dependent for its effect mainly on the farcical nature of the situation and wit of the dialogue. Of this variety the inventor was John Heywood, the earliest of a race of dramatists who sought to provoke laughter by quips and buffooneries, and whose line was carried on by Tarlton, and by Robert Wilson, author of The Three Ladies of London. Heywood was educated at Broadgates Hall, now Pembroke College, Oxford, and afterwards became a member of the King's Chapel choir, obtaining celebrity in that capacity not less for his witty conversation than for his knowledge of music. A steady Roman Catholic, he was in danger of being charged with conspiracy under Edward VI., but enjoyed the favour of Mary, and, after the accession of Elizabeth, left England to settle in Mechlin, where he was alive as late as 1576. He was the father of Jasper Heywood, the translator of Seneca. In spite of Heywood's attachment to his Church, he did not forbear from satirising her representatives on the stage. Two of his Interludes (which he began to write about 1520) may be described as fabliaux in a dramatic form, short pieces with only a few actors, well adapted for what they were probably intended, an entertainment to be presented while the king was at dinner. The earlier of the two, The Pardoner and the Friar, represents a dispute in Church between two members of those classes, who come forward in turn and address the audience at length, describing their own characters and the practices of their several professions; after which both begin to preach at once, each contriving to utter a single line, or sometimes a few lines together, at the end of which he is interrupted by his antagonist. This process is continued for a long time till their patience being exhausted they fall to blows, and have at last to be parted by the Parson of the Parish and a certain Neighbour Pratt, who do their best, though with little success, to carry the combatants out of Church. This Interlude must have been written before 1521 as it speaks of Leo X. as the reigning Pope. The Four P.P., an Interlude, the name of which was probably intended to parody the title of The Four Elements, is more elaborate in its construction, but not less farcical in its character. The actors who are indicated by the title are a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Pothecary, and a Pedlar, of whom the three former, happening to meet, praise themselves and abuse each other. Unable to settle the question of precedence, they take the Pedlar as a judge, who, finding their claims equally balanced, determines that the place of honour shall be assigned to the most skilful liar of the party : And now I have found one mastery But even on very lying, And all ye three can lie as well As can the falsest devil in hell. The three rivals exercise their inventive powers in the art of lying till at last the Palmer says: Yet I have seen many a mile, And many a woman in the while. After so amazing a statement there can no longer be a doubt as to the award, and the Palmer is, with general assent, proclaimed to be the conqueror. Heywood evidently took great pains to make his dialogue smart and amusing, and also tried to please his audience with verbal jingles in the manner of Skelton, who had found out a metrical trick that the public could readily understand. The following dialogue illustrates this point : POTHECARY. Then tell me this are you perfit in drinking? PEDLAR. Perfit in drinking? as may be wished by thinking. VOL. II 2 A POTHECARY. Then after your drinking how fall ye to winking? Sir, after drinking, while the shot [i.e. reckoning] is tinking, Some heads be swynking, but mine will be sinking, And upon drinking my eyes will be pinking: For winking to drinking is alway linking. The imitation by Heywood of real persons and actual situations brought the Interlude a step nearer to the comedy of the ancient world; while, at the same time, an intelligent appreciation of the art of Plautus and Terence, now commonly studied at the Universities, led the dramatist to make further innovations on the form of the Interlude, by introducing from the Roman comedians new features of character and plot. In the Interlude Thersites, produced in 1537, the interest is centred in the character from which the play takes its name, and which seems to be suggested by the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus. "This Interlude following," says the Advertisement to the first printed edition of the play, "doth declare how that the greatest boasters are not the greatest doers." Only five actors appear, viz. Thersites, his mother, Mulciber (Vulcan), Miles, a knight, and Telemachus. Thersites, having obtained from Vulcan celestial arms, brags enormously of his prowess, and challenges all the heroes and giants, mentioned in history sacred and profane, to meet him in combat. His mother is much disturbed by her son's warlike excitement, but the ardour of the champion is cooled by the appearance of a snail, and it is only by an effort that he can summon up resolution enough to make this monster draw in its horns. His vaunts after his triumph over it pass all bounds, and his opinion of himself is raised still higher by the appearance of Telemachus bearing a letter from Ulysses, in which that former enemy of Thersites humbly begs him to use his influence with his mother to cure Telemachus of an internal complaint. The old 1 Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. i. p. 389. The date is ascertained by the lines closing the play Beseech ye also that God may save his Queen Lovely Lady Jane and the Prince that He hath sent them between. woman who is something of a witch-and Thersites dispute as to the expediency of granting Ulysses' request; at last the former gives way and pronounces the required charm. Thersites, thus uniformly successful, announces that he is about to set out in quest of Miles, a knight from whom he had previously fled for protection to his mother; but the knight appearing suddenly on the scene, the hero runs away, and the Interlude ends with an exhortation to the audience : If you give your minds to the sin of pride, Vanish shall your virtue, your honour away will slide: And meekness soonest obtaineth his love. This somewhat trivial moral is almost the only feature of the old Interlude that survives in the play, the author of which has spent all his pains in elaborating the farcical character of Thersites, the Skeltonical jingle of the versification, and the alliterative incantation of the old witch. The idea of Jack Juggler is derived from the Amphitryo of Plautus.' The person from whom this Interlude takes its name, and who, while he is called "the Vice," appears to have at once human attributes and superhuman powers, plays the part of the false Amphitryon in the Latin comedy. He has a fellow-apprentice, Jenkin Careaway, whom he dislikes, and, as he says, My purpose is To make Jenkin believe, if I can, That he is not himself but another man. In this he is successful enough, and though the Interlude altogether lacks the fine and subtle quality of the Latin play, it would have enabled the author to provide a not very critical audience with sufficient mirth in the mishaps of the genuine Careaway, and the mistakes of his master and mistress as to his identity. Considerable invention is shown in adapting the standing character of the Vice 1 Dodsley's Old Plays (1874), vol. ii. p. 103. always on terms of close familiarity with the spectators— to a situation of this kind; but the dramatist is hard put to it to discover a moral. He gets out of his difficulty by a long address to the audience, the drift of which is sufficiently indicated in the two first stanzas :— Somewhat it was, saith the proverb old, That the cat winked when her eye was out, But that some English may be picked thereof out, If so to search the Latin and ground of it men will go about, As this trifling Enterlude that before you hath been rehearsed, May signify some further meaning if it well be searched. Such is the fashion of the world nowadays, And an hundred thousand divers ways, By subtle and crafty means shamefully abused, And by strength, force, and violence ofttimes compelled Step by step, the way had been prepared for the conversion of the Interlude into the regular Comedy, and the first specimen of this was furnished in Ralph Roister Doister, written about 1550 by Nicholas Udall, headmaster of Eton. The 0os of the Morality may be still recognised in the design of the author announced in his Prologue: The wise poets long time heretofore Under merry comedies secrets did declare, With mysteries and forewarnings very rare; Such to write neither Plautus nor Terence did spare, These with such other therein did excel. Our comedy or interlude, which we intend to play, Which against the vainglorious doth inveigh, Whose humour the roisting sort continually doth feed, In this our interlude by God's leave and grace : 1 Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. iii. p. 53. |