonant emotions afforded by the legends of
the saints. These 'marvels,' moreover, must, because of their early
emancipation from ecclesiastical restraints and their adoption by the folk,
have contributed to the development of the freely invented, surprising, and
amusing fable which is congenial to comedy. That we have not more
notices of them is owing, not to their insignificance nor to any
disappearance before the advancing popularity of the craft cycles, for even
the pageants of the saints still flourish in Aberdeen as late as 1531, and the
plays elsewhere much later, but, as Ebert has already noted, to the fact that
they were seldom presented with the magnificence and publicity of the
cyclic miracles; but whenever a saint's play is taken up by a city or gild, it
enjoys frequent official notice and maintains its dignity for years.
Passing to the marvel or miracle of the Host, we notice that only one in
our language has survived. This Play of the Blyssyd Sacrament bears the
name of one of the East Midland Croxtons, and it was composed between
1461 and 1500. Although some critics have a low opinion of the play, I
venture to say that it is one of the most important in the early history of
English comedy. The subject, the desecration by Jews of a wonder-working
Wafer and the discomfiture and ultimate conversion of the offenders, is
popular in the legend of the later Middle Ages.[33] With ours a Dutch
Sacrament Play, written about the year 1500 by Smeken and acted in Breda,
naturally calls for comparison; but, though the latter exhibits the miraculous
power of the Host and has a certain diabolic humour, it lacks altogether the
realism, the popular reproduction of Jewish malignity, and the effective
close of the Croxton. The Croxton avails itself of the possibilities of the
subject. The idea has a significance; the plot possesses legitimate motive,
due proportions, unity ethical and æsthetic; and the conclusion is happy.
The mood, by turns serious and comic, and the dramatis personæ, various
and well-characterized, combine to furnish a most diverting drama of the

wonderful, horrible, elevated, and commonplace. Colle's announcement of
his master the leech, "a man off alle syence," who "syttyth with sum
tapstere in the spence," is excellently ironical; and Master Brundych
himself, like the doctor in the St. George plays, must have furnished a
figure exactly suited to the popular taste. Nor is the realism confined to the
intentionally comic scenes; but it is as vividly successful in the corruption
of Aristorius by Jonathas and in the futile and richly avenged efforts of the
Jews to torture the Host. Here certainly was a play adapted to meet the
demands of its time,—exhibiting closer affiliation with the folk than with
church or patron or school, acted perhaps by strolling players, an unforced
product of the artistic consciousness; a play which, though it dealt with a
sacred subject, still focussed itself in a single plot, discarded all material,
sacred or historical, not available for its purpose, completed an alliance with
the natural and the familiar, and emphasized the comic realities of life. No
miracle, cyclic or individual, no allegorical drama, and no secular play of
the same or previous date excels the Croxton in dramatic concept and
constructive skill. Without the mediation offered by such Croxton plays, the
English drama would have had "old" bridging the space between miracles,
marvels, and morals of the earlier time and the comedy of Shakespeare.
The consideration of our early farce interludes may be conveniently
postponed for the present in favour of the more popular plays, or shows,
with which our forefathers celebrated festival occasions. Of the pageants in
honour of royal entries, to which reference has already been made, it is
impossible to say more here than that, developing gradually into dramatic
spectacles, and at the same time retaining their symbolic character, they
must have contributed to the taste for allegorical plays, the moral, and the
moral interlude. If we turn to the secular shows presented on regular
festivals, such as May-day, Hox Tuesday, and the Eve of St. John and St.
Peter, while we may at once conclude that they were less efficient as
dramas than some of which we have spoken, such as the Sacrament play,
they have the advantage, from our present point of view, of indicating more
directly the nature of popular demand and the primitive conditions of
popular art. Indeed, Dodsley regards the mummers who commonly acted
them as the earliest genuine comedians of England. Of such disguisings,
masks, and mummeries there is evidence in the Wardrobe Accounts of
1389, according to which a company of twenty-one men was disguised as
the Ancient Order of the Coif for a play before the king at Christmas; and of

other mummings—not satiric nor in mockery of church ritual, but genial—
we have mention in Stow and citations in Warton and Collier that take us to
the first half of the fourteenth century. They doubtless existed much earlier,
though I do not think that they anticipated the parodies of sacred rites or the
ecclesiastical saints' plays.
Naturally a much-loved figure in festival games was Robin Hood, and
that some kind of drama was made out of the ballads surrounding him is
proved by a Ms. fragment of 1475 or earlier of Robin Hood and the Knight,
and a play of Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar with a portion of Robin
Hood and the Potter, printed by Copland, in 1550, as "very proper to be
played in May-games."[34] These May-games occurred not only in May, but
June, and gave employment to St. George and the Dragon, the Nine
Worthies (at whom Shakespeare poked run in Love's Labour's Lost), the
morris-dance, with its Lords and Ladies of the May, giant, hobby-horse, and
sometimes devils, as well as to Robin and Little John, Maid Marian, and
Friar Tuck; and they were popular through the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, perhaps even earlier. If we may trust old Fenn's editing, Sir John
Paston wrote in 1473 of a man whom he had kept for three years to play
"Seynt Jorge and Robyn Hod and the Shryff off Nottingham." There may be
even earlier mention of such plays. For, with all deference to the best of
authorities, Professor Child, I cannot but think that when Bower wrote,
between 1441 and 1447, of the popular "comedies and tragedies" of
Robertus Hode et Litill Johanne, he had reference to acted plays, since he
took pains to specify in his account of them the mimi, as well as the bardani
who chanted them. These entertainments, he says, were then more popular
than any other, and it is only natural to suppose that they had existed long
before his time. The earliest mention of Robin in England is in Piers
Plowman, 1377, and then as the subject of a ballad; but, as Warton long ago
pointed out, pastoral plays of Robin et Marion had been given in France
upon festival occasions before the end of the thirteenth century. Although
there appears to be no similarity between the incidents of Adam de la
Halle's comic opera of 1283 upon Robin and his Marion and the English
stories, and although we are ignorant of the nature of the spring game, or
play, of the same title, which was already an annual function in Anjou, in
1392, the principal characters and conditions of life in the two series are
sufficiently similar to suggest a connection by derivation or common
source. If such connection exist, it is not impossible that some kind of

Robin pageant or play was known in England earlier than we ordinarily
think. The ballad plays, at any rate, had attained popularity long before an
artistic level was reached by the allegorical drama, and while yet the craft
cycles were in their prime. Stow, in respect of Mayings, which he leads us
to believe were common in the reign of Henry VI., says that the citizens of
London "did fetch in May-poles with divers warlike shows, with good
archers, morris-dancers, and other devices for pastime all the day long; and
towards the evening they had stage-plays and bonfires in the streets." Robin
Hood and his archers are the heart of a Maying devised under Henry VII. in
1505 and for Henry VIII. in 1516; and the archers of the Maying in the time
of Henry VI. are suggestive of the Robin Hood as an accepted figure for
some kind of pageant in the middle of the fifteenth century, when Bower
was writing of "comedies and tragedies," mentioned above. The pageants
and probably the plays of Robin Hood are still alive in the seventeenth
century and later. Their dramatic quality was of a very primitive sort, but
the plot, wherever existent, displayed sequence of motive and effect. The
popular dramatist had, as in the Sacrament play and saints' plays, learned
how to magnify a hero by making him the pivot of the action, how to
interest the spectators in the affairs and manners of their own class, how to
produce a comic effect by means of dialogue, as well as by the humour of
the situation. But he knew nothing of the development of character, and in
that respect, without doubt, was inferior to the contemporary author of the
moral play.
Passing the Hox Tuesday play, of which we cannot be sure that it was
anything more than a crude and entirely serious representation of the
historic massacre which it commemorated, and of which no adequate
account survives, we may turn with profit to the most popular and long-
lived of English festival dramas, the St. George play. Of this Mr. Halliwell-
Phillipps says that numerous versions are used in the north of England, and
that they are doubtless a degraded form of an old "mystery."[35] Of course,
he means legendary miracle or saint's play. Ward more accurately describes
this rural drama as a combination of miracle and processional pageant. As
the latter, it appears frequently to have formed part of a mumming or
disguising, and was early associated with the morris-dance of May-day or
Christmas. The first indubitable mention of a St.
Collier, Hist., vol. I., p.
29.
George pageant is in 1416, and would appear to
refer to a "splendid dumb show" rather than a play,

which, as Caxton tells us, was presented for the entertainment of Emperor
Sigismund of Almayne when he "brought and gave the heart of St. George
for a great and precious relique to King Harry the fifth." It is, however,
more than probable that the soldier saint had figured in saints' plays, and in
popular play and pageant, long before this time. He had been honoured in
the eastern church even in the fourth century, and in England there had been
churches and monasteries devoted to him before the Norman invasion. On
account of his fabled services in the crusade he was already the patron of
individual knights, and orders of chivalry and even of kingdoms, when
Edward III., in the years 1348-50, built the chapel in his honour at Windsor,
confirmed him as the saint and champion of England and instituted the
order that still bears his name. It is likely, indeed, that the ludi exhibited
before the same monarch at Christmas, 1348, were to some extent of St.
George, for we read that the dragon figured extensively in them.[36] And it
would appear that when, in 1415, the 23d April, St. George's Day, was
"made a major double feast and ordered to be observed the same as
Christmas day, all labour ceasing," his play was no new thing. From that
time on, at any rate, the procession of St. George was one of the "pastimes
yearly used," of which Stow tells us that they were celebrated "with
disguisings, masks, and mummeries." Gilds were organized in his name,
and the ceremony of 'Riding the George' spread over England. When Henry
V. visited Paris, in 1420, he was appropriately welcomed with a St. George
show, and the saint appears again in a pageant of 1474 performed at
Coventry in honour of young Prince Edward. We have already mentioned
Sir John Paston's reference to the play in 1473. A long-winded and serious
German dramatization of the legend exists in an Augsburg manuscript of
the end of the same century. In all probability the expensive miracle play of
the saint that was acted in the croft or field at Bassingbourne in
Cambridgeshire, in 1511, was of the same didactic kind, but enlivened by
impromptus of the villagers who took part. St. George and the dragon were
features of the May-games at London, evidently in procession, as late as
1559. There appears in Warburton's list a play of St. George for England, by
Wentworth Smith, of the first quarter of the seventeenth century, and in the
latter part of that century, a droll called St. George and the Dragon was by
way of being acted at Bartholomew Fair. The play seems from an early date
to have been performed on the occasion of other festivals besides that of the
Saint himself.

The versions of the play best known of recent years are the Oxfordshire,
acted during the eighteenth century and taken down from an old performer
in 1853, and the Lutterworth (Leicestershire) Christmas play, acted as late
as 1863.[37] Professor Child, in his Ballads, mentions another, which was
regularly acted on All Souls' Day at a village a few miles from Chester. I
would call attention, in addition, to four others of interest; the Derbyshire
Christmas play,[38] acted by mummers as late as 1849, which is fuller than
any other and appears to me to retain traces of a fifteenth-century original;
the two Bassingham (Lincoln) Christmas plays,[39] 1823, and the Shetland
play from a 1788 Ms., recounted in Scott's novel of The Pirate. The last
three make the connection between the St. George play proper and the
sword play, which was undoubtedly common in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, and of which the Revesby version of 1779 is still extant.[40]
The following is the outline of the Derbyshire play: Enter Prologue, who
is apparently the same as "noble soldier," "Slasher," or "Jack," to clear a
way for St. Gay.—Enter St. Gay, announcing himself with proper bombast,
pretending that "from England's ground he sprung and came," and stating
his purpose, which is to find King George.—Enter King George, "in search
of his enemy," St. Gay, who as "a stranger, exposed and in danger," calls
upon Slasher for help.—With loud words Slasher threatens King George,
who in his turn boasts of "close escapes," giants and dragons subdued, and
the King of Egypt's daughter won.—They fight, and Slasher "tumbles down
and dies."—Enter Doctor, who has "travelled" imaginatively and can "fetch
any dead man to life again." He begins with Slasher, who signalizes his
recovery by summoning the "Black Prince of Paradise, black Morocco
king," to renew the fray.—"Here am I," cries that hero; it was I who "slew
those seven Turks," and it is I who now will "jam King George's giblets full
of holes, And in those holes put pebble stones!" George doubts the Black
Prince's ability, even though he be a "champion's squire,"—they are about
to fight, when Prologue intervenes with "Peace and Quietness is the best,"
and "Enter in, owld Beelzebub!" That personage on entering turns out to be,
in dress, a kind of Devil and Vice combined, in spirit a kind of Father
Christmas summoning all to drink.—This queer jumble is worth more space
than I can afford it. Just a word or two in passing. St. Gay is given up by
Halliwell-Phillipps as an "addition to the calendar not noticed elsewhere."
But one observes that his squire is a foreigner, as his name and garb both

proclaim,[41] and that he is the squire of a champion. This limits us to the
three foreign champions of Christendom, and from St. Gay's second speech
we discover, not only that he is San Diego of Spain, but (unless I am
gravely mistaken) that some author of the various generations of authors of
this play had acquaintance with Caxton's Golden Legend of 1483, where, in
the Life of St. James the More, we find the original, in oddly similar terms,
of one altogether unintelligible phrase used by this English makeshift for a
Spanish champion.[42] Further not very definite but suggestive similarities
with the Life of St. George add to the presumption that the Caxton
translation of the Legenda Aurea underlies portions of this folk play. Of
course a play of the martyrdom of St. George may have existed earlier still,
but if, as would seem to be the case, Voragine invented the dragon, that
monster cannot have played a part before 1270-90; it does not play a part
even in the South English Legendary of 1285, but is prominent in Caxton's
narrative.
With the play just described the Lutterworth is identical in some seven or
eight passages, and save that there is no Black Prince, and that a Turkish
Champion takes the place of St. Gay, the principal characters are the same.
The introduction of Beelzebub and a clown, with remarks appropriate to
each, would, however, indicate that this part of the play is earlier than the
amalgamated Beelzebub-clown of the Derbyshire. Both plays preserve
reminiscences of the crusades. As to the Oxfordshire, I can say only that it
is a rigmarole from history, legend, and nursery tale, culminating in the
destruction of the dragon (or Old Nick) and the appearance of Father
Christmas. The Bassingham plays present the stock characters, but little of
the original story. They add elements of scandal and love, however,—the
former in connection with Dame Jane, who tries to fasten the paternity of
her child on a "Father's Eldest Son, And heir of all his land"; and the latter
in connection with a Fair Lady, who is wooed by Eldest Son, Farming Man,
Lawyer, Old Man, and refuses them all, in the end apparently to accept the
Fool. This part of the story is a link between the St. George plays and the
sword-dance plays, as is also the Shetland, where St. George himself
sustains the part of principal dancer. In the Revesby sword-dance play,
acted in 1779 by morris-dancers, the Fair Lady of the Bassingham
reappears as Cicely to refuse Pepper-breeches, "My father's eldest son, And
heir of all his land," Ginger-breeches, Blue-breeches, the Knight of Lee, and

Pickle Herring, the Lord of Pool, in favour of Rafe the Fool. Though the
phraseology of the Bassingham and Revesby is occasionally the same, the
latter is utterly removed from the St. George original save in the mention of
dragon and worm which accompany the morris-dancers. How far back the
Revesby sword-dance play may date I do not know. The dance was
common on the continent in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and a
similar performance with a fool in the middle is recorded as taking place in
Ulm in 1551. The name of the merry-andrew, Pickle Herring, may possibly
take us back to the first quarter of the sixteenth century. For, as is well
known, it is the usual designation for the clown in the 1620 collection of
plays acted by the so-called English comedians in Germany. According to
Creizenach,[43] the character was introduced by Robert Reynolds, who was
perhaps himself the Robert Pickelhäring mentioned in connection with an
entertainment given at Torgau in 1627. Floegel and Ebeling speak of "der
alte Pickelhering aus der Moralititäten des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts," as if
he were the "old Vice"; but surely without justification. I know of no
mention of Pickle Herring before 1620, and since he still held the stage in
Löwen's Prinz Pickelhering, about the middle of the eighteenth century, it is
not impossible that the character was borrowed by the English sword play
at a comparatively recent date. The continuance of the Devil and his
relation to the clown in these plays are a subject of historical interest, but it
would be a mistake to say, as Halliwell-Phillipps has said of the Beelzebub,
that either of them is "a genuine descendant of the Vice."
Perhaps I should not have stayed to make these remarks, but they will, I
hope, direct attention to a phenomenon unique in the history of English
drama. The St. George play is an example of how a legendary miracle,
sacred in its origin, may pass into a folk drama of a national hero, and that
again degenerate into a mumming or dance; and how this, oblivious of the
original plot and finally of all fable, may first transform the saintly hero into
a performer in a sword dance, as in the Shetland play, and then, as in the
Revesby, eliminate even him and substitute a fool. Both literary career and
literary indignity of this kind have been escaped by the other national saint
of England, Edward the Confessor. In earlier days he figured in frequent
pageants, records of which are preserved, for instance, in the Old Leet Book
of Coventry, of the years 1456 and 1471, but he readily gave way to St.
George and disappeared from the dramatic horizon.

5. The Devil and the Vice

The nexus between the comic qualities of the miracle plays and those of
the morals cannot well be made without some discussion of the rôles of the
Devil and the Vice. The treatise which I have before cited,[44] and which
appears to me fairly conclusive, shows that the Devil of the English stage is
originally a creation, not of folk mythology, but of theology. He is concrete,
to be sure, in accordance with scriptural and legendary tradition, but in the
'mysteries' his character is almost entirely serious, not ludicrous, as appears
to be vulgarly reported. The association of the genuinely comic or satirical
with the conception of the Devil is first evident in later representations of
that character, and then only in the case of lesser denizens of the lower
world. The humorous scene in the Chester Harrowing between the demons
and the alewife abandoned in hell is, for instance, as Dr. Deimling has said,
a late interpolation. The Wakefield dramatist's contribution to the Judicium,
of Tutivillus and his ilk, is about the only diabolic humour in the miracles;
and that the satirical speech of the Coventry demon in the Conspiracy was a
still later borrowing from Tutivillus, I have but little doubt. To credit the
Devils of the earliest miracles with a tendency and an ability to criticise
manners and morals would be just as wrong as to attribute to them a
buffoonery which accrues only at a later date. Of the Mephistophelian style,
more serious than Chaucer's and more satirical than Langland's, we have no
historical trace before the witty Devil of Wakefield—or his maker. The
humour of the miracle Devils shows itself in bombastic, grotesque, or
abusive language, rather than in anything of comic utterance or incident.
The uproarious laughter caused, according to tradition, by this character
cannot, therefore, have depended upon the lines of the dramatist, except in
so far as those consist of threats, objurgation, profanity, and the like. There
is little in the asides of the printed page, or in the rare addresses of the Devil
to his audience, or the deportation of souls to hell[45] to account for
amusement. Rewfyn,[46] Rybald, and Tutivillus are the only humorous
devil-names in the five cycles of which we have been speaking; and of the
shouting and fireworks in which we are told the infernal spirits were wont
to indulge, we find scarcely any mention except in the plays concerning the
fall of the angels and the harrowing of hell. That the merriment of the
crowd was provoked by the appearance and antics of the Devil—that is to
say, by the improvisation of the actor—and his raids upon the spectators is

natural to infer. The dramatists themselves did not provide for close
association between the spirits of hell and living men. The Devil addresses
the audience but seldom, and then, perhaps, to threaten with his club. In
fact, the Devil of the old miracles, as we usually conceive him, is an
anachronism created by certain historians of the drama; the buffoon roaring,
pyrotechnic, and familiar, springs into prominence only with the Digby
plays, and is but slowly developed in the moral plays and interludes.
Though the aspiring angels of the York and Chester plays "go down" in
actual fact, and the Lucifer of the former cycle complains of heat and
smoke, there is no mention of hell-mouth in the account-books before 1557,
nor in the stage directions of the Digby[47] before we reach the Digby Paul
and Magdalene Mss. of about 1480-90; and even then the entries appear to
be the insertions of some later hand. In these plays the flames of hell-
mouth, the fireworks, and thunder are distinctive accessories of the Devil's
presence. Still, it is not in a miracle play after all, but in a moral—the
Castell of Perseverance (about 1400)—that the first stage direction of this
nature is found. In the transitional miracle morals, Paul, Wisdom,
Magdalene, the Devil by his own account as well as by stage direction
"rores and cries." He was abusive in the Castell of Perseverance; but in the
later morals or moral interludes he "rores and cries" for mere fun—in the
Lusty Juventus, for instance, the Disobedient Child, and All for Money.
Concerning the Devil even of this later birth, many false conceptions, due
to insufficient research, have obtained currency. It is commonly imagined
that he was the mainspring of the play, that he came into close contact with
human beings, that he represented phases of human character, that he was a
comical figure,—jester, or "roister," or butt,—and that he held some fixed
relation to the Vice, who was "his constant attendant," says Malone. But the
Devil was the principal personage only in the earliest of the morals that
survive, he rarely associated with mankind, and he assumed the human rôle,
such as that of judge or sailor, only once or twice.[48] In the moral plays not
more than four or five comic Devils are extant—the Titivillus of Mankynd,
the Beelzebub of the Nigromansir, the Lucifer of Like wil to Like, and the
Devil of All for Money; and the last of these is the only roysterer of the lot,
one of the very few to serve as butt for the Vice. Such jokes as that of the
Devil taking "a shrewd boy with him" from the audience in Wisdom are
interpolations, and it is only after the moral has passed its zenith that, as in

Like wil to Like and the early comedy Friar Bacon, the Devil carries off the
Vice-clown. As early as 1486-1500 the moral play, Nature,—called, when
printed in 1538, a goodly interlude,—dispenses with the Devil altogether,
and from that time on the character appears only in some half-dozen extant
plays of the kind and its derivatives, and is subordinate. Towards the end of
the sixteenth century, however, the Devil is revived, and in comedies of
concrete life and character he frequently swaggers as a blusterer or comic
personage: in Grim the Collier, for instance, in the Knack to know a Knave,
and Histrio-Mastix, as well as seventeenth-century plays like The Devil is in
It and The Devil is an Ass. I have said that his office in the genuine moral
was not comic, neither was it satirical. It consisted largely in directing or
commissioning his agents, the Vices. Professor Cushman, who makes this
statement, further points out that this conception of the Devil did not
develop in any popular sense, nor gain in variety in the English moral plays;
but that the case is altogether dissimilar in the German and French drama of
the same period, where the devils are not only numerous, but carefully
differenced as representatives of the various foibles of mankind,—a rôle
which was assumed in England, as we shall presently see, by the Vice.
Between the detached, and sometimes serious, Devil of the cycles and the
Vice of the moral plays, ever present, dominant and comical, concrete in
manifold person and guise, a middle or transitional position is occupied by
the fiend of the later miracle and the demon of the earlier moral. Examples
of the former are Tutivillus and his humorous associates in the Wakefield
Judicium, Lord Lucifer of the Coventry Council (who, like the Vice,
euphemizes his attendant Deadly Sins), the Prynse of Dylles of the
Magdalene, and the sailor devil of the Newcastle play; examples of the
latter are the gunpowder Belial of Perseverance, the intriguing Lucifer of
Wisdom, now in "devely aray," anon as a "prowde galaunt," the farcical and
efficient Titivillus of Mankynd, and Beelzebub, the judge and buffoon of the
Nigromansir. But though the demon of the morals bears some relation to his
predecessor of the miracles, he is not borrowed from the miracles. He
grows out of a common tradition.
Just as the Devil persists in spite of lapse and change through miracle
play, moral, and interlude into Elizabethan comedy, so the Vice, though he
did not obtain so early a footing upon the stage. There are previsions of him
in the later miracles and earlier morals; he flourished in the morals of the

middle period and the moral interludes, and there are traces of him in the
regular comedy. He disappeared only in deference to the differentiated
humours, follies, or vices of social life, of which no controlling Folly or
Vice may be regarded as the sole incarnation,—for in the culture of them
each of us indulges a genius of his own.
The term Vice is not used as the designation of a stock dramatic character
till the appearance of Heywood's Play of the Wether and Play of Love,
before or about 1532. It is next employed in Respublica, 1553, and Jacke
Jugeler, 1553-61. These and similar notices of that period, however, occur
only on title-pages of plays or in lists or stage directions. The earliest
mention of the Vice in the text of a play is found in King Darius, 1565. It is
not until 1567, with the Horestes, that we find the designation "used
consistently throughout, in the title, the list of players and the rubric."[49]
But whether the generic name of Vice was introduced by the authors of
these plays, or, as is more likely, by the actors, it was a well-known
designation of a stock figure, especially in the moral drama from 1530
onward; and from that time was used by publishers to advance the interest
of certain plays. Since, however, the idea of the Vice seems to be
inseparable from that of the moral play, the character had achieved a
prominence long before it was listed as a generic designation. Collier
defines the moral, or moral interlude, as "A drama the characters of which
are allegorical, abstract, or symbolical, and the style of which is intended to
convey a lesson for the better conduct of human life." And the differencing
quality of the moral is, as Mr. Pollard has said, "the contest between the
personified powers of good and evil for the possession of a human soul. As
the allegorical representatives of the good were the Seven Cardinal Virtues,
so the representatives of the evil were the Seven Deadly Sins and their
master the Devil." From these Seven Deadly Sins or Vices, the Vice par
excellence of the morals and interludes is without doubt descended. With
the opinion of Ward and Douce, however, that he is proved to be of native
English origin, I cannot unreservedly concur; nor with a statement in the
thesis to which I have already referred, that the Germans and French had no
Vice, but used instead the "differentiated" devil. Idleness, a Vice, though not
so called, appears in the French Bien-Avisé et Mal-Avisé (c. 1439), about as
early as any Vice appears in English drama; and the four confederates of the
Devil in L'Homme Pêcheur, Desperation, etc., perform the office, though
they have not the designation, of Vice. The Hypocrisie and Simonie of

Gringoire's attack upon L'Homme Obstiné (Julius II.), about 1512, are as
true representatives of the Vice as are the corresponding figures in The
Nigromansir, Thrie Estatis, Kyng Johan, Respublica and Conflict of
Conscience.
To understand the relations between the Vice and the moral play one
should turn, if there were opportunity, to the manifold representations of the
World, the Flesh, the Devil, the Seven Deadly Sins and similar allegorical
figures in mediæval literature of other kinds than the dramatic. It must
suffice here, however, to consider the relation of these characters to each
other in the later miracles and the earlier moral plays. In the pageants of the
Play of Paternoster the Seven Deadly Sins are represented. About the same
time, in the Wakefield cycle, they are already written on the rolls of the
Doomsday Demon, and discussed "in especiall" by Tutivillus. In the
Coventry Council of the Jews they are new-named by their Lord Lucifer
(after the manner of the later Vice), Pride as Honesty, Wrath as Manhood,
Covetousness as Wisdom, and so on. It is through the Seven Deadly Sins
that the Belial of St. Paul (Digby) "raynes"; and the Saint himself[50]
preaches against them in general and in several, calling them not only
mortal sins, but, as if the terms were synonymous, Vices and Folly. In the
Mary Magdalene they are not only personified, but, further, classified as
attendants upon their respective kings—Pride and Covetyse, ministers of
the World; Lechery, Gluttony, and Sloth, of the Flesh; Wrath and Envy, of
the Devil,—and as such they are sent into action. This distinction by classes
is interesting because it shows that from a very early date the Vice was
regarded as the servant, not of the Devil alone, but of the World and the
Flesh as well. And it will be noticed later that, while the minor Vices of the
moral interludes frequently bear the names of specific sins, the leading Vice
is still likely to be called by a name which sums up all the specific sins of
just one of these three satrapies of the Flesh, the World, the Devil,—
Sensuality for the first, Hypocrisy or Avarice for the second, and Sedition or
Riot for the third,—when he is not indicated by some synonym of Evil in
general, such as Folly, Sin, Iniquity, Inclination, or Infidelity. Gradually the
minor Vices pass into dramatic insignificance as compared with their
principal representative, who becomes the Vice in chief. The morals before
1500 or thereabouts had one or more of the following figures: Devil, the
World, the Flesh; and their representatives, the Vice and minor Vices or
Deadly Sins. Of these plays—Perseverance, Mankynd, Mary Magdalene,

Wisdom, Nature, and Everyman,—all but the last three display the complete
aggregation: Wisdom stars with only a Devil, Nature lacks a Devil, and
Everyman lacks both Devil and principal Vice. The morals of the middle
period, 1500 to 1560, generally eliminate the Devil and concentrate the
sins, temptations, and mischiefs in the Vice, sometimes with, sometimes
without, his foils, the minor Vices. In the Castell of Perseverance, about
1400, the Deadly Sins are "children of the Devil"; in The World and Child,
about 1506, they are expressly summed up in one Vice,—Folly; in Lusty
Juventus, Like wil to Like, and several other moral interludes after 1550, the
Vice parades as son or grandson to the Devil; and finally, about 1578, while
each of the minor Vices represents "one sin particularly," the Vice himself
embodies "all sins generally."
It must be sufficiently evident by this time that the derivation of this
name, in spite of a half-dozen misleading conjectures, is no other than that
which is obvious. I notice, however, that Mr. Pollard regards the etymology
from vitium as still doubtful, "because in one of the earliest instances in
which the Vice is specifically mentioned by name, he plays the part of Mery
Report, who is a jester pure and simple, without any connection with any of
the Deadly Sins." But the Vice or Folly had been known for two or three
centuries in allegorical and satirical literature, and for a century and a half
in the religious drama before 1530, and the designation had acquired a
supplementary and degraded connotation when used in the Wether, Jacke
Jugeler, etc., as a player's term or means of advertisement. About his
function and habits, also, various misconceptions have gathered. I have, for
instance, referred to Malone's statement that he was a constant attendant
upon the Devil. Nothing could be more misleading. The Devil appears in at
least two morals unattended by a Vice of any kind,[51] and the Vice appears
in twenty-five or thirty without a Devil. They appear together in but
eight[52] that I know of; and in only four[53] can the Vice be said to "attend."
That he eggs the demons on to twit or torment the Devil, I cannot discover
in more than two plays,—Like wil to Like, and All for Money. Since the
days of Harsnet and Ben Jonson it has been reported that the Vice of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries made a practice of riding to hell on the
Devil's back. But I have already pointed out that he does this in only one
play before 1580. The same Like wil to Like is the only play in which he
specifically "belabours the fiend." I know of no other in which that

merriment was even likely to occur. In fact most of these attributions
belong, not to the Vice of the morals and interludes, but to one of the later
substitutes for him, the Vice-clown, such as Miles in Friar Bacon, or
Iniquity in The Devil is an Ass.
A general view of his history shows, then, that the Vice is neither an
ethical nor dramatic derivative of the Devil; nor is he a pendant to that
personage, as foil or ironical decoy, or even antagonist. The Devil of the
early drama is a mythical character, a fallen archangel, the anthropomorphic
Adversary. The Vice, on the other hand, is allegorical,—typical of the moral
frailty of mankind. Proceeding from the concept of the Deadly Sins,
ultimately focussing them, he dramatizes the evil that springs from within.
Though at first directed by God's Adversary, who assails man with
temptations from without, the Vice is the younger contemporary of the
Devil rather than his agent. As he acquires personality, he assumes
characteristics and functions unknown to the Adversary, scriptural or
dramatic. The functions were gradually assimilated with those of mischief-
maker, jester, and counterfeit-crank; the characteristics, more and more
affected by the Fool-literature of Wireker, Lydgate, Brandt and Barclay,
Skelton, and the rest (which included vice in Folly, and by the Fool
connoted vicious characters in all variety), were insensibly identified with
social rather than abstract ethical qualities, and so came to be distributed as
tendencies or "humours" among the persons of the drama,—who
themselves are no longer allegorical, but representative of the concrete
individuals of everyday life. Though the conduct of the interlude Vice may
be anything but dignified, his function was, accordingly, at first serious. It
was only gradually, and as the conflict between good and evil was
supplanted by less didactic materials,—in other words, as the moral became
more of a play,—that the Vice grew to be farcical, a mischief-maker, and
ultimately jester. So long as he acts the seducer in disguise, and the marplot,
he remains dramatically supreme. When he, however, assumes the rôle of
parasite, counterfeit-crank, or simple, he enhances the variety of his
fascination at the expense of his distinctive quality; and when he once has
identified himself with the Will Summer, the actor, wag, or buffoon by
profession, he plays below the function and level of his pristine quality. The
Vice proper should, therefore, not be confounded with the Shakespearean
fool, nor with the country clown. The country clown or booby he in reality
never is; indeed, in some earlier manifestations[54] the clown exists

contemporaneously with the Vice, and is his natural though not always
complaisant quarry. Though the Vice, however, did not turn clown, the
clown imperceptibly usurped qualities of the vanishing Vice.
In connection with the misconception concerning the derivation of the
Vice from the domestic fool, of course incompatible with his descent from
the Deadly Sins, there lingers a report that he was ordinarily dressed in a
fool's habit. Such is the opinion of Klein[55] and Douce; and Morley[56]
writes, "The Vice, when not in disguise, wore—as Brandt or Barclay would
have thought most fitting—the dress of a fool." The dress of some typical
fool of everyday life, some social "crank,"—yes; but not until the latter
third of the sixteenth century, when the Vice was in his dotage, did he lose
himself in the habit of the domestic fool. The Vice "shaking his wooden
dagger," of whom Ben Jonson gives us a glimpse in The Devil is an Ass and
The Staple of News, is without doubt the domestic fool in the characteristic
long coat, or in the juggler's jerkin with false skirts. But we must remember
that Ben Jonson was writing some sixty or seventy years after the Vice
properly so called was in his prime. From 1450 to 1570 and later, the
distinctive Vice of the moralities was accoutred in the costume of his rôle,
first of a Deadly Sin or little "dylfe"; then of some social class, trade, or
type: messenger, herald, beggar, rat-catcher, priest, pharisee, gallant, dandy,
or 'cit.' Occasionally he assumed a succession of costumes according to this
dramatic necessity. He was indeed frequently equipped, in addition, with
horn spectacles and wooden dagger, and sometimes with a burlesque of
ceremonious attire,[57] or he was furnished with squibs and other fireworks,
[58]
or with hangman's rope or bridle. Professor Cushman surmises that he
was, even, sometimes made up like Punch, for instance, in Horestes and
Cambyses. I don't know about that, but of this we may be sure, that as a
Vice he was not distinguished by the traditional costume of the domestic
fool. That character, soon to play an important part in comedy, appropriated
certain tricks and aspects of the Vice, but the distinctive figure of the moral
drama did not proceed from or ape the domestic fool of contemporary life.
Oddly enough it has lately been asserted that this character had no part in
the 'morality' proper. An implication to the same effect is to be found in
Halliwell-Phillipps's notes to Witt and Wisdome as early as 1846, where he
says that "the Vice is the buffoon of the old moral plays which succeeded
the Reformation." The fact is that the Vice takes part in all the plays under

consideration, whether called morals proper or moral interludes, from 1400
to 1578, except only Wisdom of the pre-Reformation series and the
Disobedient Child of the post-Reformation. Two other of the thirty-odd
morals and moral interludes, namely, the Pride of Life and Everyman, resort
to a substitute. They distribute the rôle among minor representatives of the
World, Flesh, and Devil, but they do not dispense with the idea of the Vice.
[59]
From him proceeds most of the human interest of these earlier
comedies. Like the inclinations that he personifies, he is first sinful, then
venial, then amusing; and to his tradition the comedy of a later age owes
more than we are wont to suspect. It owes to him the development of
certain spiritual characteristics, a cynical but rollicking superiority to sham,
a freedom from the thrall of social and religious externality, a reckless joy
of living, but an aloofness, withal, and a humour requisite to the exercise of
satire. It is, indeed, as satirist sometimes virulent, but usually jocose, that
the Vice is most to be esteemed. In so far as the genial character of the
domestic fool of Green, Lodge, or Shakespeare reflected his irony and
shrewd wit, some memory of him survived; and the clown-Vice of Friar
Bacon renews a passage or two of his later career, but not every usurper of
his comic appanage, his mimicry, puns, irrelevance, and horse-play can lay
claim to be descended from the Vice.
The dramatic importance of this figure can therefore not be overrated. He
forms the callida junctura between religious and secular, didactic and
artistic, ideal and tangible, in our early comedy. He found a house of
correction and he left a stage. Garcios, Pilates, Doomsday demons, and
Maks precede, or flit beside him; but he, with his ancestral Sins, dependent
Follies, and succeeding Ironies and Humours, occupies the central and the
foremost place. Even while representing the superfluity of naughtiness with
an eye to its reprobation, he is the life of the 'moral,'—its apology for
artistic existence, its appeal to human interest. But when he steals a further
march and rounds up for ridicule the very components of the allegorical
drama that are most removed from laughter, and most liable thereto,—the
long-faced abstractions that regard the comic spirit as sinful and are
impervious to a joke,—he fulfils his destiny. He is the dramatic salt and
solvent of the moral play. At first it couldn't thrive without him; at last it
couldn't thrive with him. For, what raison d'être could a moral have that no
longer regarded the comic as immoral, knew a joke at sight, perhaps
adventured one on its own account? Step by step with the development of a

popular æsthetic interest in the affairs of common men the playwright
asserted his superiority to social and allegorical make-believes, and the Vice
proved his utility as a dramatic reagent. Once the Vice had gathered all sins
in himself, his career was from 'inclination' to 'humour,' from abstract to
concrete, from the moral to the typical, the one to the many, and so from the
service of allegory to that of interlude, moral and pithy, but merry, all in
preparation for farce, and social and romantic comedy.

6. The Relation between Miracle, Moral, and Interlude

An unfortunate misapprehension has obtained currency to the effect that
there was a deliberate transition, chronological and logical, from the
miracle cycle to the "morality," and thence to a something entirely different,
called the interlude; and it is supposed that definite advances in the
development of comedy were made pari passu with this transition. It is
even said, by one of the most genial and learned of English scholars, who of
course was not intending anything by way of scientific accuracy, at the
time, that "in the progress of the drama, Moralities followed Mysteries, and
were succeeded by Interludes. When folk tired of Religion on the Stage
they took to the inculcation of morality and prudence; and when this bored
them they set up Fun."[60] But the moral play[61] was rather a younger
contemporary and complement of the miracle than a follower, or a
substitute for it. Moreover, allegory in the acted drama commanded the
attention of the public contemporaneously with the scriptural plays of the
later fourteenth century; in literature it had occupied attention long before.
People, therefore, did not wait until they were tired of religion upon the
stage, before taking to the inculcation of morality; nor could they have
hoped to escape religion by any such substitute. Moral plays, like plays
which were originally liturgical, aimed at religious instruction. But as the
scriptural-liturgical illustrated the forms of the church service and its
narrative content, the moral illustrated the sermon and the creed. The
former dealt with history and ritual, the latter with doctrine; the former
made the religious truth concrete in scriptural figures and events, the latter
brought it home to the individual by allegorical means. The historical
course of the drama was not from the scriptural play to the allegorical, but
from the collective miracle and collective moral, practically contemporary,
to the individual miracle and individual moral. The dramatic quality of the

moral was, as we shall presently remark, not the same as that of the miracle,
but it neither supplanted nor fully supplemented that of the miracle.
The distinction between 'morality' and 'interlude' has likewise been
unduly and illogically emphasized. The former term may properly be said to
indicate the content and aim of a drama; the latter, its garb and occasion; but
the essential characters of the moral play, the human hero and the
representatives of good and evil contending for his soul, may be common to
interlude and 'morality' alike, and both terms may with justice refer to the
same drama. After 1500 the rôle of hero is, to be sure, sometimes filled by
an historical character, or by one or mere concrete personages
representative of a type; but it must not be supposed that the play
possessing such a hero is therefore to be called an interlude, for similar
heroes are to be found in the morals before 1500. Nor should the statement
be accepted that morals are distinguished from interludes by the presence in
the former of both Devil and Vice; for several interludes of a later date have
both Devil and Vice, while some of the earlier morals, written before 1500,
have but one or the other of these characters, or neither.[62] The attempt to
characterize the moral by its professed didactic intent, and the interlude by
the lack thereof or the profession of mirth, is equally unavailing; for that
manifest moral, the Pride of Life, one of the earliest extant, makes explicit
promise in its prologue "of mirth and eke of kare" from "this our game";
while Mankynd, a moral of 1461 to 1485, which advertises no amusement,
is as full of it as any late interlude. On the other hand, several plays written
after 1568, calling themselves "comedies or enterludes," and promising
brevity and mirth, are tedious. But, for the advertisement, sub-title, or
specification of the play we must of course hold the publisher, and not the
author, generally responsible. The common belief that 'moralities' were
succeeded by 'interludes' is probably due in large part to the fact that
'interlude' has been used in England at different periods for entirely
different kinds of entertainment, some of which, notably that to which
Collier in 1831 restricted the term,—the play after the style of Heywood,—
were of later production than the moral. But other kinds of 'interlude' date
back to 1300, and precede the first mention of the moral play; while later
kinds include the moral, and finally are synonymous with any humorous
and popular performance. Collier's restriction of the term was, therefore,
unfortunate. It interpreted a genus as a species; for, although the interlude
was originally any short entertainment, occupying the pauses between

graver negotiations of the palate or intellect, it had, in the course of its
history, acquired a significance almost as broad as 'drama' itself. The
interlude was of various form and content and covered many species. As
farce, the interlude anticipated moral plays; as allegorical drama, it
absorbed them; and as comedy, it is their younger contemporary. It is not
merely the play after the style of John Heywood. It is long or short;
religious, moral, pedagogic, political, or doctrinal; scriptural, allegorical, or
profane; classical or native; imaginative or reproductive of the
commonplace; stupid or humorous; satirical or purely comic. It seems to
me, therefore, unwise to perpetuate a distinction between moral plays and
interludes which was not recognized by those who wrote and heard the
plays in question.
The reduction of the number of actors, the abbreviation of the play, the
concentration of the plot, wherever these exist in the later morals or moral
interludes, are not evidence of a change of kind, but merely of a natural
evolution through a period of some two hundred years. When ten Brink
says that the interlude was the species best adapted to further the
development of dramatic art, we must understand by interlude the
individual, as opposed to the collective drama,—or the occasional
performance by professionals for the delectation, and sometimes at the
order, of private persons or parties, as opposed to expository or perfunctory
plays, plays manipulated by crafts, or associated with times, places, and
ends external to art. The improvement in scope and elasticity which marks
the individual play is due to various causes: to patronage, which prefers
amusement to instruction, and the work of artists to that of journeymen; to
the development accordingly of a bread-and-butter profession of acting,
with its accompanying stimuli of necessity and opportunity. Poetic
invention, dramatic constructiveness and style, are sometimes spurred by
hunger; they are always responsive to the appreciation of the cultivated, and
maybe to the reward.

7. The Older Morals in their Relation to Comedy

The remaining dramas within the compass of this survey may be
considered in the following order: first, the older morals and moral
interludes, between the years 1400 and 1520; second, various experiments

of native and foreign, classical and romantic, origin which distinguish a
period of transition extending approximately from 1520 to 1553; and, third,
some nine or ten plays of prime importance which succeed these and unite,
in one way or another, qualities of structure and aim hitherto distinctive of
separate dramatic kinds. The period during which these plays, which I shall
venture to call polytypic, were produced, roughly coincides with the years
1545 to 1566, and among these plays are the first English comedies really
worthy of the name. We must then notice a group of rudimentary survivals,
some of which, falling between 1550 and 1570, illustrate simply an
artificial adaptation of the 'moral' species, while other few, appearing
between 1553 and 1580, are a persistent flowering of the decadent stock,
fruitless in kind but genuine in comic quality. We shall finally pass in brief
review the crude romantic plays of morals or intrigue or popular tradition
written between 1570 and 1590. And if it were not for lack of space, we
should also glance at the satirical comedies which appeared when
Shakespeare was beginning and Greene was ceasing; but, so far as possible,
I must omit all subjects to which any consideration has elsewhere been
accorded in this volume.
A sympathetic examination of the older morals—those that were
produced before 1520—will reveal, even though the period is
comparatively early, a twofold character of composition. We find, on the
one hand, plays interpretative of ideals of life, constructive in character,
relying upon the fundamentally allegorical, and making principally for a
didactic end. We find, on the other hand, plays that deal with the actual have
a critical aim, reproduce appearances and manners, and tend toward the
amusing and satirical.
Of the half-dozen morals that made for the development of constructive
or interpretative comedy, one of the earliest (about 1400) and most
important was the Castell of Perseverance. In the quality of its dramatic
devices it sustains a close relation to the Digby Magdalene,—the siege of
the Castell by the Seven Deadly Sins, and their repulse under the roses
which the Virtues have discharged. It also makes use of characters already
prominent in the eleventh Coventry play, the Pax and Misericordia, who
there, as here, intercede for mankind. Collier calls this a well-constructed
and much varied allegory, and says with good reason that its completeness
indicates predecessors in the same kind. It is itself an early treatment of a

fruitful theme, variously handled in later plays like Marlowe's Doctor
Faustus, and in narratives like The Holy War. Though the abstractions are
not of a highly dramatic character, still one or two of them,—for instance
Detractio, the Vice, who is a cousin of the Coventry Backbiter, and of
Invidia, "who dwellyth in Abbeys ofte," foreshadow the comedy of manners
and satire, that is to say, the comedy of criticism. Other morals or moral
interludes of the constructive kind, which I must forbear to describe, even
though they contributed in one way or another to the improvement of
dramatic consciousness or skill, are the Pride of Life, of antiquity perhaps
as high as the preceding; the Wisdom that is Christ, 1480-1490, a comedy in
the mediæval sense, insomuch as it portrays the ultimate triumph of a hero
in his contest with temptation; Mundus et Infans, printed 1522, but written
perhaps by the beginning of the century, which, beside giving us a vivid
satirical picture of low life, makes a twofold contribution to the technique
of comedy,—an iteration of crises in plot, and a sequence of changes in the
character of the hero; Skelton's Magnyfycence, 1515-1523, significant for
"vigour and vivacity of diction," and his Nigromansir, written somewhat
earlier, which, though now lost, appears by Warton's account to have
contributed, by its attack upon ecclesiastical abuses, to the beginnings of
satirical comedy; the Moralle Play of the Somonynge of Everyman, printed
before 1531, but of uncertain date of composition,—a tragedy to be sure,
but "one of the most perfect allegories ever formed." All these, even when
not purposively comic or even entertaining, assist the dramatic presentation
of an imaginative ideal; occasionally also, though less directly, they
contribute to dramatic satire and the portrayal of manners.
Of moral plays written before 1520 that contributed to the comedy of real
life and critical intent we still have three or four. Mankynd—somewhere
between 1461 and 1485—is of prime importance to the comedy of the
actual, for practically its only claim to consideration as an allegorical or
didactic production is that it maintains the plan and purpose of the moral
play. Its dramatic tendency is altogether away from the abstract. In spite of
its stereotyped Mercie and Myscheff, its minor Vices, and its Devil, it is a
somewhat coarse but amusing portrayal of the manners of contemporary
ne'er-do-weels. Attach no more meaning to the names Newgyse, Nowadays,
and Nowte than the chuckling audience did, or change them to Huntyngton
of Sanston, Thuolay of Hanston, and Pycharde of Trumpyngton, and you
perceive at once that the individuality, conversation, and behaviour of these

characters, and even of the hero, when he is not "holyer than ever was ony
of his kyn," are hardly less natural and concrete than those of Englishmen
immortalized by Heywood, Udall, and William Stevenson. The plot, to be
sure, is dramatically futile, the incidents farcical, the merriment anything
but refined; but there are few merrier successors of the Wakefield Tutivillus
than his namesake here, who, coming "invysybull," cometh for all that
"with his legges under him" and "no lede on his helys" to inform the
sanctimonious hero that "a schorte preyere thyrlyth hewyn" and the
audience that "the Devil is dead." Like the devil-judge of the Nigromansir
and the devil-sailor of the Shipwrights' Play, he has shaken off his biblical
conventions (if he ever had any), he associates familiarly with characters of
all kinds, and is marked by his grotesque devices as a wilful worker of
confusion, the marplot of the play. The dog-Latin of the Vice Myscheff
stands half-way between that of the Wakefield plays and that of Roister
Doister and Thersytes; and the Sam Wellerisms of Newgyse are a fine
advance in the reproduction of the vulgar. His "Beware! quod the goode-
wyff, when sche smot of here husbondes hede," and his "Quod the Devill to
the frerys," and other gayeties perilous to quote—there is something
Rabelaisian in all this. So Nowte and Nowadays, with their racy idioms,
their variegated oaths, and "allectuose ways," are to the manner born,
neither new nor old; they are of the picaresque drama that finds a welcome
in every age and land. It is worth while to notice also the parallelism of
crudity and progress in the technical devices of the action: on the one hand,
the exchange of garments by which a change of motive is symbolized, a
ruse that only gradually yields to the manifestation of character by means of
action; and on the other hand, the legitimate and dramatic parody of a scene
in court.
The concrete element so noteworthy in Mankynd is further developed in
the "Goodly Interlude of Nature, compylyde by" Archbishop Morton's
chaplain, Henry Medwall, between 1486 and 1500. This author must have
possessed a remarkably vivid imagination, or have enjoyed a closer
acquaintance than might be expected of one of his cloth with the seamy side
of London; for there are few racier or more realistic bits of description in
our early literature than the account given by Sensuality of Fleyng Kat and
Margery, of the perversion of the hero by the latter, and of her retirement
when deserted to that house of "Strayt Religyon at the Grene Freres
hereby," where "all is open as a gose eye." Though the plot is not

remarkable, nor the mechanism of it, for almost the only device availed of
is that of feigned names, still the author's insight into the conditions of low
life, his common sense, his proverbial philosophy, his humorous exhibition
of the morals of the day, and his stray and sudden shafts at the foibles of his
own religious class, would alone suffice to attract attention to this work.
And even more remarkable than this in the history of comedy is Medwall's
literary style: his versification excellent and varied, his conversations witty,
idiomatic, and facile. Indeed, he is so far beyond the ordinary convention
that he writes the first bit of prose to be found in our drama.
Several of the characteristics of Mankynd are carried forward also in the
moral "interlude," named, not for its hero Free Will, but for its Vice,
Hyckescorner. It appears to have been written between 1497 and 1512. The
upper limit of production is fixed by the reference to Newfoundland, and
perhaps by the fact that in the same year Locher's translation of the
Narrenschiff appeared; the lower limit by the mention of the ship Regent,
which would not probably have been referred to as existing after 1512.[63]
Indeed, the mention of the ship James may associate the lower limit with
1503, the date of the Scotch marriage. The tendency of this moral is
distinctively didactic,—to denounce the folly that scoffs at religion,—but in
quality it smacks more of comedy than any preceding play. Its value was
long ago acknowledged by Dr. Percy. "Abating the moral and religious
reflections and the like," says he, "the piece is of a comic cast, and contains
a humorous display of some of the vices of the age. Indeed, the author has
generally shown so little attention to the allegorical that we need only to
substitute other names to his personages, and we have real characters and
living manners." The plot is insignificant, but the situations are refreshingly
humorous, and one of them, the setting of Pity in the stocks, is new. The
local references are frequent, and the dialogue is more sprightly than even
that of Nature. Hyckescorner is in many ways the model of another
important play of which we shall soon have reason to speak, the Interlude
of Youth.
While the plot of the New Interlude and Mery of the Nature of the Four
Elements, calls for no special notice, it interests us because in purpose it is
not moral, but scientific, and in conduct makes use of comic and
commonplace means not previously availed of. The humour proceeds not
simply from the jumble of oaths, nicknames, proverbs, gibes, bad puns,

transparent jokes, mimicry, Sam Wellerisms, and nugae canorae of which
the talk of most Vices consists, but from the cleverly managed verbal
misunderstanding between the Vice and the Taverner, the irrelevant
question, and the humorous employment of snatches and tags from popular
songs. The introduction of a character representing a trade, such as that of
the Taverner, who enumerates sixteen kinds of wine, and "by his face seems
to love best drinking," is, of course, novel, but is not without precedent in
the miracle plays. This interlude was printed in 1519 by its author, John
Rastell, evidently soon after it was written.
When we consider that the Four Elements was written by a friend of Sir
Thomas More, and that, like the plays of John Heywood, another of More's
friends, it depends for much of its effect upon its gibes at womankind, we
are, perhaps, assisted in realizing the extent to which the literary taste of the
day still indulged in this primitive form of amusement, and the distance
which was yet to be covered before comedy could safely avail itself of the
feminine element as it is,—witty and practical, as well as tender,—and so
prepare to fulfil its peculiar function as the conserver of society. For, until it
recognizes that women constitute the social other-half, the comic spirit has
not come into full possession of its possibilities; it has not produced
comedy, for it has not given us a full and undistorted reflex of life. This is a
fact so rarely considered that I cannot refrain from quoting Mr. George
Meredith. "Comedy," he says, in his excellent essay on its Idea—"comedy
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.... The heroines of
comedy are like women of the world, not necessarily heartless for being
clear-witted: they seem so to the sentimentally reared only for the reason
that they use their wits, and are not wandering vessels crying for a captain
or a pilot. Comedy is an exhibition of their battle with men, and of men
with them: and as the two, however divergent, both look on one object,
namely, life, the gradual similarity of their impressions must bring them to
some resemblance. The comic poet dares to show us men and women
coming to this mutual likeness; he is for saying that, when they draw
together in social life, their minds grow liker; just as the philosopher
discerns the similarity of boy and girl, until the girl is marched away to the
nursery." Of course, if the ways of man and maid in society ever grew to be
exactly alike, comedy would die of inanition. Consequently, though I say

that comedy requires for the sexes equality of social privilege, I do not
mean identity. The synalœpha of the sexes—such as some extremists,
political and pedagogical, project—would just as surely destroy comedy as
in former days the inequality of the sexes dwarfed it. The sentimental and
romantic give-and-take is as essential to society as the intellectual, and as
essential to comedy as to society.

8. The Dramatic Contribution of the Older Morals

Before discussing the period of transition upon which comedy now
enters, it will be advantageous to determine, if possible, what contributions
to the methods of comedy should be credited distinctively to this moral or
moral interlude during the years that preceded the change, that is, from
1380 to 1520. Certainly not the introduction of the separate play, as is
frequently supposed, nor the substitution of immediate and familiar
interests for those that were remote, nor of the invented plot for the
traditional, and the significant for the spectacular. Though some of these
features distinguish the evolution of the allegorical play, one and another of
them is also to be recognized at as early a period, or earlier, in those forms
of the drama, kindred and unrelated, that I have already described,—the
miracle, the saint's play, the farce, and the secular festival play. I should say
that, so far as the materials of drama are concerned, the advances peculiar to
the allegorical play were, from the use of the scriptural dramatis persona,
frequently instrumental and therefore wooden, to the use of the dynamic;
and from the historical or traditional individual to the representative of a
type. These are substitutions important to our subject, for, that the
individual should come to the front is, as ten Brink has well said, a
characteristic of tragedy, whereas in comedy it is the typical that is
emphasized, to the end that in an example which is typical the follies of the
age may be liberally, and at the same time impersonally, embodied and
chastised. By virtue of its didactic purpose and its allegorical form,
moreover, the moral play must ascribe to its dramatis personæ adequate
motives of action. It therefore must and does make an attempt, even though
rude, at the preservation of psychological probability in the analysis and
development of these motives. Once the dramatic person has been labelled
with the name of a quality, not as appraised from without and denoted by a
patronymic common to dozens beside himself, but from within and

specified by his ethonymic (if I may coin the word), he is no longer a
chance acquaintance of the dramatist or the public, but the representative of
an ethical family. In the moral play the characters stand for or against some
convention,—educational, ethical, political, religious,—that is to say, social
in the broadest sense. With the advent of such characters, therefore, the
social drama receives an impulse. Its hero serves to justify or to satirize an
institution; for that end he exists. And therefore in the handling of motives
the moral makes a genuine advance in the direction of comedy, both critical
and ideal.
We notice next that the author of this kind of drama finds it necessary to
devise situations for exploiting the idiosyncrasies of his principal
characters; and that, even though the characters be disguised as
abstractions, the friction of what is dynamic with what is real results in
something vivid and concrete. I do not mean to say that the dramatist has
learned how to develop character, but how to display or manifest it. Skill in
the portrayal of character in process of growth came but slowly, and with
the passage of the allegorical play into the drama of real life. As to the
portrayal of motives and emotions in their complexity, that is an art much
more refined, to which the writers of the moral never attained, even though
they enriched their abstractions with borrowings from theologians,
philosophers, and poets, for in dealing with abstractions at all they were
dealing with life at second hand. Indeed, complex characters can hardly be
found in English drama before the various tentative dramatic species had
merged themselves in the polytypic plays with which comedy, properly so
called, made its appearance. The allegorical dramatists found also, like the
writers of the later miracle and farce, that critical situations demanded plain
language and unsophisticated manners; and if, in these respects, the realism
of the moral excels that of the earlier miracle, it is perhaps because of the
superior dynamic quality of the moral dramatis persona.
Mr. Courthope and other writers on the drama have conjectured that the
improvement characteristic of the allegorical playwright was one to which
he was driven of necessity, namely, the introduction, and consequently the
invention, of a continuous plot. But there was nothing new in the invention
of plot. The novelty, if any, was in the distinctively comic nature of the plot-
movement most suitable to the purpose of this kind of drama. In tragedy,
the movement must be economic of its ups and downs: once headed

downward, it must plunge, with but one or two vain recovers, to the abyss.
In comedy, on the other hand, though the movement is ultimately upward,
the crises are more numerous; the oftener the individual stumbles without
breaking his neck, and the more varied his discomfitures, so long as they
are temporary, the better does he enjoy his ease in the cool of the day.
Tragic effects may be intense and longer drawn out, but they must be few;
in comedy, the effects are many, sudden, fleeting, kaleidoscopic. You can
enjoy a long, delicious shudder, but not a long-spun joke, or a joke
frequently repeated, or many jokes of the same kind. Hence the peculiar
movement of the plot in comedy. Now, the novelty of the plot in the moral
play, lay in the fact that the movement was of this oscillating, upward kind,
—a kind unknown as a rule to the miracle, whose conditions were less
fluid, and to the farce, which was too shallow and superficial. The heart of
the 'moral' hero was a battleground; as in comedy, the interest was in the
vicissitudes of the conflict and the certainty of peace. Though the purpose
of the moral play was didactic and reformatory, its doctrine was optimistic
and its end to encourage; and one of the distinctive contributions of the
moral play to the English comedy was the movement suitable to these
conditions, not the introduction of a continuous or connected plot. When
Mr. Courthope further speaks of the moral plays as if they were the sole link
of connection between the later miracle plays and the regular drama, and
implies that the "morality" was unique in its introduction of a leading
personage, who may be called the hero of the play, he is attributing to it
qualities that existed in contemporary species of the dramatic kind. As to
the statement that the moral play arose, as if a new kind of play, from some
modification of the miracle play, on the one hand by secular and comic
interests, and on the other by allegorical motives and materials, I think that
sufficient has been elsewhere said in this article to show that secular and
comic interests existed in the miracle play without altering its essence, both
before and after the moral had come into prominence, and that allegorical
motives and materials had developed themselves into the moral pageant and
play before the miracle was visibly affected by them.

9. The Period of Transition: Farce and Romantic Interlude

The period of experimentation or transition, which may be said to extend
from 1520 to 1553, is characterized especially by the gradual abandonment

of allegorical machinery and abstract material. The forward movement is, of
course, primarily due to the change from the mediæval attitude of mind to
that of the renaissance, from artificial thought whose medium, the symbol,
succeeded in concealing more than it expressed, to experience. Of the social
and political conditions which prepared the way for the transition so far as
English comedy is concerned or that shaped comedy once on its way, I
cannot here speak, but the following would appear among purely literary
antecedents: First, the French sotties and farces, the technical and satirical
qualities of which were a stimulus to invention, not only in England, but in
Italy and Germany; second, the disputations and debats, veritable
whetstones of wit and a polish of words ad unguem; third, the collateral
development of a farce interlude in England, composed in Latin and
English, probably also in Norman French, but generally spontaneous, and
wholly unforced; fourth, the adaptation to dramatic and satirical purposes of
contes, fabliaux, novelle, and their English translations and congeners,—
more especially the Chaucerian episode with its concrete characters and
contemporary manners; fifth, the movement of native romance urged during
the fifteenth and earlier sixteenth centuries by contact with Spanish and
Italian ideals and their fictions of character, adventure, and intrigue; sixth,
the discipline of Plautine and Terentian models, and of the Latin and
vernacular comedies which imitated them, as well as of the Latin school
plays which flourished in Holland and Germany during the latter half of the
fifteenth century; and seventh, the examples set by Kirchmayer and other
German controversialists in the attempted adaptation of the moral play to
historical or quasi-historical conditions with a view to satirical ends.
The plays that call for consideration in this section and the next may be
classified roughly as farces, romantic interludes, school interludes, and
controversial morals. Each of these kinds reaches a culmination
conformable to its nature, within the limits that I have chosen for the
period; and each has its own place in the history of comedy. For it must not
be supposed that, because a pastoral farce like the Mak did not develop into
independent existence, or because moral interludes gradually exhausted
their career towards the end of the sixteenth century, such species had no
influence in maturing English comedy. The peculiar quality and charm of
our comedy is that, deriving from sources not only distinct, but remote in
literary habitat,—scriptural, allegorical, farcical, pastoral, romantic,
classical, historical, or purely native and social,—it has not dissipated itself

in a thousand streamlets, but has carried down deposits from each tributary
at its best. In Love's Labor's Lost, Two Angry Women, As You Like It, Old
Wives' Tale, Every Man in His Humour, we find, as in a miner's pan,
'colours' from vastly different soils.
Of the indebtedness of comedy to the parody of religious festivals I have
already spoken, and I have little doubt that at later periods English comedy
continued to draw devices, if not inspiration, from performances whose
occasion was a revolt against the straitness of religion. One, at least, of the
interludes of John Heywood is closely similar to the French Farce de
Pernet, and that such farces were, in motive, first a gloss upon the lessons
of the divine service, then a diversion, and finally a factor in the extra-
ecclesiastical Feast of Fools, any reader of Petit de Julleville will readily
concede. It is impossible that the comic features and comic characters of the
farces acted by the clercs de la Basoche, such as that of the immortal Maître
Pathelin, should not have affected the dramatic invention of contemporary
and succeeding Englishmen, conversant as many of them were with the
literature and society of France. And a like effect might naturally be
expected to have been exercised by the sotties of the contemporary enfants
sans souci; for, through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, drama of that
kind convulsed the sides of merrymakers south of the Channel. Such were
the occasion and motive of farces and sotties. So far as they employed the
plot of domestic intrigue for their purposes of satire, I have little doubt that
they drew freely upon the Latin elegiac comedies of which I have already
spoken as the favourite dramatic species of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. The Farce de Pernet has connection with more than one of those
imitations of Terentian intrigue. It has, also, like many of its kind and of
elegiac comedies as well, a kinship with one and another popular tale. The
church, then, seems to have furnished the opportunity for these farces, and
for some as an object of satire the motive; the contes and fabliaux of the
twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries furnished much of the material;
Latin comedy, its mediæval and renaissance successors, cannot have failed
to influence the form.
It will be, of course, recalled that as early as the Mak of the Towneley
plays, a farce which is not unworthy of comparison with Maître Pathelin,
the English Interludium de Clerico et Puella, probably of the thirteenth
century, also indicated an acquaintance with the technique of the farce

species. Undoubtedly such interludes were a common feature at
entertainments of various kinds, and had matured in the ordinary course
into fixed form. But they were frequently extemporaneous, were written for
fleeting occasions, and might readily be lost. I am inclined therefore, to
look upon the dramatized anecdotes assigned to Heywood as lucky
survivals of a form which, since it had been long cultivated both in England
and France, may have attained to a degree of excellence before he took it
up. The resemblance of these farces to the French is often such that, as M.
Jusserand says, one cannot but question whether Heywood had not some of
the old French dramas of the type in his hands. Since Mr. Pollard has
discussed the question in this volume, it is unnecessary for me to pursue it
farther. In any case, it is to the honour of Heywood that he brought to focus
the characteristic qualities of the Chaucerian episode, the farce and the
dramatic debate. "This I write," says he, "not to teach, but to touch." In his
work, accordingly, we find narratives of single and independent interest, if
not exactly plot, and an adaptation of that which is abstract to purposes of
amusement. We find characters with motive, and sometimes personality,
contemporary manners, witty dialogue, satire; and in at least the Play of
Love, an adumbration of the sentimental, dare we say romantic, possibilities
of comedy, to be realized when it should have thrown allegory and
scholasticism to the winds. The Laundress in the Wether envisages
fleetingly the straits of life and the recompense; and in the Play of Love, the
personification of various phases of that passion is a kind of glass through
which we darkly divine the motives of many later comedies. There is,
however, with the single exception of the Vice's trick in Love, no action
which can be called dramatic in Heywood's undoubted plays; for, as Mr.
Pollard reminds us, the Pardoner and Johan, although they avail themselves
of "business" in order to develop a plot, have not the significance of
comedy proper.
To understand the nature of the movements that follow we must recur,
though with the utmost brevity, to the history of later Latin comedy. The
comic recitals of the twelfth century and thereabout were succeeded by the
comedy of the Italian humanists, still in Latin, but dramatic in form and
apparently in intent, which, though it availed itself, like the elegiac school,
of the outworn situations and devices of scabrous amours, contributed
considerably to the enrichment of the romantic strain by the passion with
which it invested its material, sometimes, also, to the cause of realism by its

unconscious, though often repulsive, accuracy of detail. Although Plautus is
to some extent cultivated, the Terentian model was still the favourite with
youthful imitators until study of the older poet was revived by the recovery
of the twelve lost plays and their introduction to Roman circles in 1427. The
Philologia of Petrarch's earlier years is accordingly fashioned in the style of
Terence, and is even reported, for it is unfortunately lost, to have surpassed
its classical forbears. Written about 1331, it was the first product of the new
dramatic school, and was succeeded by a numerous train of ambitious
effusions,—university plays we might call most of them,—a few witty,
some sentimental, many libidinous, all very young, and still all, or nearly
all, cleverly and regularly constructed. It concerns us here but to mention
the Paulus of Vergerio, which Creizenach dates 1370, Aretino's Poliscene,
about 1390, Alberti's Philodoxeos, 1418, Ugolino's Philogena, some time
before 1437, and Piccolomini's Crisis, 1444.[64] Of these erotic comedies,—
pornographic were perhaps a more fitting term,—the most popular seems to
have been the Philogena; the most eminent, according to Creizenach (but I
don't see why), the Crisis. The Paulus pretends to aim at the improvement
of youth; one might for a moment imagine that it was intended to be a
prodigal son play. But in none of these plays is there either punishment or
repentance. In fact the unaffected verve with which they display the
wantonness of life is not the least of their contributions to comedy. The
Poliscene is notable for its modernity of manners and of morals. The sole
instance among these plays, so far as I can ascertain, of noble sentiment and
harmless plot is the Philodoxeos. The use of abstract names for the
characters lends it, indeed, somewhat the appearance of a moral interlude.
Of much greater value, however, in the history of the acted drama, and of
closer bearing upon the English comedy, were the representations of Plautus
and Terence, first in the Latin and ultimately in the vernacular, which
marked the last quarter of the fifteenth century in the courts of northern
Italy. These in turn were but stepping-stones towards such dramatic
dialogues as the Timone of Bojardo, 1494, and the still more significant
experiments of Ariosto and Bibbiena—the first romantic comedies in prose
and in the native tongue. The authors of the Suppositi (acted in 1509) and
the Calandria (written in 1508, but not presented till six years later) derive
much from Roman sources, but in general these comedies and their like
were original. Their influence upon our own plays of romantic intrigue will
presently appear. So, likewise, will that of a Spanish work, of even earlier

date, the dramatic novel of Calisto and Melibœa; for this tragic production
of Cota and De Rojas is the source of our first English romantic drama. The
connection between other forms of Italian drama, the Commedia dell'arte,
the pastoral drama, etc., and the later stage in western Europe has been ably
discussed by Klein, Moland, Symonds, and Ward; and to them I must refer
the reader of this more summary account.
The decade that saw the first of Heywood's virile plays was probably that
which welcomed to England the ebullient, un-English passions of a
dramatic species destined to develop the native stock in a far different
manner. "A new commodye in englyshe, in maner of an enterlude,"
ordinarily called Calisto and Melibœa, is the earliest romantic play of
intrigue in our language. It was "caused to be printed" by that excellent
promoter of the dramatic art, John Rastell, about 1530, and was written—
perhaps by him—not long before. The appellation "commodye" had been
used during the same decade with reference to the English translation of the
Andria (about 1520-29); it is here used for the first time on the title-page of
an English play. And this interesting interlude may, indeed, well be called
both English and comedy; for though it derives from romance sources (the
Spanish dramatic composition by Fernando de Rojas, before 1500), and is
affected by the Italian, it does not follow exactly the plot of its original; and
though it is "reduced to the proportions of an interlude," it treats of an idea
not farcical, but significant, and it develops the motives of real characters,
by way of action, passion, and intrigue, to a happy conclusion within the
realm of convention and common sense. It is, indeed, a comedy, perhaps
our first well-rounded comedy, though in miniature. The Secunda Pastorum
it excels in singleness of aim; the Pardoner and Frere and the Johan, in
meaning for life. It excels all preceding interludes in the fulfilment of the
purpose, now for the first time announced in English drama, "to shew and
to describe as well the bewte and good propertes of women as theyr vyces
and evyll condicions." For the first time since plays became secular, women
are introduced, not as the objects of scurrility and ridicule, but as dramatic
material of an æsthetic, moral, and intellectual value equal to that of men.
What the author of Johan did for the amusing and real action desirable in a
comedy, the author of this play did for vital characterization and passion.
Melibœa is the first heroine of our romantic comedy; she is so fair that for
her lover there is "no such sovereign in heaven, though she be in earth." She
is, if the play was written before the Play of Love, our earliest heroine

"loved, not loving." She is a woman and pitiful and to be wooed; frail and
repentant; but then indignant and not to be won. Calisto is, likewise, our
first lover in despair. This element of woman worship—not worship of the
Blessed Virgin or traditional interest in the Magdalene or any other saint—
is no slight contribution to the material of comedy. The intrigue of the play,
—the foils of character and action, the go-betweens, the plot within plot
introduced by Celestina, her realistic account of Sempronio's character, her
device of the "girdle," the mysterious agency of the dream,—no better
indication of romantic tendency can be detected until we reach Redford's
play of Wit and Science, of which presently. But first, and that we may keep
in mind the parallelism of dramatic tendencies in this momentous first half
of the sixteenth century, let us turn to another stream, that of the school
interludes and the classical influence.

10. The Period of Transition: School Interlude and
Controversial Moral

During the fifteenth century, and the early sixteenth, influences of
importance to English comedy proceed not from the literature of Italy and
Spain alone. In northern Europe additions most significant to the history of
the type were making. To the crop of French sotties, moralités, and farces I
have already referred. The German Reuchlin in 1498 put forth a roaring
Latin comedy called the Henno, which, in modern Terentian style,
embodied the chicaneries of Pathelin. About the same time the Germans
began to make the acquaintance, through translations in their own tongue,
of highly flavoured Italian Latin plays like the Poliscene and the
Philogenia; while those of them who cared not for such things were
favoured with a recrudescence of the Christian Terence school. In 1507 the
young humanist, Kilian Reuter, in imitation of the nun of Gandersheim,
produced in Latin his pious comedy depicting the passion of St. Dorothea.
In Holland, meanwhile, were springing into existence the Latin prototypes
of more than one of our own didactic interludes; for in the comedia sacra
the attempt was made to combine the intrigue of the Italian university play
with the moral of the prodigal son and the technique of the Terentian drama.
The more important of these plays of the prodigal son, in respect of
influence upon English comedy, are the Asotus of Macropedius, written
before 1529, and his Rebelles, 1535, the Acolastus of Gnapheus, 1529, and

the Studentes of Stymmelius, 1549. The most dramatic of them are the
second and third as mentioned. The Acolastus, indeed, translated into
English by Palsgrave in 1540, exerted a long-enduring influence upon our
drama. To the same period belong also a species of biblical comedies
dealing with heroes, like the Joseph of the Dutch Jesuit, Crocus, 1535, and
the Susanna, Judith, Eli, Ruth, Job, Solomon, Goliath, etc., of Macropedius,
the Swiss Sixt Birck, and others; and another kind of play that occupied
itself with prototypes of the Roman Antichrist,—Haman, Judas, and the
like. The former may be called the idyllic or heroic miracle, the latter the
polemic. And of the latter the most influential development was the
controversial interlude, Pammachius, written by the German Protestant
Naogeorgos (Kirchmayer) and dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
By 1545 this play, in which the Pope figures as the Antichrist, had not only
been acted at Cambridge in the original, but translated into English by our
own John Bale; and, as we shall presently see, it was, somewhere between
1540 and 1548, imitated by him in one of the most vigorous of our
controversial dramas.[65]
Of the cultivation of the drama in Latin in England I have already made
mention in treating of the saints' plays and the Terentian drama of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Other indications of a Latin drama occur,
although infrequently. William Fitzstephen, who speaks of the ludus given
by Geoffrey's boys at Dunstable, tells us, also, that it was customary on
feast days for masters of schools to hold festival meetings in the churches,
when the pupils contested, not only in disputations, but also with
Fescennine license in satirical verses touching "the faults of school-fellows
or perhaps of greater people"; a practice which could only with difficulty
escape development into a rude Aristophanic comedy. We have mention
also of perquisites for a comœdia in one of the Cambridge colleges as early
as 1386, evidently of the Latin type, and of the presentation of a goodly
comedy of Plautus at court in 1520. Between 1522 and 1532 the Master of
St. Paul's produced a Latin school drama of Dido before Wolsey, and
according to Collier's supposition,[66] the same John Ritwyse was the author
of the satiric interlude, in Latin and French, of Luther and his wife, which
was acted for the delectation of the not yet reformed Henry and his foreign
guests in 1527. Of the nature of this play, unfortunately lost, some
conception may be gathered from the still surviving list of its characters

(allegorical, religious, and contemporary), from the analogous Ludus
ludentem Luderum ludens, 1530, and the somewhat more recent and most
scurrilous Monachopornomachia, both by Germans. Before 1530 and
apparently with a view to acting, the Andria had been turned into English,
[67]
and by 1535 at least two Latin comedies of moral-mythological
character had been written by Artour of Cambridge, and one, the Piscator,
by Hoker of Oxford.[68] We have word of a dramatic pageant in English and
Latin to which Udall contributed in 1532; in 1534 he issued a book of
selections entitled Flowers of Terence. In 1540 Palsgrave had introduced the
prodigal son drama from Germany; and by 1545 Bale had followed suit
with a Latin play of Antichrist. During the same period Udall was
producing his plures comœdiæ, now lost, and that other schoolmaster-
dramatist, Radcliffe of Hitchin, was writing spectacula simul jucunda et
honesta for his boys to present,—heroic miracles of the type affected by
Macropedius, and a romantic comedy of Griselda, probably all in Latin, but
unfortunately all vanished.
The importance of the English school drama has been well presented by
Professor Herford and Dr. Ward, but there is something in the name that
leads the ordinary reader to underrate the genus. A word or so by way of
classification may be of assistance. These interludes fall naturally into four
kinds. Those that ridicule folly, vain pretension, and conceit, or Mirth plays,
—plays after the model of Plautus, mock-heroic, or purely diverting, like
the Thersytes. Those that are pedagogical in tendency, directed against
idleness and ignorance, or Wit plays. They began with Rastell's Four
Elements, and reached their highest mark in the Contract between Witt and
Wisdome. Those that portray the conflict with the excesses and lusts of the
flesh, or Youth plays. They consist of such productions as Mankynd, Nature,
Hyckescorner, and reach their climax, about 1554, in the Interlude of Youth.
The school drama includes, in the last place, a series corrective of parental
indulgence and filial disobedience, aptly called Prodigal Son plays. These
are patterned upon Terence, but follow the manner of Dutch school plays
like the Acolastus or of the still earlier French moralités, Bien-Avisé et Mal-
Avisé, L'Homme pêcheur, and Les Enfants de Maintenant. They make more
or less use of the scriptural motif and are sometimes tragical. In the period
under consideration their best representatives are the Nice Wanton and the
Disobedient Child. From the point of view of comedy the first of these

kinds, the Mirth play, occupies a place by itself; for, though it may
sometimes intend to teach, it always aims at, and achieves, laughter. To the
three remaining kinds, we must for convenience, join, however, another
which, though not of the school species, is primarily didactic,—I mean the
controversial interlude. This includes Bale's King Johan, Wever's Lusty
Juventus, and the Respublica.
In the Mirth play, Thersytes, the influence of Plautus is evident,—a
school play, to be sure, but written with a view to amusement or rollicking
satire rather than instruction. Acted in 1537, this "enterlude" has for its hero
a "ruffler forth of the Greke lande" whose "crakying" stands half-way
between the classical Pyrgopolinices and Thraso and the modern Roister
Doister. For all its academic flavour, the burlesque is coarse and crude, but
still genuinely humorous. It deserves notice, in especial, for the variety of
its contents, chivalric, romantic, popular, scriptural as well as Greek and
Latin; also for its artistic exhibition of the braggart,—the leisurely
proceeding of his discomfiture, the subordination of other characters to that
end; and for its mastery of technical devices,—concealment, magic, the
play upon the word, and that hunting of the word and letter which was so
soon to drive conversation out of its wits. As an interlude of foreign origin,
the Thersytes has a place in the development of the comic element
somewhat analogous to that of the Calisto in the development of the
romantic. As far as the quality of mirth is concerned it might be classed
with Roister Doister and Jacke Jugeler; but those plays are much more
highly developed in form and spirit, and must be reserved for consideration
with the polytypic, and early regular, comedy.
The remaining classes of interlude are manifestly didactic; those of Wit
and Youth derive, however, more directly from native sources, while those
of the Prodigal Son have close affiliation with the Christian Terence of the
continental humanists.
Redford's Wyt and Science, composed probably between 1541 and 1547,
is, in form and intent, like Lusty Juventus and other survivals of the moral
interlude. It differs, however, in company with the Four Elements and other
Wit plays, in substituting a scientific for a religious purpose; and it adds a
feature not to be found in earlier kinds of moral, a chivalrous ideal of love
and adventure, academic, to be sure, but unmistakable. This appears in the
wooing of Lady Science by Wyt, and his encounter with the tyrant or fiend

Tediousness "for my dere hartes sake to wynne my spurres;" in the hero's
inconstancy, defeat, and subsequent success, and in the dramatic
employment of romantic instruments and tokens, such as the magic glass
and the sword of comfort; also in the love songs. All of these and similar
features of which the sources are not entirely continental make for the
development of a romantic and humanistic drama. It may be worth noticing,
moreover, that the fiend of the play is neither Vice nor Devil. He seems to
be a cross between the Devil of the miracles and a monster of native as well
as scriptural ancestry (an early draft of Giant Despair), who figures in a
modernization of this play, The Marriage of Witte and Science. In
chronological sequence the next of the Wit plays is the Contract of a
Marrige betweene Wit and Wisdome (not Wit and Science, as Professor
Brandl has it). This was probably written about the same time as the Lusty
Juventus. The mention of the King's most "royal majestie" and the
appearance of the Vice Idleness as a priest would point to a date earlier than
1553, while the resemblance to Redford's play, though by no means close,
indicates posteriority to that much cruder production. The division into acts
and scenes is, on the other hand, less elaborate than that obtaining in the
latest play of this series, The Marriage of Witte and Science. The Contract
is altogether the most meritorious of those academic predecessors of the
drama of the Prodigal Son which introduce the indulgent mother as a
motive force. While the conception is formal and didactic, the action avails
itself, like Redford's play, of the romantic element involved in the perilous
adventure for love. The Contract, moreover, startles the sober atmosphere
of the moral interlude by a rapidity of movement, a combination of plots
major and minor, a diversity of subordinate characters and incidents
altogether unprecedented. The racy and natural wit, the equivoque, the
actual, even if vulgar, humanity of the scenes from low life, and the skill
with which the Mother Bees, the Dols and Lobs, Snatches and Catches, the
Constable, and the thoroughly rustic Vice with his actual resemblance to
Diccon the Bedlem, are dovetailed into the action,—these properties make
this a very commendable predecessor, not only of Gammer Gurton, but of
certain plays of Dekker and Jonson where similar features obtain. With the
Contract, the interlude of this kind attains its climax. The Marriage of Witte
and Science, which is a revision of Redford's play of similar name, must
also be mentioned here, although it is a postliminious specimen of the type.
Not licensed until 1569-70, and, according to Fleay, acted as Wit and Will,

1567-78,[69] it adds nothing vital to the plot or characters of its model. Still,
in literary and dramatic handling, it is an example of the perfection to which
the moral play could come. Collier, indeed, has said that it was the first play
of its kind regularly divided into acts and scenes with indication of the
same: but that is not true, for the Respublica of 1553 has five acts and the
proper arrangement in scenes; and so have other plays of 1553 or earlier,
though of different kind, like the Jacob and Esau.
If now we pass to the Youth plays, we shall find in the Interlude of Youth
(about 1554) the culmination of dramatic efforts to portray the sowing of
wild oats,—efforts avowedly moral in purpose, but with a reminiscent
smack of the lips and a fellow-feeling for the scapegrace. The Interlude of
Youth is characterized neither by the unbridled merriment of the Miles
Gloriosus type nor by the depth or pathos of dramas portraying solicitous
parents and prodigal sons; but it paves the way for 'tragical' comedies of
this latter class, and is infinitely more dramatic, because more human, than
the pedagogical onslaughts upon idleness, irksomeness, ignorance, and the
like of which we have just treated. It has, perhaps, not been noticed that the
Interlude of Youth holds about the same relation to Hyckescorner in matter
of motive and treatment that Hyckescorner holds to the Four Elements and
Mankynd,—indeed, a closer relation, for in many details of character,
device, situation, as well as by literal transference of language, it borrows
from Hyckescorner. This as indicating the descent of the species is in itself
interesting. But the present play generally improves upon all that it derives.
In addition, the vivid conversation, shrewd and waggish wit, local
colouring, atmosphere of taverns, dicing, cards, and worse iniquities,
justify, I think, the statement that it is at once the most realistic, amusing,
and graceful specimen of its kind. It is, at any rate, as artistic as a didactic
interlude could permit itself to be.
One cannot consider the so-called Prodigal Son interludes, without
observing that the theme itself supplies an opportunity for the enlargement
of dramatic endeavour. For these productions are directed as much against
parental indulgence as against filial disobedience. The "Preaty Interlude
called Nice Wanton," printed in 1560, was written before the death of
Edward VI. Though it may have derived suggestions from the Rebelles[70]
of Macropedius, 1535, it is of its own originality and dramatic merit, in my
opinion, the best of its class in English at the time of writing. While it

presents a mixture of scriptural, classical, and moral elements, it is
essentially a modern production. The allegorical lingers only in the
character of Worldly Shame. If this be eliminated, there remains a play with
realistic, romantic, and ideal qualities, an air of probability, and a plot well
conceived and excellently completed. Iniquity, or Baily errand, is a concrete
Vice, working by actual and possible methods. The unfortunate heroine and
the well-contrasted pairs of mothers and sons are manifest not only by their
deeds but by the opinions of those who know them. The plot, in other
words, grows out of the characters; it is full of incident, and it falls naturally
into acts, which have been elaborated in various and dramatically
interesting scenes. The movements, on the one hand toward a catastrophe,
on the other toward the triumph of right living, are conducted with skilful
suspense, surprise, discovery, and revolution, and are well interwoven. The
conversations and songs are racy or sober according to the conditions; the
combination of æsthetic qualities, comic, tragic, and pathetic, is an
agreeable advance upon the inartistic extremes afforded by most of the
contemporary interludes of moral intent. The next of these plays, the "pretie
and mery new interlude called The Disobedient Child, by Thomas Ingeland,
late Student at Cambridge," was acted, Mr. Fleay thinks, before Elizabeth in
March, 1560-61. Though it was not published till 1564, it was certainly, like
the Nice Wanton, written before 1553. The purpose is serious and the
conclusion almost tragic, but the play contributes to the comedy of
domestic satire. If the main characters were but indicated by name, like
those below stairs, Blanche and Long-Tongue, this picturesque and wholly
dramatic interlude would have attracted more notice than has been
vouchsafed it. Its literary merits, verse, poetic feeling and expression, and
its natural dialogue entitle it to high consideration; its decidedly novel
dramatic qualities, even though they bear a general resemblance to the
Studentes[71] of Stymmelius, rank it with the Nice Wanton as one of the
most vigorous of our early representatives of the dramatic actualities of
family life.
For reasons which I have already indicated, the controversial plays of the
period between 1520 and 1553 may be considered here. The first of these in
chronological order is Bale's King Johan, about 1540-47, with later
insertions in the author's hand. Its relation to Lyndsay's satire of the Thrie
Estatis is well known; and Professor Herford[72] has indicated its

indebtedness also to the Pammachius and the Protestant version of the
antichrist legend. It is a dramatic satire on the abuses of the church, its
riches, orders, brotherhoods, confessionals, simony, free thought, mummery
(judaistic and pagan), Latin ritual, hagiolatry, and papal supremacy. Few
more excellent embodiments of the Vice have been preserved than the
Sedycyon of this play, who in every estate of the clergy plays a part,
sometimes monk, sometimes nun, or canon, or chapter-house monk, or Sir
John, or the parson, or the bishop, or the friar, or the purgatory priest and
every man's wife's desire:—

"Yea, to go farder, sumtyme I am a cardynall;
Yea, sumtyme a pope and than am I lord over all,
Both in hevyn and erthe and also in purgatory,
And do weare iij crownes whan I am in my glorye."

In spite of Professor Schelling's[73] recent rejection of King Johan from
the list of chronicle plays, I cannot but agree with Dr. Ward that this moral
is of considerable importance in the history of that species. That it uses
history merely as the cloak for a religio-policical allegory, and that it does
not quite succeed in drawing together the points of fact and fiction in the
development of action and character,—these defects do not alter its
significance as the first English play to incarnate the political spirit of its
age in a form imaginatively attributed to an earlier period of native history.
Although it is not a comedy, it concerns us here as a drama of critical and
satirical intent. It is succeeded by plays like Lusty Juventus and Respublica,
which deal more or less with political affairs, and interest us because they
enliven the controversial by the introduction of the realistic and comic, and,
accordingly, in an age when polemics was politics, contribute to the
improvement of comedy by shaping it more or less to a medium for the
dissemination of practical ideas. Moreover, though Bale had no disciples in
the attempt to construct an historical protestant drama, he may be said to
have prepared the way for a protestant series of another kind. This is what
Professor Herford has well called the biblical genre drama; it is pedagogical
and controversial, and, like the King Johan, its representatives, also, such as
the Darius and Queen Hester, had their precursors, and probably their
models, more or less distant, in the idyllic or heroic miracle of the Dutch
and German humanists.
R. Wever's Lusty Juventus, written about 1550,[74] is of the dramatic
kindred of Mankynd and Nature. Its characters are allegorical in name but
concrete in person; and one of them, Abhominable Living, passes, also,
under the appellation of "litle Besse." The conversations are sprightly, and
the songs show considerable lyric power. But the play is a protestant
polemic, and its success must have depended to a large extent upon the
bitterness of the satire against

"Holy cardinals, holy popes,
Holy vestments, holy copes,"

and various alleged hypocrisies and excesses of the Church of Rome. That
this play had a long life is shown by its insertion, though under the
designation of an interlude with which it had nothing in common,[75] as a
play within a play in the tragedy of Sir Thomas More (about 1590). The
"merye Enterlude" Respublica, 1553, a children's Christmas play, sustains
somewhat the same relation to political Catholicism as King Johan to
Protestantism—without the polemics of dogma. Here, as in the preceding
political moral of King Johan, the Vice is used for a satirical purpose, and is
not only the chief mischief-maker, but, also, the principal representative of
the comic rôle. In this play, the Vice is so highly considered that the author,
probably a priest, multiplies him by four, and, by way of foil, offsets the
group with that of the four Virtues, daughters of God, whose presence in the
eleventh Coventry play and in Mankynd has already been noticed. I don't
see how Collier can call the construction of Respublica ingenious; it is
childish, clumsy, and trite. The humour consists in old-fashioned disguises
and aliases, equivoque, misunderstanding, and abuse. But the character of
Avarice, who, with his money bags, anticipates the Suckdrys and Lucres of
later comedy, is well conceived, the conduct natural, the language simple
and colloquial. Of historical interest is the introduction of Queen Mary as
Nemesis; of linguistic, the attempt to reproduce the dialect of the common
people; of dramatic, the division into acts and scenes, which is to be found
in but few other plays of the mid-century, such as Roister Doister, King
Johan, Jacob and Esau, and the Marriage of Witte and Science.

11. Polytypic, or Fusion, Plays

With the plays just mentioned each of the dramatic kinds so far
considered reaches its artistic limit. These kinds, however, during the
decades roughly coincident with the years between 1545 and 1566, enter
into combinations, by virtue of which English comedy is assisted to a still
further advance. The plays that represent this stage of literary history may
be called polytypic. Roister Doister and Jacke Jugeler subordinate the
materials of academic interlude and classical farce to classical regulations.
Into the Historie of Jacob and Esau enter characteristics of miracle play,

moral, realistic interlude, and classical comedy. Gammer Gurton and Tom
Tyler (of about the same date) subsume, under the domestic play of low life,
native elements of both farce and moral. Misogonus combines elements of
moral interlude and farce with qualities native and foreign, classical and
romantic. These are followed by the biblical genre drama of Godly Queen
Hester, partly political and partly pedagogical in intent. In the first five of
these plays the tendency to teach is reduced almost to a minimum. In the
Misogonus and Hester it is present, but is counterbalanced by romantic or
satirical considerations. When, however, we reach the Damon and Pythias
and The Supposes, the didactic has disappeared altogether in favour of the
truly artistic motive. These plays at last combine the comic and serious, the
real, the romantic, and the ideal. They are constructive, not primarily
critical; in fact, they must be regarded as our first real comedies.
No play of this division better illustrates the impress of the classical
model upon native material than Roister Doister. This "comedie" or
"interlude" was certainly in existence by 1552; indeed, it has not yet been
conclusively shown that it was not acted as early as 1534 to 1541. In the
last contingency it may have anticipated the Thersytes; but, according to
Professor Flügel's argument,[76] it was probably not composed till after
1545. With the Thersytes it has in common several points of detail, but the
essential resemblance is, of course, in the Plautine personage of the
braggart. Like Heywood before him, Udall aims to produce that which "is
comendable for a man's recreation," but the masterpiece of Udall has the
advantage of Heywood's "mery plays," in that its mirth "refuses scurilitie."
In Roister Doister, also, more decidedly than in previous plays, the
amusement proceeds not from the situation alone, but from the organism,—
a plot essentially and substantially dramatic, because its characters are
concrete, purposive, and interacting. But decided as was Udall's
contribution to the art of comic drama, we must not credit him with
producing comedy proper. The merit of Roister Doister is in its comic
intent, its skilful characterization and contrivance. It is a presentation of
humours,—corrective indeed, but farcical. It is not significant, constructive,
poetic, grounded in the heart as well as in the head. A contribution to the
classical type contemporary with the preceding, but of a much more farcical
and juvenile appearance, is the "new interlued" named Jacke Jugeler,
written not later than 1562 and perhaps as early as 1553-54 (after the
reëstablishment of the Mass and before the terrifying revival of the

sanguinary laws against heretics). It announces itself as a school drama, and
in the prologue purports to have been derived from the Amphitruo of
Plautus. I am inclined to think that the professed modesty of the author has
led critics to undervalue the skill and fidelity of that which was not only the
best "droll," but also the best dramatic satire produced in England up to
date. Within a narrow compass he has developed a humorous action quite
novel in English comedy, and has introduced us, not only to the first
English double and one of the first English practical jokers, but, I believe,
to our first victim of confused identity. The author is, of course, following
his Plautus, but what could be more ludicrous than the scene in which
Jenkin, uncertain and undesirous of his own acquaintance, covers himself
with ignominy in the effort to discard it. We are led from interest to interest
by means of anticipation, surprise, and the clever repetition of comic crises.
Characters well drawn like Dame Coy and Alison, distinct like Jacke and
Jenkin, suggestive of complexity like Bongrace, were not of everyday
occurrence in the drama of 1553. The language, too, is idiomatic, and the
wit, though vulgar, unforced. But perhaps more significant for our purpose
than any other feature of the play is this, that in spite of its avowed æsthetic
intent (even more outspoken than that of Roister Doister), it is a subtle
attack upon the Roman Catholic Church. This interlude, says the maker,
citing the authority of the classics, is written for the express purpose of
provoking mirth, and for no other purpose: it is "not worth an oyster shell
Except percase it shall fortune to make men laugh well"; but under the
artifice we find a parable of the doctrinal Jacke Jugeler of the day, whose
mission it was to prove that "One man may have two bodies and two faces,
And that one man at one time may be in two places." I do not think that the
satirical character of the play has heretofore been remarked, though the
controversial allusions of the epilogue are, of course, well known. The
innocence of the prologue and the profession of trifles fit for "little boys"
are as shrewd an irony as the dramatic attack upon transubstantiation is a
huge burlesque.
The third of these fusion dramas is The Historie of Jacob and Esau.
Although its title may suggest the dignity of a miracle or the didacticism of
a moral play, it is the reduction of the miracle to modern conditions and of
the moral to concrete and actual characters. This "newe, mery, and wittie
comedie, or enterlude" was licensed in 1557, but its decidedly protestant
character may indicate composition before Mary's accession to the throne.

Collier is quite right in calling it one of the freshest and most effective
productions of the kind to which it belongs. But in classifying it with early
religious plays, because the subject happens to be scriptural, he is as far
astray as Professor Brandl who classes it with plays of the Prodigal Son,
because the nature of the subject suggests a faint resemblance to that
species. It is an attempt at comedy by way of fusion. The plot is in general
scriptural, but it introduces some half-dozen invented characters. The
production aims, like a moral interlude, at inculcating the doctrine of
predestination; but, like a classical comedy, it is regularly divided,
dramatically constructed, and equipped with tried and telling comic devices.
Proceeding with extreme care for probability, with elaboration of motive,
with due preparation of interest, enhancement, and suspense, it attains a
climax of unusual excellence, considering the date of its composition. The
discovery and denouement are naturally contrived; and where the author
avails himself of the staples of his trade, the asides, disguises, intrigues,
eavesdropping, and the rest, he does so with the ease of the accustomed
dramatist. The play, in fact, deserves as high esteem as Roister Doister and
Gammer Gurton; in originality and regularity it is their equal, in
development of a vital conception their superior. The language is idiomatic
—of the age and soil; or dignified, when the mood demands. It is also free
from obscenity; but it lacks nothing in wit on that account, nor the
situations in humour. Viewed as a whole, it is a simple and unaffected
picture of English rural life—the scene with its setting as well as its figures.
And these are coloured from experience, forerunners, indeed, of many in
our better-known comedy: the young squire given over to the chase, horses
and dogs and the horn at break of day (much to the discomfort of the
slumbering environment),—the careless elder born,—victim and butt of his
unnatural mother and her wily younger son; the doting father, duped; the
clown; the pert and pretty maid; the aged nurse. Consider, in addition, the
more subtle characteristics of the Jacob and Esau,—the family
resemblances, the racial policy with its ripe and ruddy upper layer of
morals, the romantic touch, the sometimes genuine pathos, the naïve
domestic revelations, the loves in low life, the unaffected charms of
dialogue and verse,—and one must acknowledge that this play, no matter
what its origin and name, is at least as indicative of the maturing of English
drama as either of the plays with which I have placed it in comparison.

Of these Gammer Gurtons Nedle was the first to gather the threads of
farce, moral interlude, and classical school play into a well-sustained
comedy of rustic life. Mr. Henry Bradley has ingeniously shown that in all
probability it was a Christ's College play, written by William Stevenson
during his fellowship of 1559 to 1560. There may, indeed, be reason for
believing that it was composed as early as the author's first fellowship,
1551-54.[77] In this play the unregulated seductions of earlier days are
brought under the curb of the classical manner and form: the native element
already evident in Noah's Flood and the Shepherds' Plays, the Judicium, the
Conversion of St. Paul, the Johan, and the Pardoner, and about this same
time in the Contract betweene Wit and Wisdome (parts of which suggest
forcibly the manner of this same Stevenson); the rollicking humour of the
Vice turned Bedlem, the pithy and saline interchange of feminine amenities;
the Atellan, sometimes even Chaucerian, laughter,—not sensual but animal;
the delight in physical incongruity; the mediæval fondness for the
grotesque. If the situations are farcical, they at any rate hold together; each
scene tends towards the climax of the act, and each act towards the
denouement. The characters are both typical and individual; and though the
conception is of less significance than that of Roister Doister, the execution
is an advance because it smacks less of the academic. Gammer Gurton
carries forward the comedy of mirth, but hardly yet into the rounded
comedy of life.
Another "excellent old play," called Tom Tyler and His Wife,[78] deserves
to be mentioned in this sequence because it combines characteristics of the
farce in a peculiar fashion with reminiscences of the moral interlude. Tom
Tyler was written probably between 1550 and 1560, and is an admirable
portrayal of matrimonial infelicities in low life, the forerunner of a series of
"shrew" plays, not of the nature of the Taming, but of the Tamer Tamed. The
temporary revolt of the husband, "whose cake was dough," his fleeting
triumph by the ruse of the doughty Tom Taylor, and his lapse into
irremediable servitude, "for wedding and hanging is destinie," these alone
would make the farce worthy of honourable mention. But the dialogue and
songs are themselves of snap, verve, and wit not inferior to the best of that
day; and the coöperation of solemn allegorical figures, such as Destinie and
Patience, in the humorous programme of Desire the Vice, side by side with
the three lusty "shrowes," Typple, Sturdy, and Strife, lends to the farce a

mock-moral appearance which entitles it to a place among these polytypic
dramas historically unique. For it should not be regarded as an example of
the moral in transition from abstract to concrete, but as a conscious and
cleverly ironical presentation of a comic episode from utterly unideal life,
under the form, and by the modes and machinery, of the pious allegorical
drama.
For the printing of the next play in this series, the Misogonus, heretofore
accessible only in manuscript at Chatsworth, we are indebted to Professor
Brandl.[79] This interesting moral comedy was written in 1560, probably by
Thomas Richardes,[80] whose name followes the prologue. Brandl points
out certain resemblances to the Acolastus of Gnapheus, printed 1534. The
contrast of the good and wayward sons might likewise be traced to the
Studentes of Stymmelius[81] (1549), but the more evident sources are
Terence, the biblical parable, common experience, and dramatic
imagination, Professor Brandl thinks that the play is connected with The
Supposes or its source, but I must confess that I cannot see the remotest
relation. In Mr. Fleay's opinion this is the earliest English comedy. I
suppose because it not only applies a classical treatment to certain elements
of romantic form,—the Italian scene and baronial life,—and of romantic
content and method such as the ideal friendship, the discovery and
recognition, but combines therewith a realistic portrayal of native character,
and various technical qualities vital to both the serious and comic kinds of
composition. If, however, the names of the principal characters had been
English, the relation to the moral interlude would at once be evident. This is
a Prodigal Son play of the humanist school, save that it has supplemented
the general characteristics of the Christian Terence and of Plautus by
episodes and minor characters from the native farce. Although it is not
superior in technique to Roister or Gammer Gurton, it is more distinctively
polytypic than either. It is, also, of broader ethical significance. But this
dominant didactic intent renders it less of a comedy than they, and much
less than the Jacob and Esau—which is as good a representative of the
fusion of dramatic kinds and qualities as the Misogonus, and a better
specimen of workmanship. The simpler characters of the Misogonus,
Codrus, poore, but "trwe and trusty"; the stammering Madge Mumbelcrust,
who "coude once a said our lordyes saw—saw—sawter by rote"; and her
gossip "Tib, who has tongue inough for both"; Alison, who knows "what a

great thinge an oth is"; and Sir John, the priest, who knows how to use one,
—these, their ways and colloquies, are of a piece with Stevenson's work
and Heywood's and the world that their work represents. The conditions and
conduct of the leading dramatis personæ are, on the other hand, more
closely akin to the Plautine and Terentian, to the school of Udall and the
humanists. Cacurgus, the domestic parasite and fool, remotely connected
with the Vice, but actually a counterfeit-simple and wag, is as good a Will
Summer as the early comedy can boast. When Greene made his Nano,
Adam, and Slipper, he had in mind a generation of such creatures. If one
could eliminate the sermonizing, there would remain a plot as satisfactory
in unity, in situations, recognitions, crises, and denouement as any produced
during the next twenty years. But, as I have said above, the moral urgency
of the play injures the art. Since the Prodigal Son is reclaimed, we are,
however, justified in ranking the production among early attempts at
English comedy.
Godly Queen Hester, published 1561,[82] is exactly described as a "newe
enterlude drawen out of the Holy Scripture." According to Fleay, it is the
latest "scriptural morality" extant to be acted on the English stage.[83] But it
is much more than a scriptural morality. Not only by its fusion of biblical
characters, like Assuerus and Hester, with allegorical types, like Pride and
the half-moral, half-native Vice, does the play give evidence of its polytypic
nature, but by its atmosphere, which is charged with local and personal
allusions and ironical references to the economic abuses of the day. In
nervous energy of style and in forthright dramatic movement, the play is an
improvement upon its predecessors; and as a satirical drama of political
purpose, it should have had a numerous progeny. Strange to say, however,
this kind of scriptural satire has had no great success in the field of English
drama. Its bloom, as in Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, has been in the
by-paths of poetry. Of a peculiar historical importance is the character of
Hardy-dardy. Mr. Fleay regards him as a domestic fool, and remarks that
this interlude and the Misogonus are the only two early plays in which the
Vice is replaced by such a personage. But neither of these statements is
correct, for Hardy-dardy and Cacurgus do not totally abandon the quality of
Vice, and various other plays yet to be mentioned have characters closely
resembling them. Hardy-dardy is, indeed, a professed jester dressed in a
fool's coat; in his assumption of stupidity and his proffer of service to

Aman, he resembles Slipper in Greene's James the Fourth; and in his
shrewd simplicity, repartee, and indirection he anticipates some of
Shakespeare's fools. But he still retains characteristics of his ancestry. He
stands, in conception, half-way between the minor Vices of the play,
Ambition, Adulation, and Pride, to whose jocosities and deviltries he
succeeds,—for he appears only when they have departed,—and the waggish
weathercocks of later interludes, Haphazard and Conditions.
I wish I could have included among the reprints of the present volume
both of the plays next to be mentioned, but limitations of space and other
reasons have forbidden. When Puttenham said that for comedy and
interlude such doings as he had "sene of Maister Edwardes deserved the
hyest price," and Turberville, that "for poet's pen and passing witte," that
poet "could have no English Peere," I think that they were not greatly
exaggerating. Richard Edwardes' Damon and Pithias, written before 1566,
maybe as early as 1563-65, takes steps significant in literary history. It is
not only entirely free from allegorical elements, and almost from didactic,
but it is rich in qualities of the fusion drama. The subject of a classical story
is handled in a genuinely romantic fashion, although no previous drama of
romantic friendship had existed in England. Comic and serious strains flow
side by side, occasionally mingling. A quick satire, dramatic and personal,
pervades the play. The names and scenes may be Syracusan, and types from
Latin comedy may walk the streets, but the life is of the higher and lower
classes of England; and the creatures of literary tradition are elbowed and
jostled by children of the soil. The farcical episodes may be indelicate, but
they have the virility of fact. The plot as a whole is skilfully conducted;
while it proceeds directly to the goal, it encompasses a wider variety of
ethical interests, dramatic motives, and attractions, than that of any previous
play. The relation to an interlude of which we shall presently speak, Like wil
to Like, is beyond doubt. In both a crude psychological pairing and
contrasting of characters may be observed; but in the development of the
characters, Damon and Pithias is decidedly superior. The author calls this
"a matter mixt with myrth and care ... a tragical comedie"; but while he thus
aims at a fusion of the ideal with the commonplace, he makes a close
approximation, always, to probability of incident and character, and so
observes the criterion which he himself enunciates:—

"In commedies the greatest skyll is this, lightly to touch
All thynges to the quicke; and eke to frame each person so
That by his common talke, you may his nature rightly know."

In its defects, such as the disregard of time and place, as in its merits, the
Damon and Pithias is a commendable experiment in romantic comedy—a
contribution worthy of more attention than historians have ordinarily
accorded it. Undoubtedly Edwardes' "much admired play" of Palamon and
Arcite, which the queen witnessed in hall at Christ Church, Oxford, 1566
(and laughed heartily thereat, and thanked "the author for his pains"), was
of the fashion and vogue of the drama which we have discussed, though it
had not the abiding influence.
If it were not for the fact that The Supposes (acted 1566) is a translation
of Ariosto's play of the same title, I should be inclined to say that it was the
first English comedy in every way worthy of the name. It certainly is, for
many reasons, entitled to be called the first comedy in the English tongue. It
is written, not for children, nor to educate, but for grown-ups and solely to
delight. It is done into English, not for the vulgar, but for the more
advanced taste of the translator's own Inn of Court; it has, therefore,
qualities to captivate those who are capable of appreciating high comedy. It
is composed, like its original, in straightforward, sparkling prose. It has,
also, the rarest features of the fusion drama: it combines character and
situation, each depending upon the other; it combines wit of intellect with
humour of heart and fact, intricate and varied plot with motive and steady
movement, comic but not farcical incident and language with complications
surprising, serious, and only not hopelessly embarrassing. It conducts a
romantic intrigue in a realistic fashion through a world of actualities. With
the blood of the New Comedy, the Latin Comedy, the Renaissance in its
veins, it is far ahead of its English contemporaries, if not of its time.
Without historical apology or artistic concessions it would act well to-day.
Both whimsical and grave, its ironies are pro bono publico; it is
constructive as well as critical, imaginative as well as actual. Indeed, when
one compares Gascoigne's work with the original and observes the just
liberties that he has taken, the Englishing of sentiment as well as of phrase,
one is tempted to say, with Tom Nashe, that in comedy, as in other fields,
this writer first "beat a path to that perfection which our best poets have

aspired to since his departure." He did not contrive the plot; but no
dramatist before him had selected for his audience, translated, and adapted a
play so amusing and varied in interest, so graceful, simple, and idiomatic in
its style. It was said by R. T., in 1615, that Gascoigne was one of those who
first "brake the ice for our quainter poets who now write, that they may
more safely swim through the main ocean of sweet poesy"—a remark
which would lose much of its force if restricted to the poet's achievements
in satire alone; in the drama of the humanists he excelled his
contemporaries, and in the romantic comedy of intrigue he anticipated those
who, like Greene and Shakespeare,[84] adapted the Italian plot to English
manners and the English taste. Nor are these the only claims of Gascoigne
to consideration: The Supposes, as Professor Herford has justly remarked, is
the most Jonsonian of English comedies before Jonson.

12. Survivals of the Moral Interlude

Though we must refrain from description, we cannot forbear mention of
a few survivals of the moral interlude, which, though themselves
rudimentary, were not without esteem even in an age when the drama, by
combination and adaptation of its possibilities, was producing other results
infinitely superior to the older strain. These functionless survivals of the
moral were the following, all controversial: Newe Custome, an anti-papist
play, perhaps written as early as 1550-53; Albyon Knight, a political
fragment acted between 1560 and 1565; Kyng Daryus, a peculiarly insipid
disputation, evidently anti-papist, printed in 1565; and The Conflict of
Conscience, a doctrinal drama by Nathaniel Woodes, Minister in Norwich,
which presents a mixture of individual and even historical characters with
abstractions, stands midway between the allegorical interlude and the drama
of concrete experience, displays a commendable realism in spots, and is a
more virile production than the others of this group. It was not published till
1581, but was probably written soon after 1563.
Of the decadent stock of morals and interludes, there were, however,
some specimens between the years 1553 and 1578 that exhibited an
advance in quality, if not in kind. Three of these, The Longer thou Livest,
All for Money, and Tide Taryeth no Man, Mr. Fleay[85] lumps together as
simple instances of the survival of the older 'morality' after the introduction

of tragedy and comedy on the models of Seneca and Plautus, and makes the
further statement that none of them teaches us anything as to the historical
development of the drama in England. With the utmost respect for the
knowledge of this most helpful historian, I must say that, as a matter of
judgment, none of these dramas, least of all, Longer thou Livest, should be
classed with the moral plays of mere survival. While the authors of these
and similar specimens did not produce a new kind, they did more than
repeat the old. They revived and enriched the moral interlude by infusion of
new strains, and so produced, by culture, a most interesting group of what
may be called variations of the moral. To this class of morals belong also
the Triall of Treasure, Like wil to Like, and the Life and Repentaunce of
Marie Magdalene. It must be said also that a few moral tragedies of the
period, like R. B.'s Apius and Virginia (about 1563, pr. 1575), and Preston's
King Cambises (S. R. 1569-70), have some claim to belong to this group,
and that if there were space they should receive attention for their vital
dramatic quality and their development of the character of the Vice. The
Hap-hazard of the former, far from being, as Dr. Ward has said, "redundant
to the action," suggests the "conspiracies" which Apius adopts, and is the
heart of rascality and fun; he is consequently a Vice of the old type; but he
is also the representative (in accordance with his name and express
profession) of the caprice of the individual and the irony of fortune. He is
the Vice, efficient for evil, but in process of evolution into the inclination or
humour of a somewhat later period of dramatic history: the inclination not
immoral but unmoral, the artistic impersonation of comic extravagance, in
accordance with which Every Man is in his Vice, and every Vice is but a
Humour. The Ambidexter of the latter tragedy plays "with both hands
finely" in the main action, and at the same time serves to provoke the
jocosity of those admirably concrete ruffians, Huf, Ruf, and Snuf, and of the
clown of the play. The Horestes, written by John Pikerynge in 1567, must,
although a tragedy, also be mentioned here.[86] The Vice under his dual
designation of Corage and Revenge is of the weathervane variety; and in
realistic and humorous qualities the play closely resembles the preceding
two. They were a noble but futile effort to bottle the juices of tragedy,
classical-historical at that, in the leathers of moral interlude.

13. The Movement towards Romantic Comedy

We may now proceed with the main current of comedy. Between 1570
and 1590 the best plays are coloured by a distinctively romantic element;
and this is noticeable, not only in the productions of the greater authors,
Lyly, Peele, Greene, and the like, elsewhere discussed in this volume, but in
those of minor writers too frequently ignored. As I have already said, the
romantic in life appears to spring from a desire to assert one's independence
and realize the possibilities of the resulting freedom. "Our pent wills fret
And would the world subdue." But since the conditions of life are largely
opposed to the complete fulfilment of our desires, it is the privilege and
function of romance, and of romantic comedy according to its kind, to
idealize the stubborn facts—the "limits we did not set" in favour of our
ecstatic but still human urgency. This privilege the comedy of romance
exercises sometimes with an eye to nature and probability, and sometimes
with some respect for imaginative possibility, but quite frequently with no
other guide than mere caprice. The subjects of such comedy may be briefly
summarized as passion, heroism, and wonder. Of these the first is manifest
in examples of ideal friendship, its devotion and self-sacrifice; and a play of
such nature we have already considered in the Damon and Pithias. It also
yields the furnishings of love, the resulting obstacles, and the issue; and a
play of this kind we have considered in The Supposes, which is a domestic
comedy of intrigue. Of heroism the possibilities are suggested by the words
travel, adventure, chivalry, war, conquest; those of wonder are as various as
the chances of birth, wealth and fortune, pomp and power, myth and fable:
they are fostered by that which is remote, preternatural, supernatural.
To the romance of wonder, saints' plays, legends, and biblical stories had
purveyed from early times. From 1570 on the narrative of chivalry and
adventure, of which shadowy lineaments had already appeared in one or
two miracle plays and in the interludes of Wit and Science, began to gather
to itself kindred elements of romantic interest, and to occupy the stage with
such plays as Common Conditions, written perhaps between 1572 and 1576,
and Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes, written perhaps as early,—dramas of
love, fable, and adventure, absolutely free from didactic purpose. At the
same time still another variety of romantic comedy, unhampered by the
trammels of instructive intent, but dealing essentially in domestic intrigue,
kept alive the method of The Supposes. This variety was represented by The
Bugbears, between 1561 and 1584, and The Two Italian Gentlemen (S. R.
1584), which, based upon Italian models, availed themselves on the one

hand of a burlesque parody of the magical, and on the other of genuine
English mirth. The latter indeed added something of the 'humours' element
soon to be exploited by Porter, Chapman, and Jonson. Beside these dramas,
there sprang into notice a certain half-moral, half-romantic kind of play
which, availing itself of the mould of the interlude, fused therein the
materials of the chivalrous, the magical, and the passionate, and produced
certain anomalous comedies of great popularity between the year 1580 and
the end of the century. The best of these "pleasant and stately morals" are:
The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune, The Three Ladies of London, The
Three Lordes and Three Ladies of London.
While Collier thinks that, in point of positive dramatic interest, the Rare
Triumphs of Love and Fortune requires but brief notice, Dr. Ward holds that
the beginnings of romantic comedy were foreshadowed by the play.[87] It is,
in fact, both dramatically and historically, one of the most important
productions of its date. It was printed in 1589, but played, perhaps, as early
as 1582. Mr. Fleay has assigned it to Kyd, but I do not see sufficient reason
for the attribution; if we must find an author for it, Robert Wilson's claims
might be urged. The Rare Triumphs affords an excellent instance of the
fusion of moral and romance. In the Induction, Love and Fortune dispute
concerning their respective influence in the affairs of mankind. By mutual
agreement the debat seeks its solution in a practical demonstration of the
issues involved. And so we find our intellectual as well as emotional
interest enlisted in the chances of an Italian story of love, adventure, and
magic. Within a moral interlude of classical and mythological origin we
discover a romantic comedy. The influence of the supernatural not merely
envelops, but permeates the whole; the Acts present the destinies of the
mortals of the inner play, the inter-acts the continued intervention of the
immortals of the outer. The spectacular effect is, moreover, heightened by
the introduction of dumb shows, after the fashion of the masque. In
dramatic interest proper few romantic fables of 1582 can compare with the
inner story: the love of Hermione for Fidelia, the duel between Hermione
and Fidelia's brother, the exile of the lover and his retirement to the cave of
his unknown father, the hermit Bomelio; Bomelio's attempt to right matters
by magic, the destruction of his necromantic books, his madness, his
recovery, and the resolution of difficulties through the instrumentality of the
heroine. Such a fable is anything but silly and meagre, as Collier would
have it, especially when we consider its conjunction with the humorous and

vivid. In the outer play the clown is Vulcan, at whose call Jupiter mediates,
"like an honest man in the parish," between the disputatious goddesses. In
the inner play Penulo the parasite and Lentulo the clown, though neither of
them a Vice, supply the comic delectations of the rôle. The disguise of
Bomelio as physician, his dialect, his misfortune and raving, are excellently
contrived and conducted. In at least half a dozen particulars one may detect
æsthetic possibilities later to be matured in more than one Shakespearian
play: foreshadowings of plot and principal actors, as in The Tempest;
foreshadowings of minor characters like Dr. Caius, or like the Francis of 1
Henry IV. The play is, in brief, refreshing; the humour, substantial and
English; the language, conversational, dramatic, sometimes in prose and
then excellent. The versification, however, is of that stiffer quality which
warrants Mr. Fleay's conjecture of 1582, or thereabout, as the date of
composition.
The attempt to enliven the "old moral" by an infusion of passion and
intrigue, and to parade it in the trappings of romance, across the background
of contemporary English life and manners, is what distinguishes Robert
Wilson's "right excellent and famous Comœdy called the Three Ladies of
London," printed 1584, and its sequel, The Pleasant and Stately Morall of
the Three Lordes and Three Ladies of London, registered in 1588. Of these
plays, the latter trades in pomp and chivalry; the earlier in something like
the motives of romantic interest. "The acuteness and political subtlety
evinced in several of the scenes of the Three Ladies" have been justly
commended by Collier, who points with careful attention also to "the
severity of the author's satirical touch, his amusing illustrations of manners,
his exposure of the tricks of foreign merchants, and the humour and drollery
which he has thrown into his principal comic personage." This is Simplicity,
the fool or clown, droll, indifferent, honest, and by no means so simple as
he appears: a descendant of the historical Will Summer, a forerunner of the
Dogberrys and Malaprops, and the elder brother of an Honesty of another
play, A Knack to Know a Knave, in which the same author probably had a
hand. Standing over against three belated specimens of the Vice, Simplicity
unites the shrewdness, manners, and humour of that personage—but in
superior quality—with the prudence, the penetration, and the conception of
honour peculiar to the professional jester. He also plays a vital part in the
main action, and is worthy to be regarded as one of the best clowns, if not
the best, in the history of the moral interlude. His forthright utterances in

the Three Ladies and his easy and witty prose in the sequel mark him for a
model likely to have influenced the younger dramatists of the day. The
minor plot-interest of the honest Jew, Gerontus, the rascally Christian,
Mercatore, and the Judge, is significant, not only as the reverse of the
conception dramatized in the Jew of Malta and the Merchant of Venice, but
as, with one exception, the earliest elaboration of the motif that was to
become prominent in the drama of the next few years. Qualities romantic
and real invest the career of the three Ladies; and the characterization of the
numerous minor personages is both subtle and suitable to their different
classes and interests.
Although the Three Lordes and Ladies, one of the earliest sequels in the
history of English drama, is "more of a moral" than its predecessor and
makes no improvement in plot-structure, it is of importance fully equal. For
what it lacks in passion and romance is more than counterbalanced by
technical qualities—the blank verse, the fluent prose, the wit of Simplicity
and the pages, the scenic display, the variety of incidents, and the portrayal
of manners. If we consider the definite transition from abstractions to social
and individual traits of character in this play and the preceding,—the multi-
fold impersonation of worldly wisdom, fraud, and shoddy, one might say
the resolution of the rôle of Vice into its component specialties; the
corresponding offset of all these by ensamples of virtuous living, but still
human; and the attendant troupe of more obvious 'humours,' Simplicity and
the pages, Painful Penury, Diligence, and the rest,—it will be evident that
these plays of Robert Wilson are the merging of moral interlude in romantic
and social comedy. On this account I cannot agree with Dr. Ward,[88] who
says that in construction and conception they mark no advance whatever
upon the older moralities. I think they mark a significant advance. In them
the moral has arrived at a consciousness of the demands of art; and,
attempting to fulfil its possibilities, it acquires body, spirit, and bouquet,
even though, in the moment of fermentation, it bursts the bottle. Still we
must remember that we have now reached a date, 1588-90, by which much
of the best work of Lyly, Marlowe, Peele, and Greene had already been
produced, and we must, therefore, not attribute to Wilson an importance
greater than that of an industrious and inventive contemporary, hospitable to
ideas, but essentially conservative in practice. He is at once "father of
interludes," as interludes then were regarded, and an intermediary between
the interlude of moral abstractions and the comedy of humours. He appears,

also, to have played so lively a part in the dramatic history of his day that
Mr. Fleay is justified in calling this period by his name; and, therefore, a
few further words concerning him and other plays which he seems to have
written might well be said here, but we must reserve them for another
occasion.

14. Conclusion

With but one or two exceptions the plays which we have so far passed in
review fail in some respect or other of the plot that makes a comedy. A plot
that is argumentative, that is a ratiocination or exemplum conducted by
abstractions, is not sufficient to constitute comedy, though it may contribute
to its development a unity of interest, a spiritual sequence; nor are sporadic
situations and incidents sufficient, though humorously conceived and
executed; nor glimpses of types, characters or manners, nor hints of
passion, nor satiric speeches and dialogues, though artistically dramatized,
true, appropriate, and witty. None of these constitutes comedy. Comedy
demands action vitalized by a plot that is capable of revealing the social
significance of the individual: an action of sufficient scope and reality to
display the spirit of society in individual types and manners, or in character
and sentiment; a plot sufficiently urgent to interest us, not only in the
phenomena, in the concomitants, of every deed, but in its motive and
inherent passion. The comedy of external life may present, by means of
typical individuals and conventional manners, a reflex of that which is
actual, or a criticism of it; and such a play will be realistic or satirical. The
comedy of the inner life, on the other hand, since it reveals the
characteristics of humanity in the heat and moment of passion, may present
a vision of the ideal made concrete; it is therefore at once interpretative,
constructive, and romantic. These two kinds of comedy are alike in that
they display the triumph of freedom when regulated by common sense, the
adjustment of the individual to society. But as they vary in function and
result, so these kinds of comedy differ in the quality of action which each
may present. The play of convention and manners can use only the
externals of action, actions that neither strike deep nor spring from the
depths, for such a play aims to reproduce appearances or merely to re-create
them—to criticise and correct rather than construct. The play of character
and passion, not the so-called realistic, but idealistic, selects for

presentation actions whose springs are in the inner life; and that is because
it would present men and women as they should be,—individuals widening
the social, pressing toward the ideal, not by overstepping that which is
conventional, but by informing it with new meaning and pushing back its
limits. Comedy, therefore, is in the plot, and the plot must proceed from the
wisdom essential to a comic view of life: acceptance of the social
environment as it appears to be, because one believes in society as it should
be. The dramatist, his plot and his characters, are the exponents of common
sense and freedom, of the light of life as it is with the sweetness of life as it
may be. Common sense, however, may become prosaic, or liberty
licentious; and it is in preventing such extremes that wit and humour
perform their function. Neither of these can alone make a comedy, but one
of them may sometimes save it. Both should certainly characterize it. But
for the former, the drama of appearances might be caricature, abuse, horse-
play, or homily; but for the latter, romantic comedy would be bathos. No
amount of wit, however, could save a play that did not possess a significant
sequence of material and event. Though the booths of Bartholomew Fair
agitate the diaphragm, they do not constitute comedy. Without plot the
lunges of wit lack point; and as for the plotless play of passion, it ends in
Bedlam, whence all the humour in the world cannot redeem it.
It was a step forward when allegory made way for concrete characters
and manners, and the motives born of social intercourse; a further step
when the dramatist ceased instructing and sought to amuse. But the final
step implied the still rarer ability to create something integral and critical in
one, something that should act what life means, and so unconsciously
demonstrate that it is purposive, and more hopeful and amusing than we
thought. Naturally enough, our earlier comic plots, when they were
escaping from the symbolic, lacked sometimes in significance, and
sometimes in sequence. The fables of Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton
mark an advance in technical construction; but they do not escape the
farcical, for their subjects are trivial. There were likewise many experiments
to be made in the materials of intrigue and passion before Damon and
Pithias and The Supposes could fulfil, even in part, the requirements of
significant romance. And when, at last, the play with a plot had come to its
own, it was long before it attained wisdom to suffuse the appearances of life
with their illuminating characteristic, and imagination to colour the course
of characteristic events.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] In The Academy, January 11, 1890.

[2] Manly, Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama, vol. I., p. xxvii; for
examples of dramatic tropes from the Regularis Concordia Monachorum and the
Winchester troper, see pp. xix-xxvi.

[3] Non novo quidem instituto, sed de consuetudine, etc., says Bulæus, Hist.
Univ., Par. II., 226 (edit. 1665); Collier, English Dramatic Poetry, and Annals of
the Stage, I. 14.

[4] In his Lives of the Abbots of St. Albans.

[5] In the Household Book, Henry VII.; Collier, Hist., vol. I, p. 53 n.

[6] Gesch. des neueren Dramas, I. 141.

[7] See Wright's Early Mysteries, etc., Klein's Geschichte des Dramas, III. 638
et seq., Creizenach, Gesch. d. n. Dramas, I. 37 et seq. Quadrio speaks in his
Storia, III. ii. 52, of a Pietro Babyone, an Englishman, who, according to Bale,
wrote a Latin comedy in verse, c. 1366.

[8] Ward, I. 52.

[9] Creizenach, I. 101.

[10] Historians of the Church of York, Rolls Series, No. 71, i. 328. Quoted by
A. F. Leach in Some English Plays and Players, Furnivall Miscellany, p. 206.

[11] In Supp. Dods. Old Plays, Introd. to Chester Plays, ix.; Latin Stories, p.
100.

[12] An Answer to a Certain Libel, &c., in Collier, II. 73.

[13] As early as 1304 in Hamburg: Meyer, Gesch. d. hamburg. Schul- und
Unterrichtswesens im Mittelalter, S. 197: cited in Creizenach, I. 391.

[14] The Shearmen and Taylors' Pageant, from the Annunciation to the Flight
into Egypt (Ms., 1533), and the Weavers' Pageant of the Presentation in the
Temple.

[15] V. XXVI., XXVIII., XXIX., XXX., XXXI., XXXIII.; probably XXXII.
Perhaps this playwright (if we may use the singular) rewrote XXXIV. I think he
remodelled XXXV. and XXXVI., in the old metres.

[16] XXVI., The Conspiracy, and IX., Noah,—abababab⁴cdcccd³.

[17] XXXVI., The Mortificacio,—ababbcbc³d¹eee²d³. VII., The Cayme,—
ababbc⁴d¹bcc⁴d².

[18] Y. XI., W. VIII.; Y. XXII., W. XVIII.; Y. XXXVII., W. XXV.; Y.
XXXVIII., W. XXVI.; Y. XLVIII., W. XXX. For particulars see Miss Lucy
Toulmin Smith, Pollard, Hohlfeld's Die Altenglischen Kollektivmisterien, Anglia
XI.

[19] Such as stanza 57 in Wakefield XXIX. Ascension, and 97-100 in
Wakefield XX. Conspiracy.

[20] Cf. stanzas 1 to 4 with those that follow in Wakefield XXII., Fflagellacio;
and stanza 6 of Wakefield XXIV. with those that precede it; and stanza 58 of
Wakefield XXIX. with stanza 57.

[21] XXX. Judicium, stanzas 16 to 48, 68 to 76.

[22] XVI. Herod.

[23] XX. a, Conspiracy.

[24] Stanza 57 might just as well be arranged like stanza 58.

[25] III., XII., XIII., XXI.

[26] Minor passages in the nine-line stanza are II., 35, 36; XXIV., 1-5, 56-59;
XXVII., 4 Passages in a closely similar stanza are XXII., 1-4; XXIII., 2; XXVII.,
30.

[27] The Towneley Plays, Introd., p. xxii.

[28] Die englischen Mysterien, Jahrb. rom. u. eng. Lit., I. 153.

[29] Ten Brink, Eng. Lit. II: i. 306.

[30] I do not forget that belated Tobias at Lincoln, 1564-66, nor the Godly
Queen Hester of 1561; but they have nothing to do with the case.

[31] Rel. Antiq. II. 43.

[32] St. Katharine (Dunstable c. 1100, Coventry, 1490); St. George (1415 and
later); St. Laurence (Lincoln, 1441); St. Susanna (Lincoln, 1447); St. Clara
(Lincoln, 1455); St. Edward (Coventry, 1456 and later); St. Christian (Coventry,
1504); St. Christina (Bethersden in Kent, 1522); Sts. Crispin and Crispinian
(Dublin, 1528); St. Olave (London, 1557). Some of these were church plays, like
the St. Olave; some, like the St. Katharine, were school plays; some, craft plays,
like the St. Crispin. It is hard sometimes to distinguish between the play and the
mumming or the mute pageant; to the dumb show may be assigned some of the
St. Georges and the pageants of Fabyan, Sebastian, and Botulf, displayed, in
1564, by the religious gild of Holy Trinity (St. Botolph without Aldersgate). For
some conception of the frequency and vitality of such shows one need only turn
to Hone, Stow's Survey, the Records of Aberdeen, Toulmin Smith's English Gilds,
the History of Dublin, Davidson's English Mystery Plays, and other books of this
kind.

[33] German ballads on the subject in 1337 and 1478. A case similar to the
material of this drama is assigned to 1478 in Train's Gesch. d. Juden in
Regensburg, pp. 116-117.

[34] Child, English and Scotch Popular Ballads, vol. III., pp. 44, 90, 127, 114.

[35] In his introduction, Contributions to Early English Popular Literature,
London, 1849, privately printed.

[36] Warton, H. E. P., vol. II., p. 72.

[37] Repr. in Manly's Specimens; the former from Notes and Queries, Fifth
Series, II. 503-505; the latter from Kelly's Notices of Leicester.

[38] Halliwell's Contribution to E. Engl. Lit.

[39] British Museum, Add. Mss. 33,418.

[40] Repr. Manly, Specimens from Folk Lore Journal, VII. 338-353.

[41] Stow speaks of mummers, "with black visors, not amiable, as if legates
from some foreign prince."

[42] Cf. "Two balls (i.e. bulls) from yonder mountain have laid me quite low,"
with Golden Legend, vol. IV., p. 103, Temple Classics ed. There is no such close
similarity in the language of the Early South English Legendary, Laud Ms., Seint
Ieme, and Seint George (Horstmann, Ed. E.E.T.S., 1887).

[43] Schauspiele d. engl. Komödianten, Einl. XCIV.

[44] L. W. Cushman, The Devil and the Vice, Halle a. S., 1900.

[45] I remember only Herod and Antichrist outside of the Digby plays and of
the Cornwall cycle (where the devils act as chorus and carry off everything in
sight), and the souls of those already damned who are claimed by the devils of
the Towneley.

[46] Whether the Rewfyn and Leyon of the Co. were Devils, I have my doubts.

[47] Furnivall, Digby Plays, p. 43; ten Brink, Gesch. engl. Lit., II. 320, and
Sharp's Dissertation on the Co. Mysteries, 1825.

[48] In the Nigromansir, and the Shipwrights' Play of Newcastle.

[49] Cushman, p. 66.

[50] Furnivall's ed., Pt. II. 510, 517, 531, 536, 541.

[51] Wisdom, Disobedient Child.

[52] Perseverance, Mankynd, Mary Magdalene, Nigromansir, Juventus, Like,
Conflict of Conscience, Money.

[53] Mankynd, Mary Magdalene, Juventus, and Like.

[54] The Witt and Wisdome, King Cambyses, Like, and Horestes.

[55] Gesch. d. engl. Dramas, II., p. 4.

[56] English Writers, VII., p. 182.

[57] Cambyses; cf. Roister Doister's array.

[58] Play of Love; cf. the braggart Crackstone in Two Ital. Gent., much later.

[59] In Wisdom he may be regarded as Vice and Devil (Lucifer) rolled into
one; in Everyman he is probably represented by the friends who desert the hero in
time of need; in the Disobedient Child he is concrete as the prodigal son.

[60] Furnivall, Digby Plays, Forewords, xiii.

[61] Never 'Morality' to our ancestors; that is a futile borrowing from the
French.

[62] Wisdom has only Lucifer; Nature has only Sensuality and minor Vices;
Pride of Life had Devils in all probability, but no Vice, for Mirth is not one;
Everyman has neither.

[63] I see no reason for assuming with Professor Brandl (Quellen u.
Forschungen, XXVIII.) that the loss of the navy bound for Ireland, II. 336-363,
has reference to the destruction of the Regent by the French, 1512.

[64] For some of these see Quadrio, Della Storia e della Ragione d'ogni
Poesia, Vol. III., Lib. II., 53 et seq.

[65] For the substance of this paragraph see the histories of Klein, Herford,
and Creizenach.

[66] E. Dr. Po., I. 107, from Gibson's Accounts.

[67] Warton, H. Eng. Po. (1871), IV. 323.

[68] Herford, Lit. Rel., pp. 107-108.

[69] History of the Stage, p. 64.

[70] Brandl, Quellen, LXII.; cf. Herford, Lit. Rel., p. 156. To trace the
suggestion of the model of Barnabas to the Studentes of Stymmelius, 1549, is, I
think, absurd. It is strange that Creizenach, Gesch. d. neu. Dr., I. 470, should
assert, in face of the Nice Wanton and The Glasse of Government, that no English
'moral' avails itself of two representatives of the human race—a good and an evil.

[71] Brandl, Quellen, LXXIII.; and Herford, Lit. Rel.

[72] Lit. Rel., p. 135.

[73] The English Chronicle Play.

[74] Hawkins, Engl. Drama, I. 145, quotes a passage from one of Latimer's
sermons in the presence of Edward VI., which uses the story of "drave me aboute
the toune with a puddynge," referred to in Lusty Juventus.

[75] The Marriage of Wit and Wisdome.

[76] See below, p. 96.

[77] See below, p. 198. 'Trueman' in the Historia Histrionica (pr. 1699) thinks
it was "writ in the reign of K. Edw. VI."

[78] Bodl. Libr., Malone 172, "second impression," London, 1661; reprinted
by F. E. Schelling, Publ. Mod. Lang. Asso., 1900.

[79] Quellen u. Forschungen.

[80] Not J. Rychardes, as Mr. Fleay has it, Hist. Stage, p. 58.

[81] Herford, Lit. Rel., p. 156.

[82] Unique original, pub. by Pickerynge and Hacket, 1561, in Duke of
Devonshire's Libr., Chatsworth; repr. by Grosart, Fuller Worthies Libr., vol. IV.,
Miscellanies, 1873.

[83] As Hester and Abasuerus, 1594. I see no reason for attributing the
authorship, with Mr. Fleay, to R. Edwardes.

[84] The relation of The Taming of the Shrew to this play is well known.

[85] Hist. St., p. 66.

[86] Brit. Mus. c. 34, g; Collier's Illustr. O. Engl. Lit., II. 2; Brandl's Quellen.

[87] Collier, E. Dram Po., II. 432; and Ward, Hist. E. Dr. Lit., I. 264.

[88] Hist. E. Dr. Lit., I. 141.

John Heywood

THE PLAY OF THE WETHER
and
A MERY PLAY BETWENE
JOHAN JOHAN, THE HUSBANDE
TYB, HIS WIFE, &c.

Edited with Critical Essay and Notes
by Alfred W. Pollard, M.A.,
St. John's College, Oxford

CRITICAL ESSAY

Life.—The first authentic record of John Heywood is one of 6 January,
1515, in Henry VIII.'s Book of Payments, which shows him to have then
been one of the King's singing men, in receipt of a daily wage of
eightpence. According to Bale, who must have known him, he was "civis
Londinensis," the story that he was born at North Mimms, Hertfordshire,
having apparently arisen from his possession of land in that neighbourhood.
Tradition has sent him to Broadgates Hall, now Pembroke College, Oxford,
and there is nothing improbable in this. In February, 1521, Heywood was
granted by the King an annuity of ten marks, and in 1526, a quarterly
payment of the same sum was made him as a "player of the virginals." He
appears to have been specially attached to the retinue of the Princess Mary,
a payment being made in January, 1537, to his servant for bringing her
"regalles" (or hand-organ) from London to Greenwich, and Heywood
himself in March, 1538, receiving forty shillings for "pleying an interlude
with his children" before her. At Mary's coronation Heywood made her a
Latin speech in St. Paul's Churchyard, and in November, 1558, the Queen
granted him some leases in Yorkshire. On the accession of Elizabeth,
Heywood, though he had steered through the reign of Edward VI. with
safety, fled to Malines, and Professor Ward (in the Dictionary of National
Biography) identifies him with the John Heywood who in 1575 wrote from
Malines, "where I have been despoiled by Spanish and German soldier,"
thanking Burghley for ordering the payment to him of some arrears on lands
at Romney, and speaking of himself as an old man of seventy-eight, which
would give 1497 as his birth-year. He is mentioned in a list of refugees in
1577, but by 1587 is spoken of as "dead and gone." Earlier biographers, it
should be noted, following Anthony à Wood, have placed his death in 1565.
Besides his plays Heywood wrote a Dialogue Conteyning the Number of the
Effectuall Prouerbes in the Englishe Tonge, Six Hundred Epigrams, and a
tedious allegory The Spider and the Flie, printed, with a woodcut of the
author, in 1556.

Heywood's Place in English Comedy.—The early history of English
comedy is a record of successive efforts and experiments apparently leading
to no result. The comic scenes in the miracle plays culminate in the really
masterly sheep-stealing plot of the Secunda Pastorum in the Towneley
Cycle; but the step which seems to us so obvious, the separation of the
Pastoral Comedy from its religious surroundings, was never taken, and the
Secunda Pastorum stands by itself, a solitary masterpiece. In the earlier
moralities there are flashes of humour as in the miracle plays; in the later
moralities we find scenes in which the effort to paint the riotous course of
Youth, though not very amusing to modern readers, is sufficiently faithful to
bring us within sight of a possible comedy of manners. But the morality-
writer was far from entertaining any conception of comedy as an end in
itself. His aim remained to the last purely didactic. It did not, indeed, occur
to him, as it occurred to didactic writers of a later period, to represent
dissipation as so unattractive as to make it miraculous that it should attract.
He would show it as bitter of digestion, but neither playwright nor audience
were concerned to deny that it was pleasant in the mouth, and it is
improbable that readiness to acquiesce in the sober moral of a play
diminished in the least the applause with which, we may be sure, any
approach to gayety in the tavern scenes would be attended. After all, though
we may sometimes be inclined to doubt it, audiences both at miracle plays
and moralities were human. To the very real strain imposed on their
emotions in the miracle plays they needed what seem to us these
incongruous interludes of humour by way of dramatic relief, and in the
moralities it is difficult not to believe that the humour supplied the gilding
without which the didactic pill, at a much earlier date, must have been
found nauseating. It remains, however, certain that alike in the miracle
plays, the moralities, and the moral interludes such humour as can be found
is merely incidental, and this is the justification for assigning to John
Heywood the honourable position which he occupies in this collection of
English comedies. As far as we know, he was the first English dramatist to
understand that a play might be constructed with no other objects than satire
and amusement, and if such epithets were not fortunately a little discredited,
we might dub him on this score the "Father" of English comedy. Paternity,
however, cannot be predicated without some evidence of offspring, and it
would be extremely difficult, I think, to show that Heywood exercised
sufficient influence on any subsequent dramatist to be reckoned as his

literary father. The anonymous author of that amusing children's play,
Thersites, was indeed a kindred spirit, but there is at least a possibility that
this play should be credited to Heywood himself, and on the subsequent
development of comedy his influence was certainly of the smallest. But to
have shown that comedy was entitled to a separate existence, apart from
didactics, was no small achievement, and to the credit of this demonstration
Heywood is entitled.
In guessing how Heywood came to make this discovery it seems not
unreasonable to lay some stress on the fact that, according to a tradition
which there is no reason to doubt, he was a friend of Sir Thomas More,
while we know that four of his plays were printed by William Rastell, the
son of More's brother-in-law, John Rastell. More's interest in the drama is
attested by the story of his stepping, on more than one occasion, among the
players, when they were performing before Cardinal Morton, and taking an
improvised share in the dialogue. In the play of Sir Thomas More, written
towards the close of the century, this improvisation is transferred to an
interlude performed during an entertainment at More's own house, and the
introduction of this interlude into the piece, and the ready welcome which
the Chancellor is represented as giving the players, certainly argue a
tradition of a keen interest in the drama on his part. John Rastell, again, has
been credited with the authorship of at least one of the interludes which he
printed, and quite recently some interesting documents have been
discovered, which show him organizing a performance for which a wooden
stage was erected in his own garden at Finsbury, setting Mrs. Rastell to help
a tailor to make some very gorgeous dresses, and apparently engaging as
players the craftsmen (a certain George Birch, currier, and his friends), who
up to this date were still the customary performers, as distinct from a
separate class of trained actors. Rastell, at this time, and More, throughout
his life, held those views as to church-policy to which we know that
Heywood himself consistently clung. The attitude of firm belief, with an
absolute readiness to satirize abuses, which we find in Heywood's plays,
was exactly characteristic of More, and it does not seem fanciful to believe
that it was partly to the author of the Utopia, and to the circle of which he
was the centre, that Heywood owed his dramatic development.
Plays assigned to him: Authorship, Dramatic Development, Literary
Estimate.—There is the more reason for insisting on Heywood's place as

one of a little circle, interested in playwriting and play-acting, in that the
evidence for his authorship of two of the best of the six interludes
commonly assigned to him is extremely vague. It is, indeed, very
unfortunate that the six plays divide themselves into a group of four and a
group of two, and that whereas the four plays of the first group are all
positively assigned to him in one case in a contemporary manuscript, said to
be in his own writing, in the others in contemporary printed editions, the
two plays of the second group were both published anonymously, although,
like The Play of Love and The Play of the Wether, they were issued by
William Rastell, and appeared within a few months of these plays to which
Heywood's name is duly attached. In the case of publications of our own
day we should certainly be justified in thinking that the assertion of his
authorship in two cases and the failure to assert it in two others were
intentional and significant. But in the first half of the sixteenth century there
was still much carelessness in these matters, while the difference is fairly
well accounted for by the fact that in The Play of Love and Play of the
Wether Rastell printed the title and dramatis personæ on a separate leaf,
whereas in The Pardoner and the Frere and Johan Johan there is only a
head title. However this may be, we are bound in the first instance to
consider by themselves the four plays of which Heywood's authorship is
beyond dispute.
In approaching these four plays we must prepare ourselves to judge them
relatively to the other work of the very dull period of English literature at
which they were written. To make this claim for them is to admit that they
are imperfect, important historically rather than absolutely for their own
worth; but the admission is one which no sane critic can avoid, and it is
here made with alacrity. What it gains for Heywood is the recognition that
two strongly marked features of these plays, one of which is now likely to
repel, and the other to weary, most modern readers, in his own day helped
to make them amusing. The repellent feature is, of course, that humour of
filth which, quite as much as his sexual indecencies, makes some passages
both in the Four PP. and The Play of the Wether disgusting even to readers
not consciously squeamish. The epithet 'beastly' which Pope applied to
Skelton is certainly on this score no less appropriate to Heywood, but it
needs no wide acquaintance with the popular literature of his day to learn
that this wretched stuff was found amusing for its own sake. To suppress
this fact, either by expurgating or by deliberately choosing a less typical

play for the sake of its accidental decency, would be to falsify evidence, and
any such falsification would be grossly unjust to Heywood's successors. It
is only by realizing how low was the conception of humour in the sixteenth
century that we can explain the existence in the plays of Shakespeare
himself of passages which would otherwise be wholly amazing.
For the other feature in Heywood's plays which now excites more
weariness than interest there is no need to apologize; we may even confess
that our failure to relish it is due to our own weakness. In Heywood's days
one of the chief aims of education was skill in argument. Men disputed their
way to academical degrees, and the quickest path to reputation was the
successful maintenance against all comers of some hazardous proposition.
Instead of introducing this siege-train of argument into their plays, modern
dramatists have preferred the lighter weapons of verbal pleasantry and
repartee which make what is called "pointed dialogue." A request from one
of the dramatis personæ to another "in this cause to shewe cause
reasonable.... Hearyng and aunswerynge me pacyently" would assuredly
empty any theatre of our own day. But the audience who listened to it in
Heywood's Play of Love no doubt settled themselves in their places with an
anticipation of enjoyment. And we may fairly grant that our author is not
wholly unsuccessful in vivacious argument. For a lady to compare the suit
of an unwelcome lover to an invitation "to graunte hym my good wyll to
stryke of[f] my hed," pleasingly illustrates the unreasonableness of too great
pertinacity on the part of the rejected. The objection "Howe many have ye
known hang willingly" shatters at a blow the seemingly sound plea that as
the convict suffers more than his hangman, so the rejected lover is more to
be pitied than the most tender-hearted lady who finds herself obliged to
refuse him. The ups and downs of the argument are often conducted with
ingenuity, and an audience to whom argument was amusing for its own sake
no doubt applauded every point. Two of Heywood's plays depend almost
entirely on their logical attractions,—the interlude, left unprinted till its
issue by the Percy Society in 1846, to which has been given as title The
Dialogue of Wit and Folly, and The Play of Love twice printed by Rastell
(1533 and 1534) and once by Waley. The former is purely argumentative,
discussing the question as to whether the fool or the sage has the pleasanter
life. The Play of Love, on the other hand, may be said to have two episodes,
the first a monologue of some three hundred lines in which the Vice,
"Neither Loving nor Loved," narrates his ill-success in an endeavour to

conquer the heart of a lady without losing his own, the second his
appearance with a bucketful of squibs and a false story of a fire at the house
of the happy lover's mistress. The argument in this play is double, "Loving
not Loved" and "Loved not Loving" contending as to which is the more
miserable, and "Both Loved and Loving" and "Neither Loving nor Loved"
as to which is the happier. As each pair appoints the other as joint
arbitrators, it is perhaps more surprising that any conclusion was reached,
than that it should be the rather tame one that the pains of the first pair and
the happiness of the second were in each case exactly equal.
In connection with these two plays we ought perhaps to allude to another,
very similar in its form, the dialogue of Gentylnes and Nobylyte,[89] of
which the authorship has often been attributed to Heywood. This play is
certainly printed in John Rastell's types, but in place of a colophon it has the
words "Johannes Rastell fieri fecit," and as Rastell would probably have
written "imprimi fecit" if he had been alluding merely to its printing, we can
hardly doubt that the word "fieri" refers to performance, if not to
composition. With the evidence we now have that John Rastell had plays
acted in his own garden, "fieri fecit" seems exactly translatable by "caused
to be produced," and as Mrs. Rastell helped the tailor to make the dresses,
so probably the lawyer-printer helped to write the play. Its two parts are
each diversified by the Plowman beating Knight and Merchant (verberat
eos is the stage-direction), but otherwise it is all sheer argument, which in
the end a philosopher is introduced to sum up. The tone of the interlude is
singularly democratic, the Plowman throughout having the best of it, and,
despite a natural similarity between some of the speeches with those of the
"Gentylman" and the "Marchaunt" in the Play of the Wether, there seems no
reason for connecting with it the name of Heywood, who, for the better part
of his life, was in the service of the Court.
In "The playe called the foure PP.: a newe and a very mery enterlude of a
palmer, a pardoner, a potycary, a pedler," the advance in dramatic form as
compared with The Play of Love is very slight, though the play is much
more vivid and amusing. The Palmer begins it with an account of his
wanderings, and then the other three characters come on the stage, each
catching up the words of the last speaker, and vaunting his own profession.
The argument between Palmer, Pardoner, and Pothecary waxes hot, and at
last the Pedler suggests that as lying is the one matter in which they are all

skilled, their order of merit can best be determined by a contest in this art,
and offers himself as the judge. At first the competitors lie vaguely. Then it
is resolved that the lie must take the form of a tale, and the Pothecary tells a
long story of the effect of one of his medicines; then the Pardoner a much
longer one of a visit to Hell and the rescue thence of a shrew of whom
Lucifer was very glad to be rid; finally the Palmer in a few words expresses
his surprise that there should be such shrews in Hell, as in all his travels he
never yet knew one woman out of patience—a remark which straightway
wins him the preëminence, though there is more tedious wrangling, before a
serious little speech from the Pedler brings the play to a close. The Four PP.
is, to our thinking, insufferably spun out; but, except in the epilogue, as we
may call it, it is plain that its intention was solely to amuse—

To passe the tyme in thys without offence
Was the cause why the maker dyd make it,
And so we humbly beseche you take it,

says the Pedler:—and in substituting stories and a lighter form of argument
for the more formal disputation of the Dyaloge of Wit and Folly and the
Play of Love it comes a little nearer to the modern conception of comedy,
and may be thought to have deserved the success which it is said to have
achieved.
The possession by the Play of the Wether of an obvious moral—the mess
which men would make of rain, wind, and sunshine if they had the ruling of
them—is undoubtedly a link with the interludes of a didactic character, and
so may seem at first sight to place it in a lower grade of dramatic
development. There can be little doubt that it was acted by Heywood's
company of "children," whom we hear of as performing under his direction
before the Princess Mary, and a children's play would perhaps naturally be
cast in this form. But the form is here less important than the intention, and
it does not need Mery-report's comment ("now shall ye have the wether—
even as yt was") to tell us that Heywood's didactics were purely humorous.
The point to be noted is that this is really a play—a play, moreover, which if
it could be shortened and the unforgivable passages omitted, might be acted
by children of the present day with some enjoyment. The part of "the Boy,
the least that can play" is charming. There is stage furniture in Jupiter's
"trone," and in the coming and going of the characters at least a semblance

of action. We must note, however, the set disputation between the two
millers, as still linking it with Heywood's other argumentative plays, though
with all its faults it is the brightest and most pleasing of its class.
We come now to the two plays, The Pardoner and the Frere and Johan
Johan, which modern writers have uniformly assigned to Heywood,
although William Rastell printed them[90] without any author's name, and
no one has yet adduced contemporary evidence for assigning them to
Heywood. In neither of these plays is there any trace of the disputation
which in those we have been looking at is so conspicuous. They are both
true comedies, comedies in miniature if you like, but true comedies, with a
definite scene and dramatic action. The Pardoner and the Frere is little
more than an expansion of hints given by Chaucer, from whom the author
does not hesitate to borrow two whole passages, but the development of the
little plot is well managed and the climax when the Parson and Neighbour
Prat are badly worsted and the two rogues go off in triumph is thoroughly
artistic. It has been said that this play must have been written during the life
of Leo X., who died in 1521, because the Pardoner's speech contains the
passage (omitting the Friar's interruptions):—

Worshypfull maysters ye shall understand
That Pope Leo the X hath graunted with his hand,
And by his bulls confyrmed under lede,
To all maner people, bothe quycke and dede,
Ten thousand yeres & as many lentes of pardon, etc.

But as Heywood was probably born in 1497, it is extremely unlikely that
his undoubted plays were written before 1520, and if the evidence of this
passage is to be pressed, I should regard it as absolutely fatal to his
authorship, it being inconceivable that any one who had written the
Pardoner and the Frere could subsequently write the Dyaloge of Wyt and
Folly or the Play of Love. But there would be an obvious convenience in
making a dead pope rather than a living one answerable for the Pardoner's
ribaldries, and the weight of this argument is not lessened when we
remember that the Pardoner proceeds to quote also the authority of the
King.[91] Although no alteration of date would bring the play out of the
reign of Henry VIII., we may well believe that that peremptory monarch
might forgive such reflections on his management of church affairs at an

earlier date much more readily than satire of a system he was then
supporting.
We shall have to speak again of the Pardoner and the Frere and its
probable date, but we must pass on now to Heywood's masterpiece, if we
may call it his, the mery play betwene Johan Johan, the husbande, Tyb his
wyfe and Syr Jhan, the preest. In approaching this play, as in approaching
Chaucer's tales of the Miller and Reeve and some of their fellows, we must,
of course, leave our morality behind and accept the playwright's and tale-
teller's convention that cuckoldry and cuckoldmaking are natural subjects
for humour. This granted, it will be difficult to find a flaw in the play. Like
the Pardoner and the Frere it is short, only about one half the length of the
plays of Love, the Wether, and the Four PP., and it gains greatly from being
less weighted with superfluities. Johan Johan himself, with his boasting and
cowardice, his eagerness to be deceived, and futile attempts to put a good
face on the matter, his burning desire to partake of the pie, his one moment
of self-assertion, to which disappointed hunger spurs him, and then his fresh
collapse to ludicrous uneasiness,—who can deny that he is a triumph of
dramatic art, just human enough and natural enough to seem very human
and natural on the stage, but with the ludicrous side of him so sedulously
presented to the spectator that there is never any risk of compassion for him
becoming uncomfortably acute? The handling of Tyb and Syr Jhan is
equally clever. Each in turn is prepared to act on the defensive, to be
evasive and explanatory, but before Johan Johan's acquiesciveness such
devices seem superfluous, and little by little the pair reach a height of
effrontery not easily surpassed. One of the incidents of the play, the melting
of the wax by the fire, occurs also in a contemporary French Farce nouuelle
tresbonne et fort ioyeuse de Pernet qui va au vin, and it is certainly in the
French farces that we find the nearest approach in tone and treatment, as
well as in form, to this anonymous Johan Johan.
Dates. The Authorship of "Thersites."—It may have been noticed that
in passing these six plays in review the order followed has been purely that
of their dramatic development. We know that four of them were printed in
1533, when Heywood was thirty-six or thereabouts, but with the exception
of the reference to Leo X. in the Pardoner and the Frere, the significance of
which I have given reasons for considering doubtful, no one has yet
detected any time-reference which enables us to fix their approximate dates.

[92]
In his little treatise John Heywood als Dramatiker (1888) Dr. Swoboda
maintains that the Pardoner must be placed earlier than the Four PP., and
that the Four PP. can be shown to be earlier than the anonymous play of
Thersites, which we know from its epilogue was acted at Court between
October 12 and 24, 1537, the dates respectively of the birth of Edward VI.
and the death of his mother, Jane Seymour.[93] In support of his first point
he cites the fact that some of the relics ("the grete toe of the Trinite" and "of
all Hallows the blessed jawbone") vaunted by the Pardoner in his sermon in
the church appear again in the longer list of relics in the Four PP. In support
of the second he quotes from Thersites the lines[94] in which that hero
proposes to visit Purgatory and Hell, and traces in them an allusion to the
Pardoner's story in the Four PP. I cannot accept either of these arguments as
decisive chronologically, it being quite as reasonable for a dramatist to
abridge a list of relics as to expand it, while the boast of Thersites might be
represented as the hint out of which the rescue of Mistress Margery
Coorson was developed no less plausibly than as a reference to that
notorious lie. The Pardoner and the Frere seems to me dramatically more
advanced than the Four PP., and I am therefore slow to accept any
argument which would place it earlier; but even when we allow for the fact
that Chaucer had fixed for all time the humorous treatment of Pardoners,
the fact that the Pardoners in these two plays are so closely alike is an
argument of some weight for their common authorship.[95] But if this be so,
the reference to sweeping Hell clean in Thersites may set us wondering
whether it was not the author of the Four PP. who was most likely to have
written it; and we may note also the repetition in Thersites of the absurd
boasting with which Johan Johan preludes his disclosure of his cowardice,
while the incident of Telemachus belongs to that "humour of filth" which I
have already noted as characteristic of Heywood. For the probability of the
latter's authorship of Thersites we may claim also a little external support.
We have already noticed that in March, 1538, Heywood received forty
shillings for the performance by his "children" of an interlude before the
Princess Mary. Now Thersites is obviously intended for performance by
children; it was acted a few months previously to the payment of March,
1538,[96] in honour of Jane Seymour, to whom Mary, in return for her
abundant kindness, was greatly attached; and again Mary's fondness for the
classics would explain the selection of a classical burlesque if, as is

probable, she was present when it was acted. Given the facts that Heywood
had already in the Play of the Wether brought Jupiter on the stage, that
Thersites bears at least some slight resemblances to other plays attributed to
him, that he was in the service of the Princess Mary, and was manager,
whether permanently or temporarily, about this time, of a company of
children, and I think we have a fairly strong case for attributing Thersites to
his pen. If this theory be accepted, the probability of his authorship of both
the Pardoner and the Frere and Johan Johan is considerably increased; for
if Thersites is by Heywood, it is good enough to form an important link
between these plays and his argumentative interludes, while if Thersites be
not by Heywood, there was then some other playwright of the day for
whom a strong claim might be put forward to the authorship of these other
anonymous plays.
Sources.—The fact that an opportunity for writing about Heywood is not
likely to recur very often must be offered as an excuse for interpolating
questions of detail into this preface. For the broader view of the subject
which we ought here to take it is obvious that the authorship of this or that
play is not very important. What concerns us here is that we can see even in
the less developed group of plays English comedy emancipating itself from
the miracle-play and morality, and in the Pardoner and the Frere and Johan
Johan becoming identical in form with the French fifteenth-century farce.
Whether we ought to go beyond this and assert absolute borrowing from
French originals is rather a difficult question. The Farce nouuelle d'un
Pardonneur, d'un triacleur et d'une tauerniere may certainly have supplied
the idea both of the preaching-match between Pardoner and Friar and also
of the comparison of the wares of Pardoner and Pothecary. The Farce
nouuelle tresbonne et fort ioyeuse de Pernet qui va au vin contains two
passages[97] which must have some direct connection with Johan Johan.
The only extant edition of Pernet qui va au vin was "nouvellement
imprimé" in 1548, and the date of its prototype is unknown. The Farce d'un
Pardonneur, in the edition which has come down to us, is certainly later
than 1540, but this also was probably a reprint. Thus despite the fact that the
handling of the incidents in the English plays is far more skilful than in the
French, it would seem too daring to suggest that the French farces can be
borrowed from the English, and in any case we may imagine that the
English dramatist did not make his new departure unaided, but was
consciously working on the lines which had long been popular in France.

By doing so he did not lay the foundation of English comedy, for it was not
on these lines that our comedy subsequently developed. But it was at least a
hopeful omen for the future that an English playwright so easily attained a
real mastery in the only school of comedy with which he could have been
acquainted. It was something also that the right of comedy to exist as a
source of amusement apart from instruction had been successfully
vindicated. These were two real achievements, and they must always be
connected with the name of John Heywood.
"Play of the Wether": Early Editions and the Present Text.—At the
time I write, the Play of the Wether has not been reprinted since the
sixteenth century. Its bibliography has been rather confused by the existence
of two texts of it, one at St. John's College, Oxford, the other at the
University Library, Cambridge, each wanting the last leaf, containing in the
one case twenty, and in the other sixteen, lines of the text and the colophon
with the printer's name. The only perfect copy hitherto generally known is
that preserved at the Bodleian Library, which belongs to an edition
"Imprinted at London in Paules Churchyearde, at the Sygne of the Sunne,
by Anthonie Kytson" whose career as a publisher seems to have been
comprised within the years 1549 and 1579. Of this as the only complete
edition I then knew I made my first transcript, though subsequent collation
showed that the imperfect edition at St. John's College contained many
better readings and an earlier spelling, while the copy at the University
Library, Cambridge (sometimes, though I think erroneously, attributed to
the press of Robert Wyer), belonged to an intermediate edition. The
registration by the Bibliographical Society in its Hand-lists of English
Printers, 1501-1556, of the copy of an edition of 1533, printed by William
Rastell, in the Pepys Collection at Magdalene College, Cambridge, sent me
to Cambridge for a new transcript. On examination, the Magdalene edition
proved to be identical with that at St. John's College, Oxford, which had
previously been conjecturally assigned to Rastell, perhaps by some one who
had seen it before the last leaf disappeared. In reproducing Rastell's text I
have not thought it necessary to print my collation of the later editions, as it
is clear that the unidentified edition at the University Library, Cambridge
(U. L. C.), was printed from Rastell's, and Kitson's from this. The printer of
the U. L. C. edition introduced some errors into his text, most of which
Kitson copied: e.g. hote for hore in l. 38, omission of second so in l. 68, and
of second as in l. 72, name for maner in l. 115, or for of in l. 357, we for I in

l. 427, plumyng for plumpyng in l. 657, thynges for thynge in l. 660,
showryng for skowryng in l. 661, ye for yt in l. 699, and for all in l. 705,
belyke for be leak[e]y in l. 800; though he corrected a few: e.g. pale for
dale in l. 277. On the other hand, Kitson introduced some sixty or seventy
errors of his own, such as creatour for creature in l. 5, well for we in l. 21,
myngled for mynglynge in l. 144, mery for mary in l. 366, beseched for
besecheth in l. 347, pycked for prycked in l. 467, bodily for boldely in l.
470, solyter for solycyter in l. 496, etc. As these variations are obviously
misprints and nothing more, it would have been pedantic to record them in
full, and these samples will doubtless suffice. The following title-page is a
representation, not a reproduction, of the original. There is no running head-
line in Rastell's text.
Alfred W. Pollard.

FOOTNOTES:
[89] The full title of this play is rather instructive:—"Of Gentylnes &
Nobylyte: a dyaloge betwen the marchaunt, the knyght & the plowman
dysputyng who is a verey gentylman & who is a noble man and how men shuld
come to auctoryte, compiled in maner of an enterlude with divers toys & gestis
addyd therto to make mery pastyme and disport."

[90] The Pardoner and the Frere is dated 5 April, 1533; Johan Johan, 12
February, 153¾.

[91]

And eke, yf thou dysturbe me anythynge,
Thou art also a traytour to the Kynge,
For here hath he graunted me vnder his brode seale
That no man, yf he love hys hele,
Sholde me dysturbe or let in any wyse

[92] If the reference in l. 636 of the Play of the Wether (see note) is to be
pressed, this would be an exception, giving us between 1523 and 1533 as the date
of composition.

[93] Dr. Swoboda erroneously places Edward VI.'s birth in August, a slip of
some importance as to some extent spoiling his argument that Thersites must
have been written for a performance at an earlier date. But perhaps even in
October it would not be quite correct to say "All herbs are dead," while the
reference to a New Year's gift, though not quite decisive, makes it probable that
the play was written for a Christmas entertainment. In any case it is intrinsically

probable that a play acted at an improvised festivity on the birth of an heir to the
throne would be an old one, rather than specially written for the occasion.

[94]

If no man will with me battle take,
A voyage to hell quickly I will make,
And there I will beat the devil and his dame,
And bring the souls away: I fully intend the same.
After that in Hell I have ruffled so,
Straight to old Purgatory will I go,
I will clean that so purge round about
That we shall need no pardons to help them out.

[95] Dr. Swoboda, who speaks of the plays from the press of William Rastell
as printed by his father (John), was apparently unaware that neither The Pardoner
and the Frere nor Johan Johan bears Heywood's name, and takes his authorship
of them for granted.

[96] It is not contended that the payment was for the performance of Thersites,
only that it shows that Heywood was a likely man to be called on to produce a
play about this period.

[97] See notes to ll. 263 and 482. I quote here the end of the French farce in
order to give the "wax" episode in full.

Le Cousin. Or ca cousin iay pense
Dung subtil affaire,
Dont vous serez riche a iamas.
Pernet. Riche, cousin?
Le Cousin. Certes, sire, vous fault chauffer
Et faire ung subtil ouuraige,
Qui vous gardera de dommaige,
Cousin, beau sire.
Pernet. Me fault il donc chauffer la cire,
Tandis que vous banqueterez?
Corbieu, ien suis marry,
Je croy que ce paste est bon.
Le Cousin. Chauffez & mettez du charbon
Lymaige sera proffittable.
Pernet. Vous irayge signer la table?
Je scay bien le benedicite.
Le Cousin. Faictes ce que iay recite.
Dea! cousin! ne perdez point de temps.
Pernet. Cest vng trespouure passetemps
De chauffer la cire quant on digne!
Regardez elle est plus molle que laine,
En la chauffant rien naqueste.
Le Cousin. Conclus & conqueste!
Auec la femme ie banqueste,
Combien que ie ne soye le sire
Et son mary chauffe la cire.

The play of the wether

A new and a very
mery enterlude of
all maner wethers
made
by John Heywood,

The players names.

Jupiter a god.
Mery reporte the vyce.
The gentylman.
The marchaunt.
The ranger.
The water myller.
The wynde myller.
The gentylwoman.
The launder.
A boy the lest that can play.

The Play of the Wether
Jupyter A ii

Yght farre to longe, as now, were to recyte
The auncyent estate wherein our selfe hath reyned,
What honour, what laude, gyven us of very ryght,
What glory we have had, dewly unfayned,
Of eche creature, which dewty hath constrayned; 5
For above all goddes, syns our father's fale,
We, Jupiter, were ever pryncypale.

If we so have beene, as treuth yt is in dede,
Beyond the compas of all comparyson,
Who coulde presume to shew, for any mede, 10
So that yt myght appere to humayne reason,
The hye renowne we stande in at this season?
For, syns that heven and earth were fyrste create,
Stode we never in suche tryumphaunt estate

As we now do, whereof we woll reporte 15
Suche parte as we se mete for tyme present,
Chyefely concernynge your[98] perpetuall comforte,
As the thynge selfe shall prove in experyment,
Whyche hyely shall bynde you, on knees lowly bent,
Sooly to honour oure hyenes, day by day. 20
And now to the mater gyve eare, and we shall say.

Before our presens, in our hye parlyament,

Both goddes and goddeses of all degrees
Hath[99] late assembled, by comen assent,
For the redres of certayne enormytees, 25
Bred amonge them, thorow extremytees
Abusyd in eche to other of them all,
Namely, to purpose, in these moste specyall:

Our forsayde father Saturne, and Phebus,
Eolus and Phebe, these foure[100] by name, 30

Whose natures, not onely, so farre contraryous,
But also of malyce eche other to defame,
Have longe tyme abused, ryght farre out of frame,
The dew course of all theyr constellacyons,
To the great damage of all yerthly nacyons: 35

Whyche was debated in place sayde before; A ii b
And fyrste, as became, our father moste auncyent,
With berde whyte as snow, his lockes both colde & hore,
Hath entred[101] such mater as served his entent,
Laudynge his frosty mansyon in the fyrmament, 40
To ayre & yerth as thynge moste precyous,
Pourgynge all humours that are contagyous.

How be yt, he alledgeth that, of longe tyme past,
Lyttell hath prevayled his great dylygens,
Full oft uppon yerth his fayre frost he hath cast, 45
All thynges hurtfull to banysh out of presens.
But Phebus, entendynge to kepe him in sylens,
When he hath labored all nyght in his powres,[102]
His glarynge beamys maryth all in two howres.

Phebus to this made no maner answerynge, 50
Whereuppon they both then Phebe defyed,

Eche for his parte leyd in her reprovynge
That by her showres superfluous they have tryed[103];
In all that she may theyr powres be denyed;
Wherunto Phebe made answere no more 55
Then Phebus to Saturne hadde made before.

Anone uppon Eolus all these dyd fle,
Complaynynge theyr causes, eche one arow,
And sayd, to compare, none was so evyll as he;
For, when he is dysposed his blastes to blow, 60
He suffereth neyther sone-shyne, rayne nor snowe.
They eche agaynste other, and he agaynste al three,—
Thus can these iiii in no maner agree!

Whyche sene in themselfe, and further consyderynge,
The same to redres was cause of theyr assemble; 65
And, also, that we, evermore beynge,
Besyde our puysaunt power of deite,
Of wysedome and nature so noble and so fre,
From all extremytees the meane devydynge,
To pease and plente eche thynge attemperynge, 70

They have, in conclusyon, holly surrendryd A iii
Into our handes, at mych as concernynge
All maner wethers by them engendryd,
The full of theyr powrs, for terme everlastynge,
To set suche order as standyth wyth our pleasynge, 75
Whyche thynge, as of our parte, no parte requyred,
But of all theyr partys ryght humbly desyred,

To take uppon us. Wherto we dyd assente.
And so in all thynges, with one voyce agreable,
We have clerely fynyshed our foresayd parleament, 80

To your great welth, whyche shall be fyrme and stable,
And to our honour farre inestymable;
For syns theyr powers, as ours, addyd to our owne,
Who can, we say, know us as we shulde be knowne?

But now, for fyne,[104] the rest of our entent, 85

Wherfore, as now, we hyther are dyscendyd,
Is onely to satysfye and content
All maner people whyche have been offendyd
By any wether mete to be amendyd,
Uppon whose complayntes, declarynge theyr grefe, 90
We shall shape remedye for theyr relefe.

And to gyve knowledge for theyr hyther resorte
We wolde thys afore proclaymed to be,
To all our people, by some one of thys sorte,[105]
Whome we lyste to choyse here amongest all ye. 95
Wherfore eche man avaunce, and we shal se
Whyche of you is moste mete to be our cryer.
Here entreth Mery-reporte.

Mery-reporte. Brother,[106] holde up your torche a lytell hyer!
Now, I beseche you, my lorde, loke on me furste.
I truste your lordshyp shall not fynde me the wurste. 100

Jupyter. Why! what arte thou that approchyst so ny?
Mery-reporte. Forsothe, and please your lordshyppe, it is I.
Jupyter. All that we knowe very well, But what I?
Mery-reporte. What I? Some saye I am I perse I.[107]
But, what maner I so ever be I, 105
I assure your good lordshyp, I am I.
Jupyter. What maner man arte thou, shewe quickely. A iii b

Mery-reporte. By god, a poore gentylman, dwellyth hereby.
Jupyter. A gentylman! Thyselfe bryngeth wytnes naye,
Both in thy lyght behavour and araye. 110
But what arte thou called where thou dost resorte?
Mery-reporte. Forsoth, my lorde, mayster Mery-reporte.
Jupyter. Thou arte no mete man in our bysynes,
For thyne apparence is of to mych lyghtnes.
Mery-reporte. Why, can not your lordshyp lyke my maner 115
Myne apparell, nor my name nother?
Jupyter. To nother of all we have devocyon.
Mery-reporte. A proper lycklyhod of promocyon!
Well, than, as wyse as ye seme to be,
Yet can ye se no wysdome in me. 120
But syns ye dysprayse me for so lyghte an elfe,
I praye you gyve me leve to prayse my-selfe:
And, for the fyrste parte, I wyll begyn
In my behavour at my commynge in,
Wherin I thynke I have lytell offendyd, 125
For, sewer, my curtesy coulde not be amendyd;
And, as for my sewt your servaunt to be,
Myghte yll have bene myst for your honeste;
For as I be saved yf I shall not lye

For, as I be saved, yf I shall not lye,
I saw no man sew for the offyce but I! 130
Wherfore yf ye take me not or I go,
Ye must anone, whether ye wyll or no.
And syns your entent is but for the wethers,
What skyls[108] our apparell to be fryse[109] or fethers?
I thynke it wisdome, syns no man forbad it, 135
With thys to spare a better—yf I had it!
And, for my name, reportyng alwaye trewly,
What hurte to reporte a sad mater merely?
As, by occasyon, for the same entent,
To a serteyne wedow thys daye was I sent, 140
Whose husbande departyd wythout her wyttynge,
A specyall good lover and she hys owne swettynge![110]
To whome, at my commyng, I caste suche a fygure,
Mynglynge the mater accordynge to my nature,
That when we departyd,[111] above al other thynges, 145

She thanked me hartely for my mery tydynges!
And yf I had not handled yt merely, A iv
Perchaunce she myght have taken yt hevely;
But in suche facyon I conjured and bounde her,
That I left her meryer then I founde her! 150
What man may compare to showe the lyke comforte
That dayly is shewed by me, Mery-reporte?
And, for your purpose, at this tyme ment,
For all wethers I am so indyfferent,[112]
Without affeccyon, standynge so up-ryght, 155
Son-lyght, mone-lyght, ster-lyght, twy-light, torch-light,
Cold, hete, moyst, drye, hayle, rayne, frost, snow, lightnyng, thunder,
Cloudy, mysty, wyndy, fayre, fowle, above hed or under,
Temperate or dystemperate, whatever yt be,
I promyse your lordshyp, all is one to me. 160

Jupyter. Well, sonne, consydrynge thyne indyfferency,
And partely the rest of thy declaracyon,
We make the our servaunte and immediately
Well woll thou departe and cause proclamacyon,
Publyshynge our pleasure to every nacyon, 165
Wh h h d h ll d l

Whyche thynge ons done, wyth all dylygens,
Make thy returne agayne to this presens,
Here to receyve all sewters of eche degre;
And suche as to the may seme moste metely,
We wyll thou brynge them before our majeste, 170
And for the rest, that be not so worthy,
Make thou reporte to us effectually,
So that we may heare eche maner sewte at large.
Thus se thow departe and loke uppon thy charge!
Mery-reporte. Now, good my lorde god, our lady be wyth ye! 175

Frendes, a fellyshyppe,[113] let me go by ye!
Thynke ye I may stande thrustyng amonge you there?
Nay, by god, I muste thruste aboute other gere!
Mery-reporte goeth out.
At thende[114] of this staf[115] the god hath a song played in his trone or
Mery-reporte come in.

Jupiter. Now, syns we have thus farre set forth our purpose,
A whyle we woll wythdraw our godly presens, 180
To embold all such more playnely to dysclose,
As here wyll attende, in our foresayd pretens.
And now, accordynge to your obedyens, A iv b
Rejoyce ye in us with joy most joyfully,
And we our-selfe shall joy in our owne glory! [Jupiter here closes the
curtains of his throne.] 185

Mery-reporte cometh in.

Mery-reporte. Now, syrs, take hede! for here cometh goddes servaunt!
Avaunt! carte[r]ly keytyfs,[116] avaunt!
Why, ye dronken horesons, wyll yt not be?
By your fayth, have ye nother cap nor kne?
Not one of you that wyll make curtsy 190
To me, that am squyre for goddes precyous body?
Regarde ye nothynge myne authoryte?
No welcome home! nor where have ye be?
How be yt, yf ye axyd, I coulde not well tell,
But suer I thynke a thousande myle from hell, 195
And on my fayth, I thinke, in my consciens,
I have been from hevyn as farre as heven is hens,
At Lovyn,[117] at London and in Lombardy,
At Baldock,[118] at Barfolde,[119] and in Barbary,
At Canturbery, at Coventre, at Colchester, 200

At Wansworth and Welbecke,[120] at Westchester,
At Fullam, at Faleborne, and at Fenlow,
At Wallyngford, at Wakefeld, and at Waltamstow,
At Tawnton, at Typtre[121] and at Totnam,[122]
At Glouceter, at Gylford and at Gotham, 205
At Hartforde, at Harwyche, at Harowe on the hyll,
At Sudbery,[123] Suth hampton, at Shoters Hyll,[124]
At Walsingham, at Wyttam[125] and at Werwycke,
At Boston, at Brystow[126] and at Berwycke,
At Gravelyn,[127] at Gravesend, and at Glastynbery, 210

Ynge Gyngiang Jayberd the paryshe of Butsbery.[128]
The devyll hym-selfe, wythout more leasure,
Could not have gone halfe thus myche, I am sure!
But, now I have warned[129] them, let them even chose;
For, in fayth, I care not who wynne or lose. 215

Here the gentylman before he cometh in bloweth his horne.

Mery-reporte. Now, by my trouth, this was a goodly hearyng.
I went yt had ben the gentylwomans blowynge!
But yt is not so, as I now suppose,
For womens hornes sounde more in a mannys nose. 220

Gentylman. Stande ye mery, my frendes, everychone. Bi

Mery-reporte. Say that to me and let the rest alone!
Syr, ye be welcome, and all your meyny.
Gentylman. Now, in good sooth, my frende, god a mercy!
And syns that I mete the here thus by chaunce, 225
I shall requyre the of further acqueyntaunce,
And brevely to shew the, this is the mater.
I come to sew to the great god Jupyter
For helpe of thynges concernynge my recreacyon,
Accordynge to his late proclamacyon. 230

Mery-reporte. Mary, and I am he that this must spede.
But fyrste tell me what be ye in dede.
Gentylman. Forsoth, good frende, I am a gentylman.
Mery-reporte. A goodly occupacyon, by seynt Anne!
On my fayth, your maship[130] hath a mery life. 235

But who maketh all these hornes, your self or your wife?
Nay, even in earnest, I aske you this questyon.
Gentylman. Now, by my trouth, thou art a mery one.
Mery-reporte. In fayth, of us both I thynke never one sad,
For I am not so mery but ye seme as mad! 240
But stande ye styll and take a lyttell payne,
I wyll come to you, by and by, agayne.
Now, gracyous god, yf your wyll so be,
I pray ye, let me speke a worde wyth ye.
Jupyter. My sonne, say on! Let us here thy mynde. 245

Mery-reporte. My lord, there standeth a sewter even here behynde,
A Gentylman, in yonder corner,
And, as I thynke, his name is Mayster Horner
A hunter he is and cometh to make you sporte

A hunter he is, and cometh to make you sporte.
He woide hunte a sow or twayne out of thys sorte.[131] 250

Here he poynteth to the women.

Jupyter. What so ever his mynde be, let hym appere.
Mery-reporte. Now, good mayster Horner, I pray you come nere.
Gentylman. I am no horner, knave! I wyll thou know yt.
Mery-reporte. I thought ye had [been], for when ye dyd blow yt,
Harde I never horeson make horne so goo. 255
As lefe ye kyste myne ars as blow my hole soo!
Come on your way, before the God Jupyter,
And there for your selfe ye shall be sewter.
Gentylman. Most myghty prynce and god of every nacyon,
Pleaseth your hyghnes to vouchsave the herynge 260
Of me, whyche, accordynge to [y]our proclamacyon, Bib
Doth make apparaunce, in way of besechynge,
Not sole for myself, but generally
For all come of noble and auncyent stock,
Whych sorte above all doth most thankfully 265
Dayly take payne for welth of the comen flocke,
With dylygent study alway devysynge
To kepe them in order and unyte,
In peace to labour the encrees of theyr lyvynge,
Wherby eche man may prosper in plente. 270
Wherfore, good god, this is our hole desyrynge,
That for ease of our paynes, at tymes vacaunt,
In our recreacyon, whyche chyefely is huntynge,
It may please you to sende us wether pleasaunt,
Drye and not mysty, the wynde calme and styll. 275

That after our houndes yournynge[132] so meryly,
Chasynge the dere over dale and hyll,
In herynge we may folow and to-comfort the cry.
Jupyter. Ryght well we do perceyve your hole request,
Whyche shall not fayle to reste in memory, 280
Wherfore we wyll ye set your-selfe at rest,
Tyll we have herde eche man indyfferently,
And we shall take suche order, unyversally,
As best may stande to our honour infynyte,
For welth in commune and ech mannys synguler profyte. 285

o we t co u e a d ec a ys sy gu e p o yte.
Gentylman. In heven and yerth honoured be the name
Of Jupyter, who of his godly goodnes
Hath set this mater in so goodly frame,
That every wyght shall have his desyre, doutles.
And fyrst for us nobles and gentylmen, 290
I doute not, in his wysedome, to provyde
Suche wether as in our huntynge, now and then,
We may both teyse[133] and receyve[134] on every syde.
Whyche thynge, ones had, for our seyd recreacyon,
Shall greatly prevayle[135] you in preferrynge our helth 295

For what thynge more nedefull then our preservacyon,
Beynge the weale and heddes of all comen welth?
Mery-reporte. Now I besech your mashyp, whose hed be you?
Gentylman. Whose hed am I? Thy hed. What seyst thou now?
Mery-reporte. Nay, I thynke yt very trew, so god me helpe! 300
For I have ever bene, of a lyttell whelpe, B ii
So full of fansyes, and in so many fyttes,
So many smale reasons, and in so many wyttes,
That, even as I stande, I pray God I be dede,
If ever I thought them all mete for one hede. 305
But syns I have one hed more then I knew,
Blame not my rejoycynge,—I love all thinges new.
And suer it is a treasour of heddes to have store:
One feate can I now that I never coude before.
Gentylman. What is that?
Mery-reporte. By god, syns ye came hyther, 310
I can set my hedde and my tayle togyther.
This hed shall save mony, by Saynt Mary,
From hensforth I wyll no potycary;
For at al tymys, when suche thynges shall myster
My new hed shall geve myne olde tayle a glyster.[136] 315

And, after all this, then shall my hedde wayte
Uppon my tayle, and there stande at receyte.
Syr, for the reste I wyll not now move you,
B t f l h ll ll h I l

But, yf we lyve, ye shall smell how I love yow.
And, sir, touchyng your sewt here, depart, when it please you
For be ye suer, as I can I wyll ease you. 321

Gentylman. Then gyve me thy hande. That promyse I take.
And yf for my sake any sewt thou do make,
I promyse thy payne to be requyted
More largely than now shall be recyted. 325

Mery-reporte. Alas, my necke! Goddes pyty, where is my hed?
By Saynt Yve, I feare me I shall be deade.
And yf I were, me-thynke yt were no wonder,
Syns my hed and my body is so farre asonder,
Entreth the Marchaunt.

Mayster person,[137] now welcome by my life! 330

I pray you, how doth my maistres, your wyfe?[138]
Marchaunt. Syr, for the presthod and wyfe that ye alledge
I se ye speke more of dotage then knowledge.
But let pas, syr, I wolde to you be sewter
To brynge me, yf ye can, before Jupiter. 335

[Mery-reporte.] Yes, Mary, can I, and wyll do yt in dede.
Tary, and I shall make wey for your spede. [Goes to Jupyter.]
In fayth, good lorde, yf it please your gracyous godshyp,
I muste have a worde or twayne wyth your lordship. B ii b
Syr, yonder is a nother man in place, 340
Who maketh great sewt to speke wyth your grace.
Your pleasure ones knowen, he commeth by and by.[139]
Jupyter. Bryng hym before our presens, sone, hardely.
Mery-reporte. Why! where be you? shall I not fynde ye?
Come a-way, I pray god, the devyll blynde ye! 345

Marchaunt. Moste myghty prynce and lorde of lordes all,
Right humbly besecheth your majeste
Your marchaunt-men thorow the worlde all,
That yt may please you, of your benygnyte,
In the dayly daunger of our goodes and lyfe, 350
Fyrste to consyder the desert of our request,
What welth we bryng the rest, to our great care & stryfe,
And then to rewarde us as ye shall thynke best.
What were the surplysage of eche commodyte,
Whyche groweth and encreaseth in every lande, 355
Excepte exchaunge by suche men as we be?
By wey of entercours, that lyeth on our hande[140]
We fraught from home, thynges wherof there is plente;
And home we brynge such thynges as there be scant.
Who sholde afore us marchauntes accompted be? 360
For were not we, the worlde shuld wyshe and want
In many thynges, whych now shall lack rehersall.
And, brevely to conclude, we beseche your hyghnes
That of the benefyte proclaymed in generall

That of the benefyte proclaymed in generall
We may be parte-takers, for comen encres, 365
Stablyshynge wether thus, pleasynge your grace,
Stormy, nor mysty, the wynde mesurable.
That savely we may passe from place to place,
Berynge our seylys for spede moste vayleable;[141]
And also the wynde to chaunge and to turne, 370
Eest, West, North and South, as best may be set,
In any one place not to longe to sojourne,
For the length of our vyage may lese our market.
Jupyter. Right well have ye sayde, and we accept yt so,
And so shall we rewarde you ere we go hens. 375

But ye muste take pacyens tyll we have harde mo,[142]
That we may indyfferently gyve sentens.
There may passe by us no spot of neglygence,
But justely to judge eche thynge, so upryghte B iii

That ech mans parte maye shyne in the selfe ryghte.[143] 380

Mery-reporte. Now, syr, by your fayth, yf ye shulde be sworne,
Harde ye ever god speke so, syns ye were borne?
So wysely, so gentylly hys wordes be showd!
Marchaunt. I thanke hys grace. My sewte is well bestowd.
Mery-reporte. Syr, what vyage entende ye nexte to go? 385

Marchaunt. I truste or myd-lente to be to Syo.[144]
Mery-reporte. Ha, ha! Is it your mynde to sayle at Syo?
Nay, then, when ye wyll, byr lady, ye maye go,
And let me alone with thys. Be of good chere!
Ye maye truste me at Syo as well as here. 390
For though ye were fro me a thousande myle space,
I wolde do as myche as ye were here in place,
For, syns that from hens it is so farre thyther,
I care not though ye never come agayne hyther.
Marchaunt. Syr, yf ye remember me, when tyme shall come, 395
Though I requyte not all, I shall deserve some.
Exeat Marchaunt.

Mery-reporte. Now, farre ye well, & god thanke you, by saynt Anne,
I pray you, marke the fasshyon of thys honeste manne;
He putteth me in more truste, at thys metynge here,
Then he shall fynde cause why, thys twenty yere. 400

Here entreth the Ranger.

Ranger. God be here, now Cryst kepe thys company!
Mery-reporte. In fayth, ye be welcome, evyn very skantely!
Syr, for your comynge what is the mater?
Ranger. I wolde fayne speke with the god Jupyter.
Mery-reporte. That wyll not be, but ye may do thys— 405
Tell me your mynde. I am an offycer of hys.
Ranger. Be ye so? Mary, I crye you marcy.
Your maystership may say I am homely.
But syns your mynde is to have reportyd
The cause wherfore I am now resortyd, 410
Pleasyth your maystership it is so.
I come for my-selfe and suche other mo,
Rangers and kepers of certayne places,
As forestes, parkes, purlews and chasys[145]
Where we be chargyd with all maner game. 415
Smale in our profyte and great is our blame.
Alas! For our wages, what be we the nere?
What is forty shyllynges, or fyve marke, a yere? B iii b
Many tymes and oft, where we be flyttynge,
We spende forty pens a pece at a syttinge. 420
Now for our vauntage, whyche chefely is wyndefale.
That is ryght nought, there bloweth no wynde at all,
Whyche is the thynge wherin we fynde most grefe,
And cause for my commynge to sew for relefe,
That the god, of pyty, al thys thynge knowynge, 425
May sende us good rage of blustryng and blowynge,
And, yf I can not get god to do some good,
I wolde hyer the devyll to runne thorow the wood,
The rootes to turne up, the toppys to brynge under.
A mischyefe upon them, and a wylde thunder! 430

Mery-reporte. Very well sayd, I set by your charyte
As mych, in a maner, as by your honeste.
I shall set you somwhat in ease anone.
Ye shall putte on your cappe, when I am gone.
For, I se, ye care not who wyn or lese, 435

o , se, ye ca e ot w o wy o ese,
So ye maye fynde meanys to wyn your fees.
Ranger. Syr, as in that, ye speke as it please ye.
But let me speke with the god, yf it maye be.
I pray you, lette me passe ye.
Mery-reporte. Why, nay, syr! By the masse, ye— 440

Ranger. Then wyll I leve you evyn as I founde ye.
Mery-reporte. Go when ye wyll. No man here hath bounde ye.
Here entreth the Water Myller and the Ranger goth out.

Water Myller. What the devyll shold skyl,[146] though all the world were
dum,
Syns in all our spekynge we never be harde?
We crye out for rayne, the devyll sped drop wyll cum. 445
We water myllers be nothynge in regarde.
No water have we to grynde at any stynt,
The wynde is so stronge the rayne cannot fall,
Whyche kepeth our myldams as drye as a flynt.
We are undone, we grynde nothynge at all, 450
The greter is the pyte, as thynketh me.
For what avayleth to eche man his corne,
Tyll it be grounde by such men as we be?
There is the loss, yf we be forborne.[147]
For, touchynge our-selfes, we are but drudgys, 455
And very beggers save onely our tole, B iv
Whiche is ryght smale and yet many grudges
For gryste of a busshell to gyve a quarte bole.[148]
Yet, were not reparacyons, we myght do wele.
Our mylstons, our whele with her kogges, & our trindill[149] 460

Our floodgate, our mylpooll, our water whele,
Our hopper,[150] our extre,[151] our yren spyndyll,
In this and mych more so great is our charge,
That we wolde not recke though no water ware,
Save onely it toucheth eche man so large, 465
And ech for our neyghbour Cryste byddeth us care.
Wherfore my conscience hath prycked me hyther,
In thys to sewe, accordynge to the cry,[152]
For plente of raine to the god Jupiter
To whose presence I wyll go evyn boldely. 470

Mery-reporte. Sir, I dowt nothynge your audacyte,
But I feare me ye lacke capacyte,
For, yf ye were wyse, ye myghte well espye,
How rudely ye erre from rewls of courtesye.
What! ye come in revelynge and reheytynge,[153] 475

Evyn as a knave might go to a beare-beytynge!
Water Myller All you bere recorde what favour I have!

Water Myller. All you bere recorde what favour I have!
Herke, howe famylyerly he calleth me knave!
Dowtles the gentylman is universall!
But marke thys lesson, syr. You shulde never call 480
Your felow knave, nor your brother horeson;
For nought can ye get by it, when ye have done.
Mery-reporte. Thou arte nother brother nor felowe to me,
For I am goddes servaunt, mayst thou not se?
Wolde ye presume to speke with the great god? 485

Nay, dyscrecyon and you be to farre od![154]
Byr lady, these knaves must be tyed shorter.[155]
Syr, who let you in? Spake ye with the porter?
Water Myller. Nay, by my trouth, nor wyth no nother man.
Yet I saw you well, when I fyrst began. 490

How be it, so helpe me god and holydam,[156]
I toke you but for a knave, as I am.
But, mary, now, syns I knowe what ye be,
I muste and wyll obey your authoryte.
And yf I maye not speke wyth Jupiter 495
I beseche you be my solycyter. B iv b

Mery-reporte. As in that, I wyl be your well-wyller.
I perceyve you be a water myller.
And your hole desyre, as I take the mater,
Is plente of rayne for encres of water. 500
The let wherof, ye affyrme determynately,
Is onely the wynde, your mortall enemy.
Water Myller. Trouth it is, for it blowyth so alofte,
We never have rayne, or, at the most, not ofte.
Wherfore, I praye you, put the god in mynde 505
Clerely for ever to banysh the wynde.
Here entreth the Wynde Myller.

Wynde Myller. How! Is all the wether gone or I come?
For the passyon of god, helpe me to some.
I am a wynd-miller, as many mo be.
No wretch in wretchydnes so wrechyd as we! 510

The hole sorte[157] of my crafte be all mard at onys,
The wynde is so weyke it sturryth not our stonys,
Nor skantely can shatter[158] the shyttyn sayle
That hangeth shatterynge[159] at a womans tayle.
The rayne never resteth, so longe be the showres, 515
From tyme of begynnyng tyl foure & twenty howres;
And, ende whan it shall, at nyght or at none,
An-other begynneth as soone as that is done.
Such revell of rayne ye knowe well inough,
Destroyeth the wynde, be it never so rough, 520
Wherby, syns our myllys be come to styll standynge,
Now maye we wynd-myllers go evyn to hangynge.
A myller! with a moryn[160] and a myschyefe!
Who wolde be a myller? As good be a thefe!
Yet in tyme past, when gryndynge was plente, 525
Who were so lyke goddys felows as we?
As faste as god made corne, we myllers made meale.
Whyche myght be best forborne[161] for comyn weale?
But let that gere passe, for I feare our pryde
Is cause of the care whyche god doth us provyde. 530
Wherfore I submyt me, entendynge to se
What comforte may come by humylyte.
And, now, at thys tyme, they sayd in the crye,
The god is come downe to shape remedye.
Mery-reporte. No doute, he is here, even in yonder trone. C 535
But in your mater he trusteth me alone,
Wherein, I do perceyve by your complaynte,
Oppressyon of rayne doth make the wynde so faynte,
That ye wynde-myllers be clene caste away.
Wynde Myller. If Jupyter helpe not, yt is as ye say. 540

But, in few wordes to tell you my mynde rounde,[162]
Uppon this condycyon I wolde be bounde

Uppon this condycyon I wolde be bounde,
Day by day to say our ladyes' sauter,[163]
That in this world were no drope of water,
Nor never rayne, but wynde contynuall, 545
Then shold we wynde myllers be lordes over all.
Mery-reporte. Come on and assay how you twayne can agre—
A brother of yours, a myller as ye be!
Water Myller. By meane of our craft we may be brothers,
But whyles we lyve shal we never be lovers. 550
We be of one crafte, but not of one kynde,
I lyve by water and he by the wynde.
Here Mery-report goth out.

And, syr, as ye desyre wynde continuall,
So wolde I have rayne ever-more to fall,
Whyche two in experyence, ryght well ye se, 555
Ryght selde, or never, to-gether can be.
For as longe as the wynde rewleth, yt is playne,
Twenty to one ye get no drop of rayne;
And when the element is to farre opprest,
Downe commeth the rayne and setteth the wynde at reste. 560
By this, ye se, we can-not both obtayne.
For ye must lacke wynde, or I must lacke rayne.
Whertore I thynke good, before this audiens,
Eche for our selfe to say, or we go hens;
And whom is thought weykest, when we have fynysht, 565
Leve of his sewt and content to be banysht.
Wynde Myller. In fayth, agreed! but then, by your lycens,
Our mylles for a tyrne shall hange in suspens.
Syns water and wynde is chyefely our sewt,
Whyche best may be spared we woll fyrst dyspute. 570
Wherfore to the see my reason shall resorte,
Where shyppes by meane of wynd try from port to porte,
From lande to lande, in dystaunce many a myle,—
Great is the passage and smale is the whyle.
So great is the profile, as to me doth seme, C i b 575

That no man's wysdome the welth can exteme.[164]
And syns the wynde is conveyer of all
Who but the wynde shulde have thanke above all?
Water Myller. Amytte[165] in this place a tree here to growe,
And therat the wynde in great rage to blowe; 580
When it hath all blowen, thys is a clere case,
The tre removeth no here-bred[166] from hys place.
No more wolde the shyppys, blow the best it cowde.
All though it wolde blow downe both mast & shrowde,
Except the shyppe flete[167] uppon the water 585

The wynde can ryght nought do,—a playne matter.
Yet maye ye on water, wythout any wynde,
Row forth your vessell where men wyll have her synde [168]

Row forth your vessell where men wyll have her synde.
Nothynge more rejoyceth the maryner,
Then meane cooles[169] of wynde and plente of water. 590

For, commenly, the cause of every wracke
Is excesse of wynde, where water doth lacke.
In rage of these stormys the perell is suche
That better were no wynde then so farre to muche.
Wynde Myller. Well, yf my reason in thys may not stande, 595
I wyll forsake the see and lepe to lande.
In every chyrche where goddys servyce is,
The organs beare brunt of halfe the quere,[170] i-wys.
Whyche causeth the sounde, of water or wynde?
More-over for wynde thys thynge I fynde 600
For the most parte all maner mynstrelsy,
By wynde they delyver theyr sound chefly,
Fyll me a bagpype of your water full,
As swetely shall it sounde as it were stuffyd with wull.
Water Myller. On my fayth I thynke the moone be at the full, 605
For frantyke fansyes be then most plentefull.
Which are at the pryde of theyr sprynge in your[171] hed,
So farre from our matter he[171] is now fled.
As for the wynde in any instrument,
It is no percell of our argument, 610
We spake of wynde that comyth naturally
And that is wynde forcyd artyfycyally,
Whyche is not to purpose. But, yf it were,
And water, in dede, ryght nought coulde do there,
Yet I thynke organs no suche commodyte,[172] C ii 615

Wherby the water shulde banyshed be.
And for your bagpypes, I take them as nyfuls,[173]
Your mater is all in fansyes and tryfuls.
Wynde Myller. By god, but ye shall not tryfull me of[174] so!
Yf these thynges serve not, I wyll reherse mo. 620
And now to mynde there is one olde proverbe come,
One bushell of marche dust is worth a kynges raunsome,
What is a hundreth thousande bushels worth than?

Water Myller. Not one myte, for the thynge selfe, to no man.
Wynde Myller. Why shall wynde every-where thus be objecte? 625
Nay, in the hye wayes he shall take effecte,
Where as the rayne doth never good but hurt,
For wynde maketh but dust and water maketh durt.
Powder or syrop, syrs, whyche lycke ye best?
Who lycketh not the tone maye lycke up the rest. 630
But, sure, who-so-ever hath assayed such syppes,
Had lever have dusty eyes then durty lyppes.
And it is sayd, syns afore we were borne,
That drought doth never make derth of corne.
And well it is knowen, to the most foole here, 635

How rayne hath pryced corne within this vii. yeare.[175]
Water Myller. Syr, I pray the, spare me a lytyll season.
And I shall brevely conclude the wyth reason.
Put case on[176] somers daye wythout wynde to be,
And ragyous wynde in wynter dayes two or thre, 640
Mych more shall dry that one calme daye in somer,
Then shall those thre wyndy dayes in wynter.
Whom shall we thanke for thys, when all is done?
The thanke to wynde? Nay! Thanke chyefely the sone.
And so for drought, yf corne therby encres, 645
The sone doth comfort and rype all dowtles,
And oft the wynde so leyth the corne, god wot,
That never after can it rype, but rot.
Yf drought toke place, as ye say, yet maye ye se,
Lytell helpeth the wynde in thys commodyte. 650
But, now, syr, I deny your pryncypyll.
Yf drought ever were, it were impossybyll
To have ony grayne, for, or it can grow,
Ye must plow your lande, harrow and sow,
Whyche wyll not be, except ye maye have rayne C ii b 655
To temper the grounde, and after agayne
For spryngynge and plumpyng all maner corne
Yet muste ye have water, or all is forlorne.
Yf ye take water for no commodyte

Yet must ye take it for thynge of necessyte, 660
For washynge, for skowrynge, all fylth clensynge,
Where water lacketh what bestely beynge!
In brewyng, in bakynge, in dressynge of meate,
Yf ye lacke water, what coulde ye drynke or eate?
Wythout water coulde lyve neyther man nor best, 665
For water preservyth both moste and lest.
For water coulde I say a thousande thynges mo,
Savynge as now the tyme wyll not serve so;
And as for that wynde that you do sew fore,
Is good for your wynde-myll and for no more. 670
Syr, syth all thys in experyence is tryde,
I say thys mater standeth clere on my syde.
Wynde Myller. Well, syns thys wyll not serve, I wyll alledge the reste.
Syr, for our myllys I saye myne is the beste.
My wynd-myll shall grynd more corne in one our 675
Then thy water-myll shall in thre or foure,
Ye more then thyne shulde in a hole yere,
Yf thou myghtest have as thou hast wyshyd here.
For thou desyrest to have excesse of rayne,
Whych thyng to the were the worst thou couldyst obtayne. 680

For, yf thou dydyst, it were a playne induccyon[177]
To make thyne owne desyer thyne owne destruccyon.
For in excesse of rayne at any flood
Your myllys must stande styll; they can do no good.
And whan the wynde doth blow the uttermost 685
Our wyndmylles walke a-mayne in every cost.
For, as we se the wynde in hys estate,
We moder[178] our-saylys after the same rate.
Syns our myllys grynde so farre faster then yours,
And also they may grynde all tymes and howrs, 690
I say we nede no water-mylles at all,
For wyndmylles be suffycyent to serve all.
Water Myller. Thou spekest of all and consyderest not halfe!
In boste of thy gryste thou art wyse as a calfe!
For, though above us your mylles grynde farre faster, C iii 695
What helpe to those from whome ye be myche farther?

What helpe to those from whome ye be myche farther?
And, of two sortes, yf the tone shold be conserved,
I thynke yt mete the moste nomber be served.
In vales and weldes, where moste commodyte is,
There is most people: ye must graunte me this. 700
On hylles & downes, whyche partes are moste barayne,
There muste be few; yt can no mo sustayne.
I darre well say, yf yt were tryed even now,
That there is ten of us to one of you.
And where shuld chyefely all necessaryes be, 705
But there as people are moste in plente?
More reason that you come vii. myle to myll
Then all we of the vale sholde clyme the hyll.
If rayne came reasonable, as I requyre yt,
We sholde of your wynde mylles have nede no whyt. 710

Entreth Mery-reporte.

Mery-reporte. Stop, folysh knaves, for your reasonynge is suche,
That ye have resoned even ynough and to much.
I hard all the wordes that ye both have hadde,
So helpe me god, the knaves be more then madde!
Nother of them both that hath wyt nor grace, 715
To perceyve that both myllys may serve in place.
Betwene water and wynde there is no suche let,
But eche myll may have tyme to use his fet.
Whyche thynge I can tell by experyens;
For I have, of myne owne, not farre from hens, 720
In a corner to-gether a couple of myllys,
Standynge in a marres[179] betweene two hyllys,
Not of inherytaunce, but by my wyfe;
She is feofed in the tayle for terme of her lyfe,
The one for wynde, the other for water. 725

And of them both, I thanke god, there standeth[180] nother;
For, in a good hour be yt spoken,
The water gate is no soner open,
But clap, sayth the wyndmyll, even strayght behynde!
There is good spedde, the devyll and all they grynde! 730
But whether that the hopper be dusty,
Or that the mylstonys be sumwhat rusty,
By the mas, the meale is myschevous musty!
And yf ye thynke my tale be not trusty, C iii b
I make ye trew promyse: come, when ye lyste, 735
We shall fynde meane ye shall taste of the gryst.
Water Myller. The corne at receyte happely is not good.
Mery-reporte. There can be no sweeter, by the sweet roode!
Another thynge yet, whyche shall not be cloked,
My watermyll many tymes is choked. 740

Water Myller. So wyll she be, though ye shuld burste your bones,
Except ye be perfyt in settynge your stones.
Fere not the lydger,[181] beware your ronner.
Yet this for the lydger, or ye have wonne her,
Parchaunce your lydger doth lacke good peckyng. 745

Mery-reporte. So sayth my wyfe, & that maketh all our checkyng.[182]
She wolde have the myll peckt, peckt, peckt, every day!
But, by god, myllers muste pecke when they may!
So oft have we peckt that our stones wax right thynne,
And all our other gere not worth a pyn, 750
For with peckynge and peckyng I have so wrought,
That I have peckt a good peckynge-yron to nought.
How be yt, yf I stycke no better tyll her,
My wyfe sayth she wyll have a new myller.
But let yt passe! and now to our mater! 755
I say my myllys lacke nother wynde nor water;
No more do yours, as farre as nede doth requyre.
But, syns ye can not agree, I wyll desyre
Jupyter to set you both in suche rest
As to your welth and his honour may stande best. 760

Water Myller. I praye you hertely remember me.
Wynde Myller. Let not me be forgoten, I beseche ye.
Both Myllers goth forth.

Mery-reporte. If I remember you not both alyke
I wolde ye were over the eares in the dyke.
Now be we ryd of two knaves at one chaunce. 765
By saynte Thomas, yt is a knavyshe ryddaunce.

The Gentylwoman entreth.

Gentylwoman. Now, good god, what a foly is this?
What sholde I do where so mych people is?
I know not how to passe in to the god now.
Mery-reporte. No, but ye know how he may passe into you. 770

Gentylwoman. I pray you let me in at the backe syde.
Mery-reporte. Ye, shall I so, and your fore syde so wyde? C iv
Nay not yet; but syns ye love to be alone,
We twayne will into a corner anone.
But fyrste, I pray you, come your way hyther, 775
And let us twayne chat a whyle to-gyther.
Gentylwoman. Syr, as to you I have lyttell mater.
My commynge is to speke wyth Jupiter.
Mery-reporte. Stande ye styll a whyle, and I wyll go prove
Whether that the god wyll be brought in love. 780
My lorde, how nowe! loke uppe lustely!
Here is a derlynge come, by saynt Antony.
And yf yt be your pleasure to mary,
Speke quyckly; for she may not tary.
In fayth, I thynke ye may wynne her anone; 785
For she wolde speke with your lordshyp alone.
Jupyter. Sonne, that is not the thynge at this tyme ment.
If her sewt concerne no cause of our hyther resorte,
Sende her out of place; but yf she be bent
To that purpose, heare her and make us reporte. 790

Mery-reporte. I count women lost, yf we love them not well,
For ye se god loveth them never a dele.
Maystres ye can not speake wyth the god.
Gentylwoman. No! why?
Mery-reporte. By my fayth, for his lordship is ryght besy.
Wyth a pece of worke that nedes must be doone; 795
Even now is he makyng of a new moone.
He sayth your olde moones be so farre tasted,[183]
That all the goodnes of them is wasted,

Whyche of the great wete hath ben moste mater
For olde moones be leake;[184] they can holde no water. 800

But for this new mone, I durst lay my gowne,
Except a few droppes at her goyng downe,
Ye get no rayne tyll her arysynge,
Wythout yt nede, and then no mans devysynge
Coulde wyshe the fashyon of rayne to be so good; 805
Not gushynge out lyke gutters of Noyes flood,
But small droppes sprynklyng softly on the grounde;
Though they fell on a sponge they wold gyve no sounde.
This new moone shall make a thing spryng more in this while
Then a olde moone shal while a man may go a mile. 810
By that tyme the god hath all made an ende, C iv b
Ye shall se how the wether wyll amende.
By saynt Anne, he goeth to worke even boldely.
I thynke hym wyse ynough; for he loketh oldely!
Wherfore, maystres, be ye now of good chere; 815
For though in his presens ye can not appere,
Tell me your mater and let me alone.
Mayhappe I will thynke on you when you be gone.
Gentylwoman. Forsoth, the cause of my commynge is this:
I am a woman right fayre, as ye se; 820
In no creature more beauty then in me is;
And, syns I am fayre, fayre wolde I kepe me,
But the sonne in somer so sore doth burne me,
In wynter the wynde on every side me.
No parte of the yere wote I where to turne me, 825
But even in my house am I fayne to hyde me.
And so do all other that beuty have;
In whose name at this tyme, this sewt I make,
Besechynge Jupyter to graunt that I crave;
Whyche is this, that yt may please hym, for our sake, 830
To sende us wether close and temperate,
No sonne-shyne, no frost, nor no wynde to blow.
Then wolde we get[185] the stretes trym as a parate.[186]
Ye shold se how we wolde set our-selfe to show.
Mery reporte Jet where ye wyll I swere by saynt Quintyne 835

Mery-reporte. Jet where ye wyll, I swere by saynt Quintyne, 835
Ye passe them all, both in your owne conceyt and myne.
Gentylwoman. If we had wether to walke at our pleasure,
Our lyves wolde be mery out of measure.
One part of the day for our apparellynge
Another parte for eatynge and drynkynge, 840
And all the reste in stretes to be walkynge,
Or in the house to passe tyme with talkynge.
Mery-reporte. When serve ye God?
Gentylwoman. Who bosteth in vertue are but dawes[187]
Mery-reporte. Ye do the better, namely syns there is no cause.
How spende ye the nyght?
Gentylwoman. In daunsynge and syngynge 845
Tyll mydnyght, and then fall to slepynge.
Mery-reporte. Why, swete herte, by your false fayth, can ye syng?
Gentylwoman. Nay, nay, but I love yt above all thynge.
Mery-reporte. Now, by my trouth, for the love that I owe you, Di
You shall here what pleasure I can shew you. 850
One songe have I for you, suche as yt is,
And yf yt were better ye should have yt, by gys.[188]
Gentylwoman. Mary, syr, I thanke you even hartely.
Mery-reporte. Come on, syrs; but now let us synge lust[e]ly.
Here they singe.

Gentylwoman. Syr, this is well done; I hertely thanke you. 855
Ye have done me pleasure, I make God avowe.
Ones in a nyght I long for suche a fyt;
For longe tyme have I bene brought up in yt.
Mery-reporte. Oft tyme yt is sene, both in court and towne,
Longe be women a bryngyng up & sone brought downe. 860

So fet[189] yt is, so nete yt is, so nyse yt is,
So trycke[190] yt is, so quycke yt is, so wyse yt is.
I fere my self, excepte I may entreat her,
I am so farre in love I shall forget her.
Now, good maystres, I pray you, let me kys ye— 865

Gentylwoman. Kys me, quoth a! Why, nay, syr, I wys ye.
Mery-reporte. What! yes, hardely! Kys me ons and no more.
I never desyred to kys you before.

Here the Launder cometh in.

Launder. Why! have ye alway kyst her behynde?
In fayth, good inough, yf yt be your mynde. 870
And yf your appetyte serve you so to do,
Byr lady, I wolde ye had kyst myne ars to!
Mery-reporte. To whom dost thou speake, foule hore? canst thou tell?
Launder. Nay, by my trouth! I, syr, not very well!
But by conjecture this ges[191] I have, 875

That I do speke to an olde baudy knave.
I saw you dally with your symper de cokket[192]
I rede you beware she pyck not your pokket.
Such ydyll huswyfes do now and than
Thynke all well wonne that they pyck from a man. 880
Yet such of some men shall have more favour,
Then we, that for them dayly toyle and labour.
But I trust the god wyll be so indyfferent
That she shall fayle some parte of her entent.
Mery-reporte. No dout he wyll deale so gracyously 885
That all folke shall be served indyfferently.
How be yt, I tell the trewth, my offyce is suche Dib
That I muste reporte eche sewt, lyttell or muche.
Wherfore, wyth the god syns thou canst not speke,
Trust me wyth thy sewt, I wyll not fayle yt to breke.[193] 890

Launder. Then leave not to muche to yonder gyglet.[194]
For her desyre contrary to myne is set.
I herde by her tale she wolde banyshe the sonne,
And then were we pore launders all undonne.
Excepte the sonne shyne that our clothes may dry, 895
We can do ryght nought in our laundrye.
An other maner losse, yf we sholde mys,
Then of suche nycebyceters[195] as she is.
Gentylwoman. I thynke yt better that thou envy me,
Then I sholde stande at rewarde[196] of thy pytte. 900

It is the guyse of such grose quenes as thou art
With such as I am evermore to thwart.
B h b b

By cause that no beauty ye can obtayne
Therfore ye have us that be fayre in dysdayne.
Launder. When I was as yonge as thou art now, 905
I was wythin lyttel as fayre as thou,
And so myght have kept me, yf I hadde wolde,
And as derely my youth I myght have solde
As the tryckest and fayrest of you all.
But I feared parels[197] that after myght fall, 910

Wherfore some busynes I dyd me provyde,
Lest vyce myght enter on every syde,
Whyche hath fre entre where ydelnesse doth reyne.
It is not thy beauty that I dysdeyne,
But thyne ydyll lyfe that thou hast rehersed, 915
Whych any good womans hert wolde have perced.
For I perceyve in daunsynge and syngynge,
In eatyng and drynkynge and thyne apparellynge,
Is all the joye, wherin thy herte is set.
But nought of all this doth thyne owne labour get; 920
For, haddest thou nothyng but of thyne owne travayle,
Thou myghtest go as naked as my nayle.
Me thynke thou shuldest abhorre suche ydylnes
And passe thy tyme in some honest besynes;
Better to lese some parte of thy beaute, 925
Then so ofte to jeoberd all thyne honeste.
But I thynke, rather then thou woldest so do, D ii
Thou haddest lever have us lyve ydylly to.
And so, no doute, we shulde, yf thou myghtest have
The clere sone banysht, as thou dost crave: 930
Then were we launders marde and unto the
Thyne owne request were smale commodyte.
For of these twayne I thynke yt farre better
Thy face were sone-burned, and thy clothis the swetter,[198]
Then that the sonne from shynynge sholde be smytten, 935
To kepe thy face fayre and thy smocke beshytten.
Syr, howe lycke ye my reason in her case?
Mery-reporte. Such a raylynge hore, by the holy mas,
I never herde in all my lyfe tyll now

I never herde, in all my lyfe, tyll now.
In dede I love ryght well the ton of you, 940
But, or I wolde kepe you both, by goddes mother,
The devyll shall have the tone to fet[199] the tother.
Launder. Promyse me to speke that the sone may shyne bryght,
And I wyll be gone quyckly for all nyght.
Mery-reporte. Get you both hens, I pray you hartely; 945
Your sewtes I perceyve and wyll reporte them trewly
Unto Jupyter, at the next leysure,
And in the same desyre, to know his pleasure;
Whyche knowledge hadde, even as he doth show yt,
Feare ye not, tyme enough, ye shall know it. 950

Gentylwoman. Syr, yf ye medyll, remember me fyrste.
Launder. Then in this medlynge my parte shal be the wurst.
Mery-reporte. Now, I beseche our lorde, the devyll the[200] burst.
Who medlyth wyth many I hold hym accurst,
Thou hore, can I medyl wyth you both at ones. 955

Here the Gentylwoman goth forth.

Launder. By the mas, knave, I wold I had both thy stones
In my purs, yf thou medyl not indyfferently,
That both our maters in yssew may be lyckly.
Mery-reporte. Many wordes, lyttell mater, and to no purpose,
Suche is the effect that thou dost dysclose, 960

The more ye byb[201] the more ye babyll,
The more ye babyll the more ye fabyll,
The more ye fabyll the more unstabyll,
The more unstabyll the more unabyll,
In any maner thynge to do any good. 965
No hurt though ye were hanged, by the holy rood! D ii b

Launder. The les your sylence, the lesse your credence,
The les your credens the les your honeste,
The les your honeste the les your assystens,
The les your assystens the les abylyte 970
In you to do ought. Wherfore, so god me save,
No hurte in hangynge such a raylynge knave.
Mery-reporte. What monster is this? I never harde none suche.
For loke how myche more I have made her to myche,
And so farre, at lest, she hath made me to lyttell. 975

Wher be ye Launder? I thynke in some spytell.[202]
Ye shall washe me no gere, for feare of fretynge[203]
I love no launders that shrynke my gere in wettynge,
I praye the go hens, and let me be in rest.
I wyll do thyne erand as I thynke best. 980

Launder. Now wolde I take my leve, yf I wyste how.
The lenger I lyve the more knave you.
Mery-reporte. The lenger thou lyvest the pyte the gretter,
The soner thou be ryd the tydynges the better!
Is not this a swete offyce that I have, 985
When every drab shall prove me a knave?
Every man knoweth not what goddes servyce is,
Nor I my selfe knewe yt not before this.
I thynke goddes servauntes may lyve holyly,
But the devyls servauntes lyve more meryly 990

But the devyls servauntes lyve more meryly. 990
I know not what god geveth in standynge fees,
But the devyls servaunts have casweltees[204]
A hundred tymes mo then goddes servauntes have.
For, though ye be never so starke a knave,
If ye lacke money the devyll wyll do no wurse 995
But brynge you strayght to a-nother mans purse.
Then wyll the devyll promote you here in this world,
As unto suche ryche yt doth moste accord.
Fyrste pater noster qui es in celis,
And then ye shall sens[205] the shryfe wyth your helys. 1000

The greatest frende ye have in felde or towne,
Standynge a-typ-to, shall not reche your crowne.
The Boy cometh in, the lest that can play.

Boy. This same is even he, by al lycklyhod.
Syr, I pray you, be not you master god?
Mery-reporte. No, in good fayth, sonne. But I may say to the
I am suche a man that god may not mysse me. D iii 1006
Wherfore with the god yf thou wouldest have ought done
Tell me thy mynde, and I shall shew yt sone.
Boy. Forsothe, syr, my mynde is thys, at few wordes,
All my pleasure is in catchynge of byrdes, 1010
And makynge of snow-ballys and throwyng the same;
For the whyche purpose to have set in frame,[206]
Wyth my godfather god I wolde fayne have spoken,
Desyrynge hym to have sent me by some token
Where I myghte have had great frost for my pytfallys, 1015
And plente of snow to make my snow-ballys.
This onys[207] had, boyes lyvis be such as no man leddys.
O, to se my snow ballys lyght on my felowes heddys,
And to here the byrdes how they flycker theyr wynges
In the pytfale! I say yt passeth all thynges. 1020
Syr, yf ye be goddes servaunt, or his kynsman,
I pray you helpe me in this yf ye can.
Mery-reporte. Alas, pore boy, who sent the hether?
Boy. A hundred boys that stode to-gether,
Where they herde one say in a cry 1025
That my godfather, god almighty,
Was come from heven, by his owne accorde,
This nyght to suppe here wyth my lorde,[208]
And farther he sayde, come whos[o][209] wull,
They shall sure have theyr bellyes full 1030
Of all wethers who lyste to crave,
Eche sorte suche wether as they lyste to have.
And when my felowes thought this wolde be had,
And saw me so prety a pratelynge lad,
Uppon agrement, wyth a great noys, 1035
"Sende lyttell Dycke," cryed al the boys.
By whose assent I am purveyd[210]

By whose assent I am purveyd
To sew for the wether afore seyd.
Wherin I pray you to be good, as thus,
To helpe that god may geve yt us. 1040

Mery-reporte. Gyve boyes wether, quoth a! nonny,[211] nonny!
Boy. Yf god of his wether wyll gyve nonny,
I pray you, wyll he sell ony?
Or lend us a bushell of snow, or twayne,
And poynt us a day to pay hym agayne? 1045

Mery-reporte. I can not tell, for, by thys light, D iii b

I chept[212] not, nor borowed, none of hym this night.
But by suche shyfte as I wyll make
Thou shalte se soone what waye he wyll take.
Boy. Syr, I thanke you. Then I may departe. 1050

The Boy goth forth.

Mery-reporte. Ye, fare well, good sonne, wyth all my harte,
Now suche an other sorte[213] as here hath bene
In all the dayes of my lyfe I have not sene.
No sewters now but women, knavys, and boys,
And all theyr sewtys are in fansyes and toys. 1055
Yf that there come no wyser after thys cry
I wyll to the god and make an ende quyckely.
Oyes,[214] yf that any knave here
Be wyllynge to appere,
For wether fowle or clere, 1060
Come in before thys flocke
And be he hole or syckly,
Come, shew hys mynde quyckly,
And yf hys tale be not lyckly[215]
Ye shall lycke my tayle in the nocke. 1065
All thys tyme I perceyve is spent in wast,
To wayte for mo sewters I se none make hast.
Wherfore I wyll shew the god all thys procys
And be delyvered of my symple[216] offys.
Now, lorde, accordynge to your commaundement, 1070
Attendynge sewters I have ben dylygent,
And, at begynnyng as your wyll was I sholde,
I come now at ende to shewe what eche man wolde.
The fyrst sewter before your selfe dyd appere,
A gentylman desyrynge wether clere, 1075
Clowdy nor mysty, nor no wynde to blowe,
For hurte in hys huntynge; and then, as ye know,
The marchaunt sewde, for all of that kynde,
For wether clere and mesurable wynde
As they maye best bere theyr saylys to make spede. 1080
And streyght after thys there came to me, in dede,
An other man who namyd hym-selfe a ranger,
And sayd all of hys crafte be farre brought in daunger,
For lacke of lyvynge, whyche chefely ys wynde-fall.
But he playnely sayth there bloweth no wynde at al, D iv 1085

Wherfore he desyreth, for encrease of theyr fleesys,[217]
Extreme rage of wynde trees to tere in peces

Extreme rage of wynde, trees to tere in peces.
Then came a water-myller and he cryed out
For water and sayde the wynde was so stout
The rayne could not fale, wherfore he made request 1090
For plenty of rayne, to set the wynde at rest.
And then, syr, there came a wynde myller in,
Who sayde for the rayne he could no wynde wyn,
The water he wysht to be banysht all,
Besechynge your grace of wynde contynuall. 1095
Then came there an other that wolde banysh all this
A goodly dame, an ydyll thynge iwys.
Wynde, rayne, nor froste, nor sonshyne, wold she have,
But fayre close wether, her beautye to save.
Then came there a-nother that lyveth by laundry, 1100
Who muste have wether hote & clere here clothys to dry.
Then came there a boy for froste and snow contynuall,
Snow to make snow ballys and frost for his pytfale,
For whyche, god wote, he seweth full gredely.
Your fyrst man wold have wether clere and not wyndy; 1105

The seconde the same, save cooles[218] to blow meanly;
The thyrd desyred stormes and wynde moste extremely;
The fourth all in water and wolde have no wynde;
The fyft no water, but al wynde to grynde;
The syxt wold have none of all these, nor no bright son; 1110
The seventh extremely the hote son wold have wonne;
The eyght, and the last, for frost & snow he prayd.
Byr lady, we shall take shame, I am a-frayd!
Who marketh in what maner this sort is led
May thynke yt impossyble all to be sped. 1115
This nomber is smale, there lacketh twayne of ten,
And yet, by the masse, amonge ten thousand men
No one thynge could stande more wyde from the tother;
Not one of theyr sewtes agreeth wyth an other.
I promyse you, here is a shrewed pece of warke. 1120
This gere wyll trye wether ye be a clarke.
Yf ye trust to me, yt is a great foly;
For yt passeth my braynes, by goddes body!
Jupyter Son thou haste ben dylygent and done so well

Jupyter. Son, thou haste ben dylygent and done so well,
That thy labour is ryght myche thanke-worthy. D iv b 1125
But be thou suer we nede no whyt thy counsell,
For in ourselfe we have foresene remedy,
Whyche thou shalt se. But, fyrste, departe hence quyckly
To the gentylman and all other sewters here
And commaunde them all before us to appere. 1130

Mery-reporte. That shall be no longer in doynge
Then I am in commynge and goynge.
Mery-reporte goth out.

Jupyter. Suche debate as from above ye have herde,
Suche debate beneth amonge your selfes ye se;
As longe as heddes from temperaunce be deferd, 1135
So longe the bodyes in dystemperaunce be,
This perceyve ye all, but none can helpe save we.
But as we there have made peace concordantly,
So woll we here now gyve you remedy.

Mery-reporte and al the sewters entreth.

Mery-reporte. If I hadde caught them 1140

Or ever I raught[219] them,
I wolde have taught them
To be nere me;
Full dere have I bought them,
Lorde, so I sought them, 1145
Yet have I brought them,
Suche as they be.
Gentylman. Pleaseth yt your majeste, lorde, so yt is,
We, as your subjectes and humble sewters all,
Accordynge as we here your pleasure is, 1150

Are presyd[220] to your presens, beynge principall
Hed and governour of all in every place,
Who joyeth not in your syght, no joy can have.
Wherfore we all commyt us to your grace
As lorde of lordes us to peryshe or save. 1155

Jupyter. As longe as dyscrecyon so well doth you gyde
Obedyently to use your dewte,
Dout ye not we shall your savete provyde,
Your grevys we have harde, wherfore we sent for ye
To receyve answere, eche man in his degre, 1160
And fyrst to content most reason yt is,
The fyrste man that sewde, wherfore marke ye this,
Oft shall ye have the wether clere and styll
To hunt in for recompens of your payne. Dv
Also you marchauntes shall have myche your wyll. 1165
For oft-tymes, when no wynde on lande doth remayne,
Yet on the see pleasaunt cooles you shall obtayne.
And syns your huntynge maye rest in the nyght,
Oft shall the wynde then ryse, and before daylyght
It shall ratyll downe the wood, in suche case 1170
That all ye rangers the better lyve may;
And ye water-myllers shall obtayne this grace
Many tymes the rayne to fall in the valey,
When at the selfe tymes on hyllys we shall purvey

Fayre wether for your wyndmilles, with such coolys of wynde
As in one instant both kyndes of mylles may grynde. 1176

And for ye fayre women, that close wether wold have,
We shall provyde that ye may suffycyently
Have tyme to walke in, and your beauty save;
And yet shall ye have, that lyveth by laundry, 1180
The hote sonne oft ynough your clothes to dry.
Also ye, praty chylde, shall have both frost and snow,
Now marke this conclusyon, we charge you arow.[221]
Myche better have we now devysed for ye all
Then ye all can perceve, or coude desyre. 1185
Eche of you sewd to have contynuall
Suche wether as his crafte onely doth requyre,
All wethers in all places yf men all tymes myght hyer,
Who could lyve by other? what is this neglygens
Us to atempt in suche inconvenyens. 1190

Now, on the tother syde, yf we had graunted
The full of some one sewt and no mo,
And from all the rest the wether had forbyd,
Yet who so hadde obtayned had wonne his owne wo.
There is no one craft can preserve man so, 1195
But by other craftes, of necessyte,
He muste have myche parte of his commodyte.
All to serve at ones and one destroy a nother, Dvb
Or ellys to serve one and destroy all the rest,
Nother wyll we do the tone nor the tother 1200
But serve as many, or as few, as we thynke best;
And where, or what tyme, to serve moste or leste,
The dyreccyon of that doutles shall stande
Perpetually in the power of our hande.
Wherfore we wyll the hole worlde to attende 1205
Eche sorte on suche wether as for them doth fall,
Now one, now other, as lyketh us to sende.
Who that hath yt, ply[222] it, and suer we shall
So gyde the wether in course to you all,
[223] 1210

That eche wyth other ye shall hole[223] remayne 1210

In pleasure and plentyfull welth, certayne.
Gentylman. Blessed was the tyme wherin we were borne,
Fyrst for the blysfull chaunce of your godly presens.
Next for our sewt was there never man beforne
That ever harde so excellent a sentens 1215
As your grace hath gevyn to us all arow,
Wherin your hyghnes hath so bountyfully
Dystrybuted my parte that your grace shall know,
Your selfe sooll[224] possessed of hertes of all chyvalry.
Marchaunt. Lyke-wyse we marchauntes shall yeld us holy,[225] 1220

Onely to laude the name of Jupyter
As god of all goddes, you to serve soolly;
For of every thynge, I se, you are norysher.
Ranger. No dout yt is so, for so we now fynde;
Wherin your grace us rangers so doth bynde, 1225
That we shall gyve you our hertes with one accorde,
For knowledge to know you as our onely lorde.
Water Myller. Well, I can no more, but "for our water
We shall geve your lordshyp our ladyes sauter."
Wynde Myller. Myche have ye bounde us; for, as I be saved,
We have all obteyned better then we craved. 1231

Gentylwoman. That is trew, wherfore your grace shal trewly
The hertes of such as I am have surely.
Launder. And suche as I am, who be as good as you,
His hyghness shall be suer on, I make a vow.[226] 1235

Boy. Godfather god, I wyll do somewhat for you agayne. D vi
By Cryste, ye maye happe to have a byrd or twayne,
And I promyse you, yf any snow come,
When I make my snow ballys ye shall have some.
Mery-reporte. God thanke your lordshyp. Lo, how this is brought to pas!
Syr, now shall ye have the wether even as yt was. 1240

Jupyter. We nede no whyte our selfe any farther to bost,

py y y ,
For our dedes declare us apparauntly.
Not onely here on yerth, in every cost,
But also above in the hevynly company, 1245
Our prudens hath made peace unyversally,
Whyche thynge we sey, recordeth us as pryncypall
God and governour of heven, yerth, and all.
Now unto that heven we woll make retourne,
When we be gloryfyed most tryumphantly, 1250
Also we woll all ye that on yerth sojourne,
Syns cause gyveth cause to knowe us your lord onely,
And nowe here to synge moste joyfully,
Rejoycynge in us, and in meane tyme we shall
Ascende into our trone celestyall. 1255

Finis.

Printed by W. Rastell.
1533.
Cum privilegio.

FOOTNOTES:
[98] I.e. of the audience as representing mankind.

[99] For use as a plural cf. l. 347 'besecheth,' 844 'ye doth.'

[100] The dispensers respectively of frost, sunshine, wind, and rain.

[101] placed on record.

[102] powers, not 'pores.'

[103] that which they have experienced.

[104] conclusion.

[105] I.e. some one in the audience.

[106] Said to one of the attendants.

[107] The phrase in alphabet-learning for a letter sounded by itself; cf. Wily
Beguiled: "A per se A" (Hawkins' Origin of English Drama, 3: 357. Oxford:
1772).

[108] matters.

[109] frieze.

[110] sweeting, sweetheart.

[111] separated.

[112] impartial.

[113] out of good fellowship.

[114] the end.

[115] equivalent to stanza.

[116] clownish rascals.

[117] Louvain.

[118] In Herts.

[119] Perhaps one of the numerous Barfords.

[120] In Notts.

[121] In Essex.

[122] Tottenham.

[123] In Suffolk.

[124] Near Woolwich.

[125] Witham, in Essex.

[126] Bristol.

[127] Possibly Gravelye near Baldock.

[128] There is a parish of Buttsbury in Essex: 'ynge Gyngiang Jayberd' defies
explanation.

[129] Have given notice to the petitioners to appear. The 'cry' is supposed to
have been made outside.

[130] mastership.

[131] the audience.

[132] journeying.

[133] rouse the game.

[134] call off after a kill.

[135] avail.

[136] clyster, purge.

[137] parson.

[138] As the play was written before 1533, the clergy were still celibates, and
this is only Mery-reporte's 'humour.'

[139] immediately.

[140] Explained by 'thynges wherof there is plente.'

[141] available.

[142] heard more, or others.

[143] in the same rightness.

[144] Scio (Chios).

[145] Purlieus are technically the woods adjacent to a royal forest; a chase is
an unenclosed part.

[146] What on earth would it matter?

[147] dispensed with, missed.

[148] To give two pounds of wheat for grinding sixty-four.

[149] wheel.

[150] feeder of the mill.

[151] axletree.

[152] Jupiter's proclamation.

[153] making rejoice.

[154] too far at variance.

[155] given less freedom.

[156] the kingdom of saints.

[157] assembly.

[158] scatter, blow about.

[159] flying apart.

[160] murrain, plague.

[161] dispensed with.

[162] roundly, completely.

[163] the psalms appointed for the Hours of the Blessed Virgin.

[164] esteem.

[165] admit.

[166] hair-breadth.

[167] float.

[168] sent.

[169] moderate cool breezes.

[170] choir.

[171] Sic in all editions.

[172] of not sufficient advantage.

[173] Indistinguishable from trifles.

[174] off.

[175] The earliest reference to a dearth of corn in the reign of Henry VIII.
which I can find in Holinshed is sub anno 1523, when he states that the price in
London was 20 s. a quarter, but without assigning any cause. The reference here
is, I think, clearly to the great rains of the autumn of 1527 and April and May,
1528, of which Holinshed writes that they "caused great floods and did much
harme namelie in corne, so that the next yeare [1528?] it failed within the realme
and great dearth ensued."

[176] one.

[177] preliminary.

[178] moderate, adjust.

[179] morass.

[180] stands still.

[181] the flat fixed stone (or bed stone) over which the turning stone, or
runner, moved.

[182] reviling.

[183] decayed.

[184] be leaky; misprinted belyke by Kitson.

[185] or jet (l. 835), strut.

[186] parrot.

[187] simpletons.

[188] Jesus.

[189] trim.

[190] smart.

[191] guess.

[192] Mlle. Simper de Coquette.

[193] communicate.

[194] wanton.

[195] Cf. note on Roister Doister, I. iv. 12. Merygreeke: "But with whome is
he nowe so sadly roundyng yonder?" Dougerie: "With Nobs nicebecetur miserere
fonde." Explained by Flügel as a contraction of Nescio quid dicitur = Mistress
'What's-her-name.' Gen. Ed.

[196] At regard, i.e. as the object of.

[197] perils.

[198] sweeter.

[199] fetch.

[200] thee.

[201] In The Play of Love, Heywood writes of "bybbyll babbyll, clytter
clatter."

[202] hospital, lazar-house.

[203] rubbing.

[204] casualties, chance perquisites.

[205] swing to and fro with your heels before the sheriff, as a censer is swung
by a thurifer.

[206] made arrangements.

[207] once.

[208] Cardinal Wolsey suggests himself as the person most likely to be thus
referred to, but if the reference of l. 636 is to the excessive rain of 1527-28,
Wolsey's disgrace followed it rather too closely for the phrase "within this seven
yere."

[209] Rastell ed., 'whose.'

[210] provided.

[211] Usually a mere exclamation, but here apparently as if from non, not.

[212] bargained for.

[213] assemblage.

[214] oyez, hearken.

[215] likely.

[216] foolish.

[217] plunder.

[218] Cf. l. 590, "meane cooles."

[219] reached.

[220] pressed, have hastened.

[221] in order.

[222] use.

[223] whole.

[224] solely.

[225] wholly.

[226] St. John's copy ends.

JOHAN JOHAN
Previous Editions and the Present Text.—An edition of "A Mery Play
between Johan Johan, the Husbande, Tyb, his Wyfe and Syr Jhan, the
Preest, attributed to John Heywood 1533,"[227] was printed at the Chiswick
Press by C[harles] Whittingham "from an unique copy in the Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford," some time in the first half of the present century.[228]
The anonymous editor prefaces it with the following brief "advertisement":
—

"This is one of the six Plays attributed by our dramatic biographers
to John Heywood, author of The Four P's (contained in Dodsley's
collection), of 'the Spider and Flie,' and of some other poems, an
account of which may be found in the Third Volume of Warton's
History of English Poetry. No copy of this Mery Play appears to exist
except that in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, from which this is a
faithful reprint. Exclusive of its antiquity and rarity, it is valuable as
affording a specimen of the earliest and rudest form of our Comedy
(for the Poem is shorter, & the number of the Dramatis Personæ yet
fewer than those of the Four P's) & of the liberty with which even the
Roman Catholic authors of that age felt themselves authorized to treat
the established priesthood."

The Ashmolean copy (now in the Bodleian Library) can no longer be
reckoned unique, another copy having been discovered in the Pepys
collection at Magdalene College, Cambridge. This copy has been used in
correcting the Chiswick Press text, and it may be as well to mention that the
following changes, besides a good many minor ones, have been made on its
authority, and are not surreptitious emendations of the present editor.
l. 4, myche for muche; l. 27, Whan for Whyn; l. 31, thwak for twak; l. 89,
enrage for engage; l. 94, But for Thou; l. 121, thou for you; l. 129, lyk for
syk; l. 132, to go for go; l. 137, fare for face; l. 305, waxe for ware; l. 335,
for I for I; l. 471, Ye for le; l. 497, mych for much; l. 540, beyond for beand;

l. 542, a bevy for bevy; l. 552, beyond for beyand; l. 581, v for ix; l. 604, I
am for am I.
In the apportionment of ll. 240-266 between the two speakers, my
predecessor, like myself, though not in the same manner, has departed from
Rastell's (clearly erroneous) arrangement of the speeches, but his dislike of
footnotes has caused him to omit any mention of the fact. The title-page is a
representation, not a facsimile. There is no running head-line in the original.
Alfred W. Pollard.

FOOTNOTES:
[227] See Critical Essay, pp. 10, 14.

[228] My own copy has beneath the initials of a former owner the date "March
22, 1833"; that in the British Museum is assigned to 1830. I have seen it stated,
but I know not on what authority, that the book appeared in 1819.

A mery play
Betwene Johan Johan the
husbande / Tyb his
wyfe / & syr Jhān
the preest

A Mery Play,
betwene
Johan Johan, the husbande. Tyb, his wyfe,
&
Syr Jhan, the preest

Johan Johan, the Husbande.

God spede you, maysters, everychone,
Wote ye not whyther my wyfe is gone?
I pray God the dyvell take her,
For all that I do I can not make her,
But she wyll go a gaddynge very myche 5

Lyke an Antony pyg[229] with an olde wyche,
Whiche ledeth her about hyther and thyther;
But, by our lady, I wote not whyther.
But, by goggis[230] blod, were she come home
Unto this my house, by our lady of Crome,[231] 10

I wolde bete her or that I drynke.
Bete her, quotha? yea, that she shall stynke!
And at every stroke lay her on the grounde,
And trayne[232] her by the here[233] about the house rounde.
I am evyn mad that I bete her not nowe, 15

But I shall rewarde her, hard[e]ly,[234] well ynowe;
There is never a wyfe betwene heven and hell
Whiche was ever beten halfe so well.
Beten, quotha? yea, but what and she therof dye?
Then I may chaunce to be hanged shortly. 20
And whan I have beten her tyll she smoke,
And gyven her many a c.[235] stroke,
Thynke ye that she wyll amende yet?
Nay, by our lady, the devyll spede whyt![236]
Therfore I wyll not bete her at all. 25

And shall I not bete her? no shall?[237]
Whan she offendeth and doth a-mys, Aib
And kepeth not her house, as her duetie is?
Shall I not bete her, if she do so?
Yes, by cokkis[238] blood, that shall I do; 30

I shall bete her and thwak her, I trow,
That she shall beshyte the house for very wo.
But yet I thynk what my neybour wyll say than,
He wyll say thus: "Whom chydest thou, Johan Johan?"
"Mary," will I say! "I chyde my curst wyfe, 35
The veryest drab that ever bare lyfe,

Whiche doth nothying but go and come,
And I can not make her kepe her at home."
Than I thynke he wyll say by and by,[239]
"Walke her cote,[240] Johan Johan, and bete her hardely." 40

But than unto hym myn answere shal be,
"The more I bete her the worse is she:
And wors and wors make her I shall."
He wyll say than, "bete her not at all."
"And why?" shall I say, "this wolde be wyst,[241] 45

Is she not myne to chastice as I lyst?"
But this is another poynt worst of all,
The folkis wyll mocke me whan they here me brall;[242]
But for all that, shall I let[243] therfore
To chastyce my wyfe ever the more, 50
And to make her at home for to tary?
Is not that well done? yes, by Saynt Mary,
That is a poynt[244] of an honest man
For to bete his wyfe well nowe and than.
Therfore I shall bete her, have ye no drede! 55
And I ought to bete her, tyll she be starke dede.
And why? by God, bicause it is my pleasure,
And if I shulde suffre her, I make you sure,
Nought shulde prevayle[245] me, nother staffe nor waster,[246]
Within a whyle she wolde be my mayster. 60
Therfore I shall bete her by cokkes mother,
Both on the tone syde and on the tother,
Before and behynde; nought shall be her bote,[247]
From the top of the heed to the sole of the fote.
But, masters, for Goddis sake, do not entrete 65
For her, whan that she shal be bete;
But, for Goddis passion, let me alone,
And I shall thwak her that she shall grone:
Wherfore I beseche you, and hartely you pray,
And I beseche you say me not nay, 70
But that I may beate her for this ones; A ii
And I shall beate her, by cokkes bones,
That she shall stynke lyke a pole-kat;

Tyb. Why, whom wylt thou beate, I say, thou knave?
Johan. Who, I, Tyb? none, so God me save.
Tyb. Yes, I harde the say thou woldest one bete.
Johan. Mary, wyfe, it was stokfysshe[251] in Temmes Strete,
Whiche wyll be good meate agaynst Lent. A ii b 115
Why, Tyb, what haddest thou thought that I had ment?
Tyb. Mary, me thought I harde the bawlyng.
Wilt thou never leve this wawlyng?[252]
Howe the dyvell dost thou thy selfe behave?
Shall we ever have this worke, thou knave? 120

Johan. What! wyfe, how sayst thou? was it well gest of me
That thou woldest be come home in safete,
As sone as I had kendled a fyre?
Come warme the, swete Tyb, I the requyre.
Tyb. O, Johan Johan, I am afrayd, by this lyght, 125
That I shalbe sore syk this nyght.
Johan [aside]. By cokkis soule, nowe, I dare lay a swan
That she comes nowe streyght fro Syr Johan;
For ever whan she hath fatched of hym a lyk,
Than she comes home, and sayth she is syk. 130

Tyb. What sayst thou?
Johan. Mary, I say,
It is mete for a woman to go play
Abrode in the towne for an houre or two.
Tyb. Well, gentylman, go to, go to.
Johan. Well, let us have no more debate. 135

Tyb [aside]. If he do not fyght, chyde, and rate,
Braule and fare as one that were frantyke,
There is nothyng that may hym lyke.[253]
Johan [aside]. If that the parysshe preest, Syr Jhān,
Dyd not se her nowe and than,

And gyve her absolution upon a bed,
For wo and payne she wolde sone be deed.
Tyb. For goddis sake, Johan Johan, do the not displease,
Many a tyme I am yll at ease.
What thynkest nowe, am not I somwhat syk? 145

Johan [aside]. Nowe wolde to God, and swete Saynt Dyryk,[254]
That thou warte in the water up to the throte,
Or in a burnyng oven red hote,
To se an I wolde pull the out.
Tyb. Nowe, Johan Johan, to put the out of dout, 150
Imagyn thou where that I was
Before I came home.
Johan. My percase,[255]
Thou wast prayenge in the Churche of Poules
Upon thy knees for all Chrysten soules.
Tyb. Nay.
Johan. Than if thou wast not so holy, 155
Shewe me where thou wast, and make no lye?
Tyb. Truely, Johan Johan, we made a pye,
I and my gossyp Margery,
And our gossyp the preest, Syr Jhān, A iii
And my neybours yongest doughter An; 160
The preest payde for the stuffe and the makyng,
And Margery she payde for the bakyng.
Johan. By cokkis lylly woundis,[256] that same is she,
That is the most bawde hens to Coventre.
Tyb. What say you?
Johan. Mary, answere me to this: 165
Is not Syr Johan a good man?
Tyb. Yes, that he is.
Johan. Ha, Tyb, if I shulde not greve the,
I have somewhat wherof I wolde meve the.[257]

Tyb. Well, husbande, nowe I do conject
That thou hast me somewhat in suspect; 170
But, by my soule, I never go to Syr Johan
But I fynde hym lyke an holy man,
For eyther he is sayenge his devotion,
Or els he is goynge in processyon.
Johan [aside]. Yea, rounde about the bed doth he go, 175
You two together, and no mo;
And for to fynysshe the procession,
He lepeth up and thou lyest downe.
Tyb. What sayst thou?
Johan. Mary, I say he doth well,
For so ought a shepherde to do, as I harde tell, 180
For the salvation of all his folde.
Tyb. Johan Johan!
[Johan.] What is it that thou wolde?
Tyb. By my soule I love thee too too,[258]
And I shall tell the, or I further go,
The pye that was made, I have it nowe here, 185
And therwith I trust we shall make good chere.
Johan. By kokkis body that is very happy.
Tyb. But wotest who gave it?
Johan. What the dyvel rek I?
Tyb. By my fayth, and I shall say trewe, than
The Dyvell take me, and it were not Syr Johan. 190

Johan. O holde the peas, wyfe, and swere no more,
But I beshrewe both your hartes therfore.
Tyb. Yet peradventure, thou hast suspection
Of that was never thought nor done.
Johan. Tusshe, wife, let all suche matters be, 195
I love thee well, though thou love not me:

But this pye doth nowe catche harme,
Let us set it upon the harth to warme.
Tyb. Than let us eate it as fast as we can.
But bycause Syr Jhān is so honest a man, 200
I wolde that he shulde therof eate his part.
Johan. That were reason, I thee ensure.
Tyb. Than, syns that it is thy pleasure,
I pray the than go to hym ryght, A iii b
And pray hym come sup with us to nyght. 205

Jhan [aside]. Shall he cum hyther? by kokkis soule I was a-curst
Whan that I graunted to that worde furst!
But syns I have sayd it, I dare not say nay,
For than my wyfe and I shulde make a fray;
But whan he is come, I swere by goddis mother, 210

I wold gyve the dyvell the tone[259] to cary away the tother.
Tyb. What sayst?
Johan. Mary, he is my curate, I say,
My confessour and my frende alway,
Therfore go thou and seke hym by and by,
And tyll thou come agayne, I wyll kepe the pye. 215

Tyb. Shall I go for him? nay, I shrewe me than!
Go thou, and seke, as fast as thou can,
And tell hym it.
Johan. Shall I do so?
In fayth, it is not mete for me to go.
Tyb. But thou shalte go tell hym, for all that. 220

Johan. Than shall I tell hym, wotest [thou] what?
That thou desyrest hym to come make some chere.
Tyb. Nay, that thou desyrest hym to come sup here.
Johan. Nay, by the rode, wyfe, thou shalt have the worshyp
And the thankes of thy gest, that is thy gossyp. 225

Tyb [aside]. Full ofte I se my husbande wyll me rate,

Tyb [aside]. Full ofte I se my husbande wyll me rate,
For this hether commyng of our gentyll curate.
Johan. What sayst, Tyb? let me here that agayne.
Tyb. Mary, I perceyve very playne
That thou hast Syr Johan somwhat in suspect; 230
But by my soule, as far as I conject,
He is vertuouse and full of charyte.
Johan [aside]. In fayth, all the towne knoweth better, that he
Is a hore-monger, a haunter of the stewes,
An ypocrite, a knave, that all men refuse; 235
A lyer, a wretche, a maker of stryfe,
Better than they knowe that thou art my good wyfe.
Tyb. What is that, that thou hast sayde?
Johan. Mary, I wolde have the table set and layde,
In this place or that, I care not whether. 240

Tyb. Than go to, brynge the trestels[260] hyther.
Abyde[261] a whyle, let me put of my gown!
But yet I am afrayde to lay it down,
For I fere it shal be sone stolen.
[Johan.] And yet it may lye safe ynough unstolen. 245

[Tyb.] It may lye well here, and I lyst,—
But, by cokkis soule, here hath a dogge pyst;
And if I shulde lay it on the harth bare, A iv
It myght hap to be burned, or I were ware,
Therfore I pray you,[262] take ye the payne 250

To kepe my gowne tyll I come agayne.
But yet he shall not have it, by my fay,
He is so nere the dore, he myght ron away;
But bycause that ye be trusty and sure
Ye shall kepe it, and it be your pleasure; 255

And bycause it is arrayde[263] at the skyrt,
Whyle ye do nothyng, skrape of the dyrt.
[Johan.] Lo, nowe am I redy to go to Syr Jhan,
And byd hym come as fast as he can.

y y
[Tyb.] Ye, do so without ony taryeng. 260
But I say, harke! thou hast forgot one thyng;
Set up the table, and that by and by.[264]
Nowe go thy ways.
[Johan.] I go shortly;[265]
But se your candelstykkis be not out of the way.
Tyb. Come agayn, and lay the table I say; 265
What! me thynkkis, ye have sone don!
Johan. Nowe I pray God that his malediction
Lyght on my wyfe, and on the baulde[266] preest.
Tyb. Nowe go thy ways and hye the! seest?
Johan. I pray to Christ, if my wyshe be no synne, 270
That the preest may breke his neck, whan he comes in.
Tyb. Now cūm again.
Johan. What a myschefe wylt thou, fole!
Tyb. Mary, I say, brynge hether yender stole.
Johan. Nowe go to, a lyttell wolde make me
For to say thus, a vengaunce take the! 275

Tyb. Nowe go to hym, and tell hym playn,
That tyll thou brynge hym, thou wylt not come agayn.
Johan. This pye doth borne here as it doth stande.
Tyb. Go, washe me these two cuppes in my hande.
Johan. I go, with a myschyefe lyght on thy face! 280

Tyb. Go, and byd hym hye hym a pace,
And the whyle I shall all thynges amende.
Johan. This pye burneth here at this ende.
Understandest thou?
Tyb. Go thy ways, I say.
Johan. I wyll go nowe, as fast as I may. 285

Tyb. How, come ones agayne: I had forgot;
Loke, and there be ony ale in the pot.
Johan. Nowe a vengaunce and a very myschyefe
Lyght on the pylde[267] preest, and on my wyfe,
On the pot, the ale, and on the table, 290
The candyll, the pye, and all the rable,
On the trystels, and on the stole; A iv b
It is moche ado to please a curst fole.
Tyb. Go thy ways nowe, and tary no more,
For I am a hungred very sore. 295

Johan. Mary, I go.
Tyb. But come ones agayne yet;
Brynge hyther that breade, lest I forget it.
Johan. I-wys it were tyme for to torne
The pye, for y-wys it doth borne.
Tyb. Lorde! how my husbande nowe doth patter, 300
And of the pye styl doth clatter.
Go nowe, and byd hym come away;
I have byd the an hundred tymes to day.
Johan. I wyll not gyve a strawe, I tell you playne,
If that the pye waxe cold agayne. 305

Tyb. What! art thou not gone yet out of this place?
I had went,[268] thou haddest ben come agayn in the space:
But, by cokkis soule, and I shulde do the ryght,
I shulde breke thy knaves heed to nyght.
Johan. Nay, than if my wyfe be set a chydyng, 310
It is tyme for me to go at her byddyng.
There is a proverbe, whiche trewe nowe preveth,
He must nedes go that the dyvell dryveth. [He goes to the Priest's house.]
How mayster curate, may I come in
At your chamber dore, without ony syn. 315

Syr Jhan the Preest.

Who is there nowe that wolde have me?
What! Johan Johan! what newes with the?
Johan. Mary, Syr, to tell you shortly,
My wyfe and I pray you hartely,
And eke desyre you wyth all our myght, 320
That ye wolde come and sup with us to nyght.
Syr J. Ye must pardon me, in fayth I ne can.
Johan. Yes, I desyre you, good Syr Johan,
Take payne this ones; and, yet at the lest,
If ye wyll do nought at my request, 325
Yet do somewhat for the love of my wyfe.
Syr J. I wyll not go, for makyng of stryfe.
But I shall tell the what thou shalte do,
Thou shall tary and sup with me, or thou go.
Johan. Wyll ye not go than? why so? 330
I pray you tell me, is there any dysdayne,
Or ony enmyte, betwene you twayne?
Syr J. In fayth to tell the, betwene the and me,
She is as wyse a woman as any may be;
I know it well; for I have had the charge B i 335
Of her soule, and serchyd her conscyens at large.
I never knew her but honest and wyse,
Without any yvyll, or any vyce,
Save one faut, I know in her no more,
And because I rebuke her, now and then, therfore, 340
She is angre with me, and hath me in hate;
And yet that that I do, I do it for your welth.
Johan. Now God yeld it yow, god master curate,
And as ye do, so send you your helth,
Ywys I am bound to you a plesure. 345

Syr J. Yet thou thynkyst amys, peradventure,
That of her body she shuld not be a good woman,
But I shall tell the what I have done, Johan,
For that matter; she and I be somtyme aloft

For that matter; she and I be somtyme aloft,
And I do lye uppon her, many a tyme and oft, 350
To prove her, yet could I never espy
That ever any dyd worse with her than I.
Johan. Syr, that is the lest care I have of nyne,
Thankyd be God, and your good doctryne;
But yf it please you, tell me the matter, 355

And the debate[269] betwene you and her.
Syr J. I shall tell the, but thou must kepe secret.
Johan. As for that, Syr, I shall not let.
Syr J. I shall tell the now the matter playn,—
She is angry with me and hath me in dysdayn 360
Because that I do her oft intyce
To do some penaunce, after myne advyse,
Because she wyll never leve her wrawlyng,[270]
But alway with the she is chydyng and brawlyng;
And therfore I knowe, she hatyth [my] presens. 365

Johan. Nay, in good feyth, savyng your reverens.
Syr J. I know very well, she hath me in hate.
Johan. Nay, I dare swere for her, master curate:
[Aside] But, was I not a very knave?
I thought surely, so god me save, 370
That he had lovyd my wyfe, for to deseyve me,
And now he quytyth hym-self; and here I se
He doth as much as he may, for his lyfe,
To styn[te][271] the debate betwene me and my wyfe.
Syr J. If ever she dyd, or though[t][272] me any yll, 375

Now I forgyve her with m[y][273] fre wyll;
Therfore, Johan Johan, now get the home
And thank thy wyfe, and say I wyll not come.
Johan. Yet, let me know, now, good Syr Johan, Bib
Where ye wyll go to supper than. 380

Syr J. I care nat greatly and I tell the.

On saterday last, I and ii or thre
Of my frendes made an appoyntement,
And agaynst this nyght we dyd assent
That in a place we wolde sup together; 385

And one of them sayd, he[274] wolde brynge thether
Ale and bread; and for my parte, I
Sayd, that I wolde gyve them a pye,
And there I gave them money for the makynge;
And an-other sayd, she wolde pay for the bakyng; 390
And so we purpose to make good chere
For to dryve away care and thought.
Johan. Than I pray you, Syr, tell me here,
Whyther shulde all this geare be brought?
Syr J. By my fayth, and I shulde not lye, 395
It shulde be delyvered to thy wyfe, the pye.
Johan. By God! it is at my house, standyng by the fyre.
Syr J. Who bespake that pye? I the requyre.
Johan. By my feyth, and I shall not lye,
It was my wyfe, and her gossyp Margerye, 400

And your good masshyp,[275] callyd Syr Johan,
And my neybours yongest doughter An;
Your masshyp payde for the stuffe and makyng,
And Margery she payde for the bakyng.[276]
Syr J. If thou wylte have me nowe, in faithe I wyll go. 405

Johan. Ye, mary, I beseche your masshyp do so,
My wyfe taryeth for none but us twayne;
She thynketh longe or I come agayne.
Syr J. Well nowe, if she chyde me in thy presens,
I wylbe content, and take [it] in pacyens. 410

Johan. By cokkis soule, and she ones chyde,
Or frowne, or loure, or loke asyde,
I shall brynge you a staffe as myche as I may heve,
Than bete her and spare not; I gyve you good leve
T h t h f h h d g 415

To chastyce her for her shreude varyeng. 415
[They return to Johan's house.]
Tyb. The devyll take the for thy long taryeng!
Here is not a whyt of water, by my gowne,
To washe our handes that we myght syt downe;
Go and hye the, as fast as a snayle,
And with fayre water fyll me this payle. 420

Johan. I thanke our Lorde of his good grace
That I cannot rest longe in a place.
Tyb. Go, fetche water, I say, at a worde, B ii
For it is tyme the pye were on the borde;
And go with a vengeance, & say thou art prayde. 425

Syr. J. A! good gossyp! is that well sayde?
Tyb. Welcome, myn owne swete harte,
We shall make some chere or we departe.
Johan. Cokkis soule, loke howe he approcheth nere
Unto my wyfe: this abateth my chere. 430
[Exit.]
Syr J. By God, I wolde ye had harde the tryfyls,
The toys, the mokkes, the fables, and the nyfyls,[277]
That I made thy husbande to beleve and thynke!
Thou myghtest as well into the erthe synke,
As thou coudest forbeare laughyng any whyle. 435

Tyb. I pray the let me here part of that wyle.
Syr J. Mary, I shall tell the as fast as I can.
But peas, no more—yonder cometh thy good man.
[Re-enter Johan.]

Johan. Cokkis soule, what have we here?
As far as I sawe, he drewe very nere 440
Unto my wyfe.
Tyb. What, art come so sone?
Gyve us water to wasshe nowe—have done.

Than he bryngeth the payle empty.

Johan. By kockes soule, it was, even nowe, full to the brynk,
But it was out agayne or I coude thynke;
Wherof I marveled, by God Almyght, 445
And than I loked betwene me and the lyght
And I spyed a clyfte, bothe large and wyde.
Lo, wyfe! here it is on the tone[278] syde.
Tyb. Why dost not stop it?
Johan. Why, howe shall I do it?
Tyb. Take a lytle wax.
Johan. Howe shal I come to it? 450

Syr J. Mary, here be ii wax candyls, I say,
Whiche my gossyp Margery gave me yesterday.
Tyb. Tusshe, let hym alone, for, by the rode,
It is pyte to helpe hym, or do hym good.
Syr J. What! Jhan Jhan, canst thou make no shyfte? 455
Take this waxe, and stop therwith the clyfte.
Johan. This waxe is as harde as any wyre.
Tyb. Thou must chafe it a lytle at the fyre.
Johan. She that boughte the these waxe candylles twayne,
She is a good companyon certayn. 460

Tyb. What, was it not my gossyp Margery?
Syr J. Yes, she is a blessed woman surely.
Tyb. Nowe wolde God I were as good as she,
For she is vertuous, and full of charyte.
Johan [aside]. Nowe, so God helpe me; and by my holydome,[279] 465

She is the erranst baud betwene this and Rome.
Tyb. What sayst? B ii b

Johan. Mary, I chafe the wax,
And I chafe it so hard that my fingers krakks.
But take up this py that I here torne;

But ta e up t s py t at e e to e;
And it stand long, y-wys it wyll borne. 470

Tyb. Ye, but thou must chafe the wax, I say.
Johan. Byd hym syt down, I the pray—
Syt down, good Syr Johan, I you requyre.
Tyb. Go, I say, and chafe the wax by the fyre,
Whyle that we sup, Syr Jhan and I. 475

Johan. And how now, what wyll ye do with the py?
Shall I not ete therof a morsell?
Tyb. Go and chafe the wax whyle thou art well,
And let us have no more pratyng thus.
Syr. J. Benedicite.
Johan. Dominus. 480

Tyb. Now go chafe the wax, with a myschyfe.
Johan. What! I come to blysse the bord,[280] swete wyfe!
It is my custome now and than.
Mych good do it you, Master Syr Jhan.
Tyb. Go chafe the wax, and here no lenger tary. 485

Johan [aside]. And is not this a very purgatory
To se folkis ete, and may not ete a byt?
By kokkis soule, I am a very wodcok.
This payle here, now a vengaunce take it!
Now my wyfe gyveth me a proud mok! 490

Tyb. What dost?
Johan. Mary, I chafe the wax here,
And I ymagyn to make you good chere,
[Aside.] That a vengaunce take you both as ye syt,
For I know well I shall not ete a byt.
But yet, in feyth, yf I myght ete one morsell, 495
I wold thynk the matter went very well.
Syr J. Gossyp, Jhan Jhan, now mych good do it you.
What chere make you, there by the fyre?

Johan. Master parson, I thank yow now;
I fare well enow after myne own desyre. 500

Syr J. What dost, Jhan Jhan, I the requyre?
Johan. I chafe the wax here by the fyre.
Tyb. Here is good drynk, and here is a good py.
Syr J. We fare very well, thankyd be our lady.
Tyb. Loke how the kokold chafyth the wax that is hard, 505
And for his lyfe, daryth not loke hetherward.
Syr J. What doth my gossyp?
Johan. I chafe the wax—
[Aside.] And I chafe it so hard that my fyngers krakks;
And eke the smoke puttyth out my eyes two:
I burne my face, and ray my clothys also, B iii 510
And yet I dare not say one word,
And they syt laughyng yender at the bord.
Tyb. Now, by my trouth, it is a prety jape,
For a wyfe to make her husband her ape.
Loke of Jhan Jhan, which maketh hard shyft 515
To chafe the wax, to stop therwith the clyft.
Johan [aside]. Ye, that a vengeance take ye both two,
Both hym and the, and the and hym also;
And that ye may choke with the same mete
At the furst mursell that ye do ete. 520

Tyb. Of what thyng now dost thou clatter,
Jhan Jhan? or whereof dost thou patter?
Johan. I chafe the wax, and make hard shyft
To stopt her-with of the payll the ryft.
Syr J. So must he do, Jhan Jhan, by my father kyn, 525
That is bound of wedlok in the yoke.
Johan [aside]. Loke how the pyld preest crammyth in;
That wold to God he myght therwith choke.

Tyb. Now, Master Parson, pleasyth your goodnes
To tell us some tale of myrth or sadnes, 530
For our pastyme, in way of communycacyon.
Syr J. I am content to do it for our recreacyon,
And of iii myracles I shall to you say.
Johan. What, must I chafe the wax all day,
And stond here, rostyng by the fyre? 535

Syr J. Thou must do somwhat at thy wyves desyre!
I know a man whych weddyd had a wyfe,
As fayre a woman as ever bare lyfe,
And within a senyght after, ryght sone
He went beyond se, and left her alone, 540
And taryed there about a vii yere;
And as he cam homeward he had a hevy chere,
For it was told hym that she was in heven.
But, when that he comen home agayn was,
He found his wyfe, and with her chyldren seven, 545
Whiche she had had in the mene space;
Yet had she not had so many by thre
Yf she had not had the help of me.
Is not this a myracle, yf ever were any,
That this good wyfe shuld have chyldren so many 550
Here in this town, whyle her husband shuld be
Beyond the se, in a farre contre.
Johan. Now, in good soth, this is a wonderous myracle,
But for your labour, I wolde that your tacle B iii b
Were in a skaldyng water well sod. 555

Tyb. Peace, I say, thou lettest the worde of God.
Sir J. An other myracle eke I shall you say,
Of a woman, whiche that many a day
Had been wedded, and in all that season
She had no chylde, nother doughter nor son; 560

Wherfore to Saynt Modwin[281] she went on pilgrimage,
And offered there a lyve pyg, as is the usage
Of the wyves that in London dwell;

O t e wyves t at o do dwe ;
And through the vertue therof, truly to tell,
Within a moneth after, ryght shortly, 565
She was delyvered of a chylde as moche as I.
How say you, is not this myracle wonderous?
Johan. Yes, in good soth, syr, it is marvelous;
But surely, after myn opynyon,
That chylde was nother doughter nor son. 570
For certaynly, and I be not begylde,
She was delyvered of a knave chylde.
Tyb. Peas, I say, for Goddis passyon,
Thou lettest Syr Johan's communication.
Sir J. The thyrde myracle also is this: 575
I knewe another woman eke y-wys,
Whiche was wedded, & within v. monthis after
She was delyvered of a fayre doughter,
As well formed in every membre & joynt,
And as perfyte in every poynt 580
As though she had gone v monthis full to th' ende.
Lo! here is v monthis of advantage.
Johan. A wonderous myracle! so God me mende;
I wolde eche wyfe that is bounde in maryage,
And that is wedded here within this place, 585
Myght have as quicke spede in every suche case.
Tyb. Forsoth, Syr Johan, yet for all that
I have sene the day that pus, my cat,
Hath had in a yere kytlyns eyghtene.
Johan. Ye, Tyb, my wyfe, and that have I sene. 590
But howe say you, Syr Jhan, was it good, your pye?
The dyvell the morsell that therof eate I.
By the good lorde this is a pyteous warke—
But nowe I se well the olde proverbe is treu:
The parysshe preest forgetteth that ever he was clarke! 595
But, Syr Jhan, doth not remembre you
How I was your clerke, & holpe you masse to syng,
And hylde the basyn alway at the offryng? B iv

And hylde the basyn alway at the offryng?
He never had halfe so good a clarke as I!
But, notwithstandyng all this, nowe our pye 600
Is eaten up, there is not lefte a byt,
And you two together there do syt,
Eatynge and drynkynge at your owne desyre,
And I am Johan Johan, whiche must stande by the fyre
Chafyng the wax, and dare none other wyse do. 605

Syr J. And shall we alway syt here styll, we two?
That were to mych.
Tyb. Then ryse we out of this place.
Syr J. And kys me than in the stede of grace;
And farewell leman and my love so dere.
Johan. Cokkis body, this waxe it waxte colde agayn here;— 610
But what! shall I anone go to bed,
And eate nothyng, nother meate nor brede?
I have not be wont to have suche fare.
Tyb. Why! were ye not served there as ye are,
Chafyng the waxe, standying by the fyre? 615

Johan. Why, what mete gave ye me, I you requyre?
Sir J. Wast thou not served, I pray the hartely,
Both with the brede, the ale, and the pye?
Johan. No, syr, I had none of that fare.
Tyb. Why! were ye not served there as ye are, 620
Standyng by the fyre chafyng the waxe?
Johan. Lo, here be many tryfyls and knakks—
By kokkis soule, they wene I am other dronke or mad.
Tyb. And had ye no meate, Johan Johan? no had?
Johan. No, Tyb my wyfe, I had not a whyt. 625

Tyb. What, not a morsel?
Johan. No, not one byt;
For honger, I trowe, I shall fall in a sowne.

Sir J. O, that were pyte, I swere by my crowne.
Tyb. But is it trewe?
Johan. Ye, for a surete.
Tyb. Dost thou ly?
Johan. No, so mote I the![282] 630

Tyb. Hast thou had nothyng?
Johan. No, not a byt.
Tyb. Hast thou not dronke?
Johan. No, not a whyt.
Tyb. Where wast thou?
Johan. By the fyre I dyd stande.
Tyb. What dydyst?
Johan. I chafed this waxe in my hande,
Where-as I knewe of wedded men the payne 635
That they have, and yet dare not complayne;
For the smoke put out my eyes two,
I burned my face, and rayde my clothes also,
Mendyng the payle, whiche is so rotten and olde,
That it will not skant together holde; 640
And syth it is so, and syns that ye twayn
Wold gyve me no meate for my suffysance, B iv b
By ko[k]kis soule I wyll take no lenger payn,
Ye shall do all yourself, with a very vengaunce,
For me, and take thou there thy payle now, 645
And yf thou canst mend it, let me se how.
Tyb. A! horson's knave! hast thou brok my payll?
Thou shall repent, by kokkis lylly nayll.
Rech me my dystaf, or my clyppyng sherys:
I shall make the blood ronne about his erys. 650

Johan. Nay, stand styll, drab, I say, and come no nere,
For by kokkis blood, yf thou come here,

y ,y ,
Or yf thou onys styr toward this place,
I shall throw this shovyll full of colys in thy face.
Tyb. Ye! horson dryvyll! get the out of my dore. 655

Johan. Nay! get thou out of my house, thou prestis hore.
Sir J. Thou lyest, horson kokold, evyn to thy face.
Johan. And thou lyest, pyld preest, with an evyll grace.
Tyb. And thou lyest.
Johan. And thou lyest, Syr.
Syr J. And thou lyest agayn.
Johan. By kokkis soule, horson preest, thou shalt be slayn; 660
Thou hast eate our pye, and gyve me nought,
By kokkes blod, it shal be full derely bought.
Tyb. At hym, Syr Johan, or els God gyve the sorow.
Johan. And have at your hore and thefe, Saynt George to borrow.[283]
Here they fyght by the erys a whyle, and than the preest and the wyfe go
out of the place.

Johan. A! syrs! I have payd some of them even as I lyst, 665
They have borne many a blow wilh my fyst,
I thank God, I have walkyd them well,
And dryven them hens. But yet, can ye tell
Whether they be go? for by God, I fere me,
That they be gon together, he and she, 670
Unto his chamber, and perhappys she wyll,
Spyte of my hart, tary there styll,
And, peradventure, there, he and she
Wyll make me cokold, evyn to anger me;
And then had I a pyg in the woyrs[284] panyer, 675

Therfor, by God, I wyll hye me thyder
To se yf they do me any vylany:
And thus fare well this noble company.

Finis

Imprinted by Wyllyam Rastell
the xii day of February
the yere of our Lord
MCCCC and XXXIII
Cum privilegio

FOOTNOTES:
[229] The New Eng. Dict. quotes from Fuller's Worthies: "St. Anthonie is
notoriously known for the patron of hogs, having a pig for his page in all
pictures."

[230] God's.

[231] There are three Croomes in the manor of Ripple, Worcestershire, and the
church of Ripple is dedicated to the B. Virgin, but Nash's History of
Worcestershire, says nothing of "Our Lady of Crome."

[232] drag.

[233] hair.

[234] assuredly; text 'hardly.'

[235] hundred.

[236] the devil a bit.

[237] shall I not? For this curious elliptical construction cf. l. 624, "And had ye
no meate, Johan Johan? no had?" See also Udall's R. D., I. iv. 32.

[238] God's.

[239] immediately.

[240] dust her jacket, beat her. To walk = to full cloth.

[241] This question must be answered.

[242] scold.

[243] cease.

[244] characteristic.

[245] avail.

[246] cudgel.

[247] remedy.

[248] wager 6s. 8d. Cf. Udall, R. D., I. iii. 27.

[249] the relation of a child's sponsors at baptism to his parents.

[250] go a "love"-making.

[251] fish salted so hard that it had to be softened by beating before cooking.

[252] literally, cat-calling.

[253] Tyb's 'aside' perhaps only means "if he is not scolding nothing can please
him," i.e. he likes scolding better than anything else. But Tyb is at present half-
afraid, and it is at least possible that she means "if I haven't set him scolding this
time, no occasion for being angry will content him."

[254] This saint is not mentioned by the Bollandists; the name may be a
contraction for one of the four St. Theodorics.

[255] guess.

[256] God's little wounds; cf. l. 648.

[257] consult, question thee.

[258] excessively.

[259] the one.

[260] The stands on which the 'board' of the table was fixed when needed.

[261] This line is attributed in Rastell's edition to Johan, the next attribution
being at l. 252, also to Johan. Lines 258, 259 are given to Tyb, ll. 260-262 to
Johan, l. 263 a to Johan, ll. 263 b-266 to Tyb.

[262] 'I pray you,' etc., said to one of the spectators, whom she next pretends to
mistrust, turning at l. 254 to another one.

[263] dirtied.

[264] Fix the board on the trestles, and that at once.

[265] 263, etc. In the French Farse of Pernet qui va au vin there are similar
false starts and returnings, but in that case Pernet keeps coming back to watch his
wife and her lover.

[266] bald, shaven, not "bold."

[267] shorn.

[268] thought.

[269] quarrel.

[270] crying out, scolding.

[271] Misprinted stynk.

[272] Misprinted though.

[273] Misprinted me.

[274] Apparently a misprint for she; it was clearly to be provided by Tyb; cf. l.
618.

[275] Cf. Play of Wether, l. 235. Udall's R. D., I. iv. 33, etc.

[276] No provision seems to have been made for Margery and Anne sharing in
the pie.

[277] Cf. "nyfuls," Play of the Wether, l. 617.

[278] Cf. l. 211.

[279] salvation.

[280] Cf. Pernet's:

Vous irayje signer la table?
Je scay bien le benedicite.

[281] S. Modwena, an Irish virgin, who died A.D. 518. She is said to have
been the patroness of Burton-upon-Trent, and Henry VIII.'s commissioners sent
thence to London "the image of seint Moodwyn with her red kowe and hir staff,
which wymen labouryng of child in those parties were very desirous to have with
them to lean upon."

[282] may I thrive.

[283] for my backer. Cf. R. D. IV. vii. 75, IV. viii. 45.

[284] worse.

Nicholas Udall

ROISTER DOISTER

Edited with Critical Essay and
Notes by Ewald Flügel, Ph.D.,
Professor in Stanford University

CRITICAL ESSAY

Life.—Nicholas Udall was born in 1506, of a good family residing in
Hampshire. As a lad of fourteen he entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford,
and took his bachelor's degree there in May, 1524.[285] The years of his
University life came at a period of great religious fermentation, and young
Udall was, according to an old tradition,[286] one of the young enthusiasts in
whom the humanistic tilling of Erasmus had prepared the soil for Lutheran
doctrines from Wittenberg. We may, therefore, imagine young Udall to have
been one of those of whose heretical perversities Warham complains to
Wolsey.[287] Apparently Udall, as he grew older, grew if not calmer at least
more cautious, and succeeded later in gaining the favour of Mary the
Princess, and in retaining that of Mary the Queen. While at college, he
formed a lasting friendship with John Leland, a friendship of which some
poems of the latter give us a pleasing testimony.[288] Leland, of almost the
same age as Udall, had taken his first degree at Cambridge in 1522, and
according to an old custom, he continued his studies at Oxford, where
Udall's generosity won his heart.[289] In May, 1533, a number of verses
were composed by them in joint authorship, for a pageant at the coronation
of Anne Boleyn.[290] In the same year Udall seems to have settled at
London as a teacher. He may even have contemplated becoming a monk—
like Thomas More thirty years earlier; he certainly dates his preface to the
Flowers from Terence from the Augustinian Monastery at London, on the
last of February, 1534. In the following June he received the degree of
Master of Arts from Oxford, and appears in the latter part of the same year
as "Magister Informator" at Eton, succeeding Master Richard Coxe.[291] In
this capacity he received payments between the last terms, 1534 and 1541.
[292]

We can scarcely judge at this late day of the character of Udall's
educational services, but the fact that he was generally on good terms with

his pupils may reasonably be inferred from the preface to the edition of the
Flowers, printed in 1545.
We may further infer with regard to his mastership at Eton, that he was
himself influenced by the Eton custom of performing a play at Christmas. It
appears even possible that the clause in a "consuetudinary" of Eton (about
1560), allowing the Latin school comedy to give place to an English one, if
it were "witty and graceful,"[293] may have been a result of Udall's
mastership. And it is probable that Roister Doister was originally one of
such plays unpretentiously offered by Udall to his boys,[294] modestly put
aside after the performance and printed long afterwards. If all this be true,
Udall's mastership deserves immortal fame in the annals of English
literature. But the immortality is unfortunately of a different nature. Udall is
stigmatized by one ungrateful pupil as a second Orbilius plagosus, the
realization of Erasmus's executioner. Tusser's often quoted doggerel runs:

"From Paules I went to Eaton sent
To learn streight waies, the latin phraies,
When fiftie three stripes giuen to mee
At once I had:
For fault but small, or none at all,
It came to pas, thus beat I was,
See Udall see, the mercie of thee,
To me poore lad."[295]

We cannot now decide upon the merits of the case, but we are inclined to
think that Tom Tusser the boy was as shiftless as Thomas Tusser the man
later proved to be, and that, although he may have been a fine "querister,"
his "latin phraies" would frequently offend the ear of the conscientious
humanist. Let us suppose that Thomas deserved his fifty-three stripes twice
over, but did not realize that ὁ μὴ δαρεὶς ἄνθρωπος οὐκ παιδεύεται.[296]
In March, 1541,[297] some abuses were exposed that had lately disgraced
the school. A robbery of plate and silver images was detected, to which two
late Eton scholars and a servant of Udall's confessed; and Udall himself
became "suspect to be counsel of the robbery." The judicial report states
that Udall "having certain interrogatoryes ministred unto hym toching the
sayd fact and other felonious trespasses whereof he was suspected, did

confess that he did comitt a heinous offence with the sayd cheney [a
"scoler" of Eton] sundry tymes hertofore and of late the vjᵗʰ day of this
present monethe in this present yere at London: whereupon he was
committed to the Marshalsey."
Udall was discharged from his office, but did not remain long in prison
(as would have been the case if he had been proved guilty of a "felonious"
crime); and an influential personage unknown to us made efforts to bring
about his "restitucion to the roume of Scholemaister in Eton." Udall thanked
this patron in an interesting letter, which seems to corroborate the words of
the indictment, but states that the "heinous offence" was committed in
London (not in Eton), and that it resulted in heavy debts. The most careful
consideration of the letter leads me to believe that Udall had nothing to do
with the theft, but had neglected his duties as teacher, and had not given the
right example of "frugall livyng."[298] Most likely he had only followed the
royal example; had enjoyed too much "Pastyme with good companye!"
In the same letter Udall petitions for a place where he could show his
"amendment," and which would enable him also "by litle and litle ... to paye
euery man his own."[299]
We do not know of the result of this letter, but it seems that Udall went
"north" in the autumn of the same year. At any rate, in October, 1542,
Robert Aldrich, Bishop of Carlisle, received letters "by the hande of Mr.
Vdall";[300] and Leland in a charming little song addressed to his "snow-
white friend," refers to Udall as residing among the "Brigantes, where Mars
now has the rule."[301]
In the same autumn appeared Udall's translation of Erasmus's
Apophthegms[302] and—after his return south—he was connected for the
following three years with a great literary undertaking, which was not only
favoured by the Court, but progressing under its auspices and with its
collaboration,—Princess Mary taking the most active part. This was the
English translation of Erasmus's Paraphrase of the New Testament.[303]
Under Edward VI., Udall devoted himself to theological works; he stood
up for the royal prerogative in religious matters in his Answer to the articles
of the commoners of Devonshire and Cornwall (summer 1549[304]); he took
his share in a memorial volume published in 1551, after Bucer's death, and

he translated in the same year Peter Martyr's Tractatus and Disputatio De
Eucharistia. A royal patent[305] (of 1551) granted him the "privilege and
lycense ... to preint the Bible in Englyshe as well in the large volume for the
use of the churches wᵗʰin this our Realme ... as allso in any other convenient
volume."
This privilege was not the only sign of royal favour: we find Udall in
November, 1551, presented by the King to a prebend in Windsor,[306] and
later (in March, 1553) to the Parsonage of Calborne, in the Isle of Wight.
After such favours received from Edward, and such services in the
Protestant camp, we should expect to find Udall in disgrace under Queen
Mary, and sharing with his fellow-Protestants at least the bitter fate of exile,
but Mary had apparently preserved a grateful memory for her former
fellow-worker in the Erasmian translation. If, indeed, she did not use him as
a theologian, she remembered his dramatic talents, and so we find that a
special warrant was issued, December 3, 1554, which shows us Udall in the
rôle of playwright. The Office of the Queen's Revels was directed by the
warrant referred to, to deliver to Udall such "apparel" at any time as he
might require for the "setting foorth of Dialogues and Enterludes" before
the Queen, for her "regell disporte and recreacion." In the beginning of the
document[307] appears an allusion to Udall as having shown previously "at
soondrie seasons" his "dilligence" in arranging "Dialogues and
Enterludes"—important documentary evidence of his connection with the
"Revels," a connection apparently begun with the pageant for which he
furnished such poor verses at Anne Boleyn's coronation.
This evidence for the fact that Udall was known as a writer of "plays"
before 1554 is singularly corroborated by the quotation of Roister's letter to
Custance (Act III., Scene iv.) as an example of "ambiguity" in the 1553
edition of Wilson's Rule of Reason.[308]
As to the nature of Udall's "Dialogues," "Enterludes," and "devises," we
are not entirely without information. The very date of the warrant would
indicate the occasion for Udall's services (December 3, 1554), if we had not
a more definite statement. He was commissioned to get up the Christmas
shows before Mary and Philip.

Udall was in a dangerous position, since any reference to the Protestant
sympathies of the nation might have cost his life, but he realized the
situation, and with good tact presented "divers plaies," the "incydents" of
which were very innocent:[309] "A mask of patrons of gallies like Venetian
senators, with galley-slaves for their torche-bearers; a mask of 6 Venuses or
amorous ladies with 6 Cupids and 6 torche-bearers to them," and some
"Turkes archers,"[310] "Turkes magistrates," and "Turkie women," "6 lions'
hedds of paste and cement," and a few other harmless paraphernalia.
How long Udall served the queen in this capacity we do not know. In
1555, towards the end of his career, we find him at his old calling as master
of Westminster School.[311] When in November of the following year the
old monastery was again opened, naturally Udall's services became
superfluous, and he was doubtless discharged; and so indeed the darkness
enshrouding the last months of his life may cover a period of great distress.
He died in December, 1556, and found his last resting place in St.
Margaret's, Westminster; where almost thirty years before Skelton had
found first a sanctuary and then a grave.
It seems that the queen did not erect a monument over the ashes of her
old friend, at least none is registered by the industrious Weever;[312] but
Udall does not need a monument from Queen Mary, he has erected it
himself—ære perennius—in the annals of English literature.
Date of the Play.—Roister Doister was formerly assigned to the time of
Udall's mastership at Eton (1534-41).[313] In more recent years, however,
this date has been rejected, and Professor J. W. Hales has tried to show that
"this play was in fact written in 1552, and more probably written for
Westminster school."[314]
The arguments of Professor Hales, as far as I can see, might be
summarized thus:
1. The fact that Wilson—an old Eton boy himself, who left the school in
1541, and ought to have known of the play if it had ever been performed
there—does not insert the "ambiguous letter" in his first and second editions
of the Rule of Reason (1551, 1552), whereas he inserts it in the edition of
1553, "suggests that this comedy was written between the appearances of
the second and the third editions."

In favour of this theory speak further—according to Professor Hales—
2. The fact that Bale does not mention any of Udall's comedies in the
1548 edition of his Catalogus;
3. The fact that "about 1552" Udall was in high esteem as a "comic
dramatist";
4. The fact that Udall quotes a number of proverbial phrases which he got
from Heywood's proverbs, published first in 1546;
5. The fact that the usury statute of 37 Henry VIII. was repealed in 1552,
"of some moment" as far as the "reference [in the play] to excessive usury"
is concerned.
The first argument is doubtless the strongest, but I venture to argue that
the quotation of 1553 does not prove that the play was written in 1552, but
only that Wilson was unable to use a copy of the play before 1553; whether
this copy was a manuscript copy, or a printed (and now lost) edition of the
play, we cannot decide; most probably Wilson's quotation was made from
an early edition of Roister, printed in 1552.
The fact that Wilson left Eton in 1541 seems to make it probable that he
remembered the "ambiguous" passage from his school days.
The second argument is very slight, for Bale does not give a complete list
of Udall's works either in edition 1548 or in edition 1557; nor does he
mention Udall's connection with the coronation pageants of 1533; and a
modest school comedy would naturally not at once become public property.
The third argument is based on a serious anachronism. We do not know
anything of Udall's fame as a "comic dramatist about 1552." The warrant of
December 3, 1554, is dated, and cannot be used for "about 1552." Besides,
the nature of Udall's "dialogues and interludes" for the "regell disporte and
recreacion," as explained on p. 93, above, excludes any possibility of
connecting these "Dialogues" with the comedy.
The number of proverbial phrases which Udall uses in common with
Heywood's Proverbs (the early date of which, 1546, is rather a myth)
proves no dependence of Udall on Heywood. Their use proves merely that
Udall, as well as Heywood, talked the London English of his time, and that

both were familiar with phrases common in the early sixteenth century. Any
possible number of such phrases could not prove any "dependence."
With regard to the allusion in Roister Doister to the Usury Statute, one
may readily see that the reference is not to a date later than the repeal, in
1552, of 37 Henry VIII., c. 9, but to a period between 1545 and 1552. In
Act V., Scene vi., lines 21 to 30, Custance blames Roister humorously, not
for taking interest at all, but for taking too much (fifteen to one!), and for
taking it right away instead of waiting until the year was up. The passage,
therefore, does not refer to the law passed 5 and 6 Edward VI., c. 20 (1552),
which repeals 37 Henry VIII., c. 9, and orders that "no person shall lend or
forbear any sum of money for any maner of Usury or Increase to be
received or hoped for above the Sum lent, upon pain to forfeit the Sum lent,
and the Increase, [with] Imprisonment, and Fine at the king's pleasure." The
passage refers to 37 Henry VIII., c. 20 (1545), to a law which allows ten per
cent interest: "The sum of ten pound in the hundred, and so after that rate
and not above," and which forbids the lender "to receive, accept or take in
Lucre or Gain for the forbearing or giving Day of Payment of one whole
year of and for his or their money," for any other "Period" but the year, not
"for a longer or shorter time." Cf. the technical term "gain" in line 30.
If, therefore, Custance's joke can be taken as an indication of the time
when the play was written, it would be an indication of the period between
1545 and 1552, or, at any rate, before 1552.[315]
I should, however, not be inclined on account of this reference to usury to
date the play between 1545 and 1552. I would rather regard the allusion as a
later insertion, which ought not to weaken the force of the internal evidence
in favour of the old theory, according to which the play belongs to the Eton
period of Udall's life, to the years between 1534 and 1541.
Date of the Early Edition.—The Stationers Company's Registers show
(ed. Arber, 1, 331) four pence as

"Recevyd of Thomas hackett for hys lycense for pryntinge of a play
intituled Rauf Ruyster Duster,"

and the unique copy of the play which has come down to us has been
regarded as the solitary relic of this edition. Title-page and colophon are

lacking.
Hackett, however, printed between October (November?), 1560, and July,
1589; and Arber dates the unique copy: "? 1566."
This copy is now in the possession of Eton College. On the first fly-leaf
are written the words: "The Gift of the Revd Thos Briggs to Eton Coll.
Library, Decr 1818." As shown above, the quotation of the "ambiguous"
letter in the 1553 edition of Wilson's Logique speaks, however, in favour of
an edition earlier than that of the unique copy; and this earlier edition might
be dated "1552?".[316]
Place of Roister Doister in English Literature.—Roister Doister is the
only specimen of Udall's dramatic art preserved by Fate, but it is sufficient
to justify us in assigning to the author his place as father of English
Comedy.
The causes that brought a "Latinist," a schoolmaster, a theological writer
to such a position are interesting to consider. Primarily, of course, it is his
genius, his "Froh-natur," his way of looking at the world, and his art of
representing this picture of the world, to which we owe Roister Doister, but
besides this we may be certain that Udall's classical training, the condition
of the Latin School-comedy of his time, and, finally, his clear insight into
the character of the national play helped him to the place that he holds.
If Udall had been merely a pedantic schoolmaster, one of whose duties it
was to superintend an annual Christmas play, he would have been satisfied
with an adaptation of—let us say—the Miles Gloriosus, or he would merely
have translated the Miles as the Andria had been translated before; perhaps
he would even have been satisfied with a performance of the play in the
Latin. On the other hand, had he never been obliged to drill boys in
Terence, his plays would have remained "interludes" of the old type, and at
best, he would now receive honourable mention by the side of Heywood. It
was his very position as teacher of the classics, his humanism (apart from
the annual necessity of advising the "enterluders" at Christmas time) which
must have pointed out to him the way in which the "enterlude" might be
outgrown, the way that would lead to a new category of plays: the
"comedy."

Udall (if the prologue to Roister Doister is his own, as we have no reason
to doubt)[317] seems to have been somewhat doubtful at first about the
designation of his play; he calls it at the beginning "thys enterlude"; but he
realized the new departure which he had taken, and calls it later "Our
Comedie or Enterlude." By the use of this word,—the first time applied
correctly to an English comedy,—Udall indicates his aspirations, his
sources and classical models: those plays which were the comedies par
excellence, the comedies of Terence, and—especially since the discovery of
the twelve "new" plays in 1429—those of Plautus. Udall shows himself a
genuine disciple of the Renaissance; he "imitates" in that true way in which
"imitation" has always ultimately proved "originality": he shows that he had
absorbed the spirit of the Roman comedy, that he fully understood the easy
movement, the sparkling and refined dialogue, the succinct but full
delineation of character, and the clear development of a plot. But besides all
this he possessed enough patriotic feeling not to overlook the merits of the
modest national "interlude" of England. He did not too anxiously avoid
carrying out here and there even a farcical motive; but with the higher ideal
before him, he succeeded in fusing the classical and the national elements
into a new category, becoming thus the father of English comedy.
Udall's position appears clearly if one compares his work with Gammer
Gurtons Nedle on the one hand, and—regarding them as a type—with
Heywood's farces on the other.
The good taste and higher art of Roister Doister are at once evident: the
play is free from the undeniable vulgarity of Gammer Gurton, and in
delineation of character is distinctly superior. The plot, simple as it is, is
never as meagre as in the clever dialogues of Heywood; and as much as
Udall surpasses Heywood in construction of the plot, I think he surpasses
him in delineation of character. For even if, as Ward says,[318] in Heywood's
witty plays, the "personified abstractions" of the moralities have been
entirely superseded by "personal types," these personal types have not yet
matured into individual persons, into men of flesh and blood, as they have
in Udall's play.
I take, of course, for granted Udall's absolute superiority over that
category of interludes which—bastards of the "Moralities"—seem to have
had no other purpose than to introduce dogmatical moralizations, seasoned

perhaps with a tavern scene or with some other farcical coarseness, and at
best ending with an "unmotived" conversion of the sinner or sinners.
Plot and Characters.—Udall's plot is so simple that its development
becomes clear at a glance; it consists of the unsuccessful wooing of Ralph
Roister Doister for the hand of Dame Christian Custance, evolved amid
various entanglements, and ultimately unsuccessful, not so much because
Custance is at the time of Roister's first advances already engaged to
another man, as because Roister's folly is so enormous that no success can
be possible.
Now the figure of an avowed fool in love would give excellent scenes for
a farce, but would not yield the complications of character and situation
necessary for a comedy; and in order to bring about this essential
complexity, there is introduced a second motive for action in this fool's own
character,—that of vainglory. There is also introduced a personage who
shall season the play by his wit and produce the necessary entanglements.
This is Mathew Merygreeke, who grows gradually under the poet's hands,
until he occupies the most prominent place in the play, at least as far as our
interest in the different characters is concerned. Despite all that has been
said to the contrary, Merygreeke is Udall's own creation,—a figure in itself
deserving of high praise. Undoubtedly this character was at first conceived
as a mere modern parasite, of a much higher type, however, than the
Sempronio, for instance (in Calisto and Meliboea), but as the play advanced
the figure outgrew its original limits, and although in the first scenes
Merygreeke is scarcely out of the eggshell of the parasite, he proves very
soon to be a new character: a character belonging to the class of Pandarus, a
"Friend" playing the part of kindly Fate, a Vice certainly mischievous and
cruel enough, but directing everything to a good end; as full of humour and
fun as of character, and, at the bottom of his heart, of good-nature.
Merygreeke comes indeed to Roister at first "for his stomach's sake" and
wants a new coat, but he has on the whole only a few traits of the parasite,
[319]
and these might be left out without injuring the play in the least. As
soon as he sees Roister in love, his humour gains the upper hand; he
realizes at once what a capital source of fun this "love" on the part of a vain
fool might become, and he determines to bring about such complications as
will yield the greatest quantity of amusement. His purpose may, indeed, at
first have been merely egotistical, to have the fun himself; but he is forgiven

because all the other persons of the play—as well as the audience—are
liberally invited to the feast. Merygreeke may appear at times as a false
friend and thus as an immoral character, but his flattery is so exaggerated,
his lies are so improbable, so enormous, so amusing to all sane people,—
Roister so fully deserves (indeed provokes) the cruel treatment,—that any
possible wrath of a moralizing censor is entirely disarmed. Supreme folly
stands outside the common moral order of things. Even if Merygreeke had
not disclosed his motives, we could see from the respect which is shown
him by Custance and Trusty, that he is far from being a treacherous parasite.
And after all he does not betray his friend. He rather helps him to what he
really desires. And what Roister most desires in this world is, after all, not
the possession of the fair widow, but the satisfaction of his vanity. How
quickly does he forget his love in the delusion fostered by Merygreeke, that
Goodluck and Custance desire to live in peace with him because they fear
him. The lie is in harmony with poetic justice.
Merygreeke has been characterized[320] as "the Artotrogos of Plautus, the
standing figure of the parasite of the Greek new comedy and its Latin
reproductions." But, though Merygreeke was doubtless originally planned
as the parasite of the play, and though here and there to the very end of the
play we find allusions which corroborate this, I note, first, that the classical
parasite[321] lacks the element of modern humour, of witty but, after all,
good-natured enjoyment of the mischief which he stirs up; secondly, that
Merygreeke is free from endless and—to us—tedious allusions to the
"stomach"; and, thirdly, from the vulgar, and almost uninteresting,
selfishness, revealed in such words as these of Gnatho:

Principio ego vos credere ambos hoc mi vehementer volo
Me huius quicquid faciam id facere maxume causa mea.

I may be mistaken, but I cannot find that the classical parasite has any fine
touch of the humour that is inseparable from "humanity," from good nature.
The classical parasite is, on account of this deficiency, distinctly inferior to
this modern creation.
As completely as in Merygreeke's case, Udall disarms the moralist in the
case of Roister himself, whose lying[322] and bragging, whose cowardice,
matched only by his vanity, cannot possibly be regarded as setting a bad

example, because they have reached dimensions which are grotesque and
plainly ridiculous. They result only in the propagation of his folly, and that
is allowed to reap its—poor—external fruit: Roister is "invited" to the
banquet (and Roister has constitutionally a good "stomach"), and he is made
to believe that he is a much "dreaded lion." Fate has fortunately not pressed
the mirror into his hands. He is saved the sight of the ass's ears visible to
every one else.[323] And as kind as Fate is his "friend" Merygreeke, who
never reveals to him his absolute wretchedness, and who has to the last the
satisfaction of knowing Roister a "glad man." Here was a great danger for a
less skilful writer than Udall—a danger of marring our enjoyment of
Merygreeke's part by inserting traits of a finer or grosser brutality, a danger
of spoiling the whole feast by some drop of malice. The element of
conscious humiliation is absent; the pathetic is consequently avoided.
The other figures of the play are kept in the background; even Custance,
and Gawin Goodluck, who comes in at the end of the play to give the coup
de grace to Roister's foolish hopes. As a lover Goodluck is hardly a success.
He is so fish-blooded that, in a scene which savours of a judicial procedure,
the evidence of Trusty becomes necessary before he can be satisfied of the
fidelity of his betrothed. Goodluck is obviously no Romeo. In the widow
ready to marry again Udall presents a good study of character. Custance is a
well-to-do London city-wife of the days of Henry VIII. and Edward VI.,
ruling like a queen over servants who themselves are happily introduced
and capitally delineated. We imagine her neither lean, nor pale, but rather
like the wife of Bath—like her, resolute and substantial, but more faithful.
She is, to a certain extent, even shrewd; she enjoys fun,—after she has been
made to see it,—and she is not without a touch of sentimentality.
Indeed, to Custance Udall has assigned the only serious scene in the play,
Act V., Scene iii. This monologue appears pathetic, and sounds like a prayer
of innocence, extremely well justified in a woman who finds herself
surrounded by difficulties and involved in a complication which seems to
question her honour. The last words of the complaint indicate, however, that
Goodluck would better not doubt too much, because Custance's patience
might reach a limit, and her natural independence might sharply bring him
to his senses.[324] She appears in that very scene as the match of Goodluck,
who will be very happy with her if he gets her.

Udall shows his complete superiority over his predecessors in these
delineations of character even more than in the creation of the plot. Though
in the development of the latter everything fits together and is arranged in
good order and proportion, it is, after all, the dramatis personæ that interest
us most. Udall's persons are men and women of flesh and blood, interesting
and amusing living beings, not the wax figures of "Sapience" or "Folly,"
"Virtuous Living" or "Counterfet Countenance." Udall's persons are vastly
superior to these wooden "dialoguers," whom one feels to be acting merely
for a school-bred morality, and they leave the coarse-grained but witty
figures even of Heywood's farces far behind.
If anything, his persons show that Udall had studied his Plautus and
Terence as a clear and sharp observer,[325] and that he had learned from
them where the originals for a comedy were to be found—in life, in the
actual world surrounding the poet.
The Present Text is based upon Arber's reprint of July 1, 1869, which
has been carefully collated by Professor Gayley with the unique copy in the
library of Eton College. The courtesy of the librarian, F. Warre Cornish,
M.A., and the other authorities of Eton College, is hereby heartily
acknowledged. In the present text all variations from the original are
inclosed in brackets. But, in uniformity with the regulation adopted for this
series, j and v have been substituted for i and u when used as consonants,
and u has been printed for v when used as a vowel. References in the
footnotes to previous editions are thus indicated: A., Arber's reprint; C., W.
D. Cooper's edition for the Shakespeare Society, 1847; H., Hazlitt's Dodsley
(edition in Vol. III.), Lond. 1874; M., Professor J. M. Manly's edition in
"Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama," Vol. II., Boston, 1897.
References to the Eton copy are indicated by E.
Ewald Flügel.

FOOTNOTES:
[285] Wood's Fasti, quoted by Arber. Arber assigns 1504 as the year of Udall's
birth, but makes him "æt. 18" in 1524. Cf. Cooper's Extracts from C. C. C.
Register.

[286] Cf. Bale, Catal. ed. 1557, Cent. 9, 45 (fol. 717; general statement
concerning Udall's Protestantism). Lutheranis disciplinis dum in academia

studuit addictus fuit, Tanner after Wood, cf. Cooper, XII. It is remarkable,
however, that we do not find Udall in correspondence with the reformers "in
exile."

[287] In March, 1521, cf. Ellis, Original Letters, I. i, 239 sqq.

[288] Reprinted from Leland's Collectanea, V. by Cooper, XII. XIV. XXVI.

[289] Cf. the epigram "de liberalitate Nic. Odoualli," quoted by Cooper, XII.

[290] Original among the Royal Mss., 18 A. L. XIV. Cf. Calendars, etc., VI.,
No. 564; Ib. 565, referring to Latin verses on this coronation by Richard Coxe,
Udall's predecessor at Eton (from Harl. Ms. 6148, f. 117). Udall's verses are
reprinted by Arber, English Garner, 2, 52; parts of them published by Collier and
Fairholt. Cf. Cooper (XIII.), who dates the pageant 1532 (as does Ward, Hist.
Dram. Poetry, I. 141). This pageant shows Udall's earliest connection with the
revels, and may have given him a name at the side of Heywood.

[291] U. speaks later of the Eton mastership as "that roume which I was neuer
desirous to obtain."

[292] Cf. Arber, p. 3.

[293] Cf. Warton, Hist. of English Poetry, 3, 308; Interdum etiam exbibet [sc.
ludi magister] Anglico sermone contextas fabulas, si quæ babeant acumen et
leporem. Eton was the only place where we know of English plays; but
Radulphus Radclif at Hitchin may have performed some of his school comedies
in English, as the "plebs" mentioned by Bale would not much have appreciated
Latin performances, Catalogus, 8, 98, fol. 700; Herford, Literary Relations, p.
110, citing the occasional admission of English school plays at Eton, says that to
"this concession we owe the Ralph Roister Doister." More likely we owe the
concession to Roister Doister. Cf. Herford on Udall's De Papatu.

[294] It seems improbable that the R. D. was ever performed at Court; Udall's
"interludes and devices" were pageants, as the Loseley Mss. prove; see below.

[295] Tusser's 500 Pointes, ed. Payne & Heritage, p. 205.

[296] Cooper attributes to Udall's severity the running away from school of
"divers" Eton boys alluded to by Roger Ascham (Schoolmaster). But this passage
refers to 10 Dec. 1563, twenty-two years after Udall had ceased to swing the rod
over the Eton boys!

[297] Cf. quotation from Nicolas's Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy
Council, 7, 152-53, in Cooper; the date is 14 March 32 Henry VIII. (1541-42)
and not 1543, as Arber gives it. Arber dates Udall's letter also wrongly 1543; it is
referred to 1541-42 in Ellis's Original Letters of Eminent Literary Men, Camden
Soc., 1843, P. 1.

[298] "Accepte this myn honest chaunge from vice to virtue, from prodigalitee
to frugall livyng, from negligence of teachyng to assiduitee, from playe to studie,
from lightness to gravitee." He speaks about his "offenses," does not wish to

excuse himself, but says "humana quidem esse, et emendari posse." He begs for a
chance to show his "emendyng and reformac̄ on," and quotes instances from
ancient history of great men who had indulged in a "veray riottous and dissolute
sorte of livyng" in their youth, had been "drowned in voluptuousness" and had
lived in "slaundre and infamie," but had reformed. Not a word is said about
thefts, "robberies," and such "felonious trespasses." Cf. the whole letter from a
new collation in Flügel's Lesebuch, I, 351.

[299] U. does not beg in this letter for his "restitution," as Arber seems to
accept.

[300] Cf. Cooper, XXIII.

[301] Mars had "the rule" there October, 1542-July, 1543 (Froude, 3, 525-570),
then again August, 1547 (Somerset in Berwick, Froude, 4, 288); the naval
expedition of Hertford in May, 1544, being here out of the question (Ib. 4, 32).

[302] This translation (published in September) might also indicate some
connection between Udall and Aldrich during the summer of 1542. Aldrich was a
great "Erasmian"; he had been the juvenis blandæ eloquentiæ whom Erasmus
used as interpreter on that immortal pilgrimage to Walsingham, and he kept up a
correspondence with Erasmus.

[303] Udall took as his share St. Luk and the "disposition" of the rest with
exception of St. John and St. Mark; perhaps he assisted also in the translation of
Matthew and Acts. The Prefaces are dated 1545, 1548. The whole must have been
quite a lucrative business-undertaking, because every parish in England had, by
law, to buy a copy of this work and "every parson had to have and diligently
study the same conferring the one [the New Testament both in Latin and English]
with the other [the paraphrase]." Cf. Cranmer's Remains, 155, 156 (1548); the
Injunctions of Edward, 1547 (Ib. 499, 501), etc.; cf. also Grindal's Works, 134,
157; Hooper's Works, 2, 139, 143 (Parker Soc.).

[304] Cranmer too wrote "Answers to the Fifteen Articles of the Rebels,
Devon, Anno 1549," reprinted in his Remains, 163; and a number of references to
the Rebellion may be found in the writings of the Reformers, f. i. Letter of
Hooper to Bullinger, 25 June, 1549, of John ab Ulmis to Bullinger, May 28,
1550, of Burcher to Bullinger, 25 August, 1549. But none of these
correspondents ever mention Udall.

[305] Cf. Cooper, XXX.

[306] An interesting letter of Udall's, dated August, 1552, referring to his place
at Windsor, was printed in Archæologia, 1869, Vol. XLII. 91, but has not hitherto
been utilized for Udall's Biography. The preface to a translation of T. Geminie's
Anatomy by Udall is dated 20 July, 1552; cf. Cooper, XXXI.; Udall's Epistolæ et
Carmina ad Gul. Hormannum et ad Jo. Lelandum, are quoted by Bale, etc., and
given under this year by Cooper (who reads: Hermannum). Hormann died 1535,
as vice-provost of Eton.

[307] This warrant was communicated to the Archæological Society,
December 9, 1824, by Mr. Bray (Archæologia, 21, 551), but not printed until
1836 in the Loseley Mss., now first edited by A. J. Kempe; No. 31, p. 63.

[308] See below, under Date of the Early Edition of R. D. Another early
allusion to Udall as a playwright is that from Nichols's Progresses of Queen
Elizabeth, 3, 177, according to which "an English play called Ezekias, made by
Mr. Udall and handled by King's College men only," was performed before
Elizabeth August 8, 1564, at Cambridge; see Cooper's Preface, xxxiii. Bale, who
does not mention Udall as a playwright in the edition 1548 of his Catalogus (he
mentions only [Ochino's?] Tragoedia de papatu), says in the edition September,
1557, that Udall wrote "comœdias plures." There is nothing on Udall in his
Supplement of 1559.

[309] It is remarkable that these documents should never have been utilized for
Udall's biography. Cf. the "Miscellaneous Extracts from Various Accounts
relating to the Office of the Revels," printed among the Loseley Mss., p. 90. The
Muniment Room of James More Molyneux at Loseley House, Surrey, would
furnish these and perhaps other documents most valuable for Udall's History and
that of the Early Drama.
The "scheme for an interlude, in which the persons of the drama were to be a
King, a Knight, a Judge, a Preacher, a Scholar, a Serving-man," which Hazlitt
(Handbook, 622) carelessly attributes to Udall, is not connected with his name;
cf. Loseley Mss., p. 64.

[310] These may refer to another pageant, l.c.

[311] No exact date given by Cooper, XXXIV. Hales gives good reasons for
the probability that Udall's mastership commenced in 1553; cf. Englische
Studien, 18, 421; cf. ib., a very interesting note on the Terentian Plays, annually
performed at the Westminster School. It seems almost as if here, as well as at
Eton, Udall's headmastership had some significance for the history of the English
school comedy.

[312] Funerall Monuments, ed. 1631, fol. 497.

[313] See above, p. 90, and notes.

[314] The Date of the First English Comedy, in Englische Studien, 18, 408-
421.

[315] Professor Hales, in his essay on the date of Roister (Englische Studien,
18, 419) quotes for these usury laws the incomplete account of them in Craik's
History of British Commerce, 1, 22, 231.
The law of 1545 (so dated by Ruffhead; and not 1546) is far more important
on account of its clause about the "yearly interest" than of that about the ten per
cent.

[316] To Collier has been given the credit of first ("soon after 1820")
connecting Udall's name with Roister Doister, the unique copy of which had

been published by the finder, the Revd. Thos. Briggs, in 1818. But, in the first
place, Collier could not have identified the "ambiguous" letter in "Wilson's Art of
Logic, printed by Richard Grafton, 1551," as he says he did, since "The rule of
Reason, contei || nyng the Arte of || Logique, set forth || in Englishe, || by Thomas
|| Vuilson. || An. M. D. LI. does not contain the quotation from Roister Doister
(copy in the Bodleian kindly examined for me by Professor Gayley), neither does
the edition of 1552 (cf. Arber). On folio 66 of the third edition (1553) appears for
the first time: "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 Vdal." And, in the second place, Collier had been
anticipated, in part, for as early as 1748 reference had been made to the passage
from Wilson by Tanner, who writes (Bibliotheca, 8. n.): In Thos. Wilson's Logica,
p. 69 [it is leaf 67 of edition 1567 in my possession] sunt quidem versus ambigui
sensus ex Comœdia quadam huius Nic. Udalli desumpti.

[317] With this opinion, and that of p. 90, n. 4, contrast Fleay's argument, Hist.
Stage, pp. 59, 60. Gen. Ed.

[318] Ward in Dict. Nat. Biog. 26, 332. Ward says that in Heywood's Plays the
"bridge had been built" to English Comedy. I think rather that this bridge was a
temporary structure, waiting to be replaced by the more solidly planned work of a
higher architect.

[319] These traits as well as the practical jokes would, of course, be especially
enjoyed by the Eton players and their youthful audience.

[320] Ward, Hist. Dram. Lit., 1, 157 (Lond.: 1899).

[321] Cf. the splendid essay on the Roman Colax and Parasite in O. Ribbeck's
Hist. of Roman Lit. (Stuttgart, 1887), 1, 83 sqq.

[322] "These lies are like their father—gross as a mountain, open, palpable."—
Shak., 1 Hen. IV. 2, 4.

[323] Ward, l.c., calls Roister "a vain-glorious, cowardly blockhead, of whom
the Pyrgopolinices of Plautus is the precise prototype." That his character has
some fine points, modelled after the Terentian Thraso, is shown in the notes (cf.
especially the last scene). Roister's character, indeed, is the least original of the
play, but he is not Udall's favourite figure. Udall did not spend as much labour on
him as on Merygreeke.

[324] This possible complication, which would have yielded a fine scene,
seems not to have occurred to Udall.

[325] In this respect even Jack Juggler deserves credit. I find no trace of
Plautus and Terence in Heywood's plays.

ROISTER DOISTER

BY

NICHOLAS UDALL

[The Persons of the Play

Ralph Royster Doyster, "Miles."[326]
Mathewe Merygreeke, his friend.
Gawin Goodlucke, London Merchant, affianced to Custance.
Tristram Trusty, his friend.
Dobinet Doughtie, servant to Royster.
Tom Trupenie, servant to Custance.
Sym Suresby, servant to Goodluck.
Harpax and other Musicians in Royster's service.
Scrivener.
Dame Christian Custance, a wealthy widow.
Mage Mumble crust, her old nurse.
Tibet talk apace }
Annot Alyface } maids of Custance.

THE SCENE
LONDON[327]]

FOOTNOTES:
[326] Cf. stage-direction, III, iii, 83, and Appendix B.

[327] St. Paul's is mentioned, II, iv, 40; Sym Suresby seems to come directly
from the landing place; the house of Custance might, therefore, safely be located
in the City proper.

Roister Doister
The Prologue.

What Creature is in health, eyther yong or olde, A ii
But som mirth with modestie wil be glad to use
As we in thys Enterlude shall now unfolde,
Wherin all scurilitie we utterly refuse,
Avoiding such mirth wherin is abuse:
Knowing nothing more comendable for a mans recreation
Than Mirth which is used in an honest fashion: 7

For Myrth prolongeth lyfe, and causeth health.
Mirth recreates our spirites and voydeth pensivenesse,
Mirth increaseth amitie, not hindring our wealth,
Mirth is to be used both of more and lesse,
Being mixed with vertue in decent comlynesse.
As we trust no good nature can gainsay the same:
Which mirth we intende to use, avoidyng all blame. 14

The wyse Poets long time heretofore,
Under merrie Comedies secretes did declare,
Wherein was contained very vertuous lore,
With mysteries and forewarnings very rare.
Suche to write neither Plautus[328] nor Terence dyd spare,
Whiche among the learned[329] at this day beares[330] the bell:[331]
These with such other therein dyd excell. 21

Our Comedie or Enterlude which we intende to play.
Is named Royster Doyster in deede.
Which against the vayne glorious doth invey,
Whose humour the roysting sort continually doth feede.
Thus by your pacience we intende to proceede
In this our Enterlude by Gods leave and grace,
And here I take my leave for a certaine space. 28

FINIS.

Actus. i. Scæna. i.

Mathewe Merygreeke. He entreth singing. A ii b

R. Royster. Come death when thou wilt, I am weary of my life.
M. Mery. I tolde you I, we should wowe another wife.
R. Royster. Why did God make me suche a goodly person?
M. Mery. He is in[348] by the weke, we shall have sport anon.
R. Royster. And where is my trustie friende Mathew Merygreeke? 5

M. Mery. I wyll make as I sawe him not, he doth me seeke.
R. Roister. I have hym espyed me thinketh, yond is hee,
Hough Mathew Merygreeke my friend, a worde with thee.[349]
M. Mery. I wyll not heare him, but make as I had haste,
Farewell all my good friendes, the tyme away dothe waste, 10
And the tide they say, tarieth for no man.
R. Roister. Thou must with thy good counsell helpe me if thou can.
M. Mery. God keepe thee worshypfull Maister Roister Doister,
And fare well the lustie Maister Roister Doister.
R. Royster. I muste needes speake with thee a worde or twaine. 15

M. Mery. Within a month or two I will be here againe,
Negligence in greate affaires ye knowe may marre all.
R. Roister. Attende upon me now, and well rewarde thee I shall.
M. Mery. I have take my leave, and the tide is well spent.
R. Roister. I die except thou helpe, I pray thee be content, 20
Doe thy parte wel nowe, and aske what thou wilt,
For without thy aide my matter is all spilt.
M. Mery. Then to serve your turne I will some paines take,
And let all myne owne affaires alone for your sake.
R. Royster. My whole hope and trust resteth onely in thee. 25

M. Mery. Then can ye not doe amisse what ever it bee.
R. Royster. Gramercies Merygreeke, most bounde to thee I am. A iv

M. Mery. But up with that heart, and speake out like a ramme,
Ye speake like a Capon that had the cough now: