right in the end: the faithful Constance is married to honest Gawin, and Ralph is pardoned his troublesome advances.

It is impossible to say what may have been the single influence of Roister Doister' on English comedy: the probability is that its influence was inconsiderable. It was not printed till 1566, and by that time the more powerful influences of early Italian comedy were beginning to operate. Besides, with all its cleverness and delicate humour, the spirit of Roister Doister' is essentially boyish it was written to be acted by boys, and its extravagant incidents are of a kind to draw shouts of delight from boys. There are shrewd touches of worldly wisdom in it; but, as a whole, it has not the robustness of comedy framed for the enjoyment of full-grown men and women. Our early comedy was largely coloured by the circumstance that much of it was written for boys. The interlude of 'Jack Juggler'1 is another example. This interlude was produced under the inspiration of Plautus, and it is superior in point of construction to earlier interludes, being, indeed, a farce with a plot perfectly rounded off. But it is too extravagant and unreal for our national comedy. It is entitled "a new interlude for children to play; both witty and very pleasant." The personages are Master Boungrace, a gallant; Dame Coy, a gentlewoman; Jack Juggler, "the vice;" Jenkin Careaway, a lackey; and Alice Trip and Go, a maid. Poor Careaway, the lackey, has need for all his powers of banishing melancholy. His mistress is a pretty gingerly piece, as dainty and as nice as a halfpennyworth of silver spoons, but, like all other women, "a very cursed shrew by the blessed Trinity, and a very devil," and she takes special delight in getting him now and then by the pate as an afternoon exercise for her bodily health. His master is worse even than his mistress, once he is thoroughly angered. The maid Alison is a mincing, bridling, simpering, pranking young lady, quaver

1 Entered in the Stationers' Book, 1562-3: reprinted for the Roxburghe Club in 1820.

ing and warbling with every joint in her body when she goes out, chatting like a pye, speaking like a "parrot popinjay," as fine as a small silken thread ;" and, what is of more consequence to the unfortunate lackey, a spiteful lying girl, never so happy as when she has a tale against him, and enjoying unbounded credit with her mistress. To crown all, he has a cunning and revengeful enemy in Jack Juggler. When he has been sent out a message, and has loitered, as he usually does, playing at bucklers, overturning the fruiterer's wife's basket and stealing her apples, losing his money at dice, and so forth, Jack Juggler puts on a suit of the same livery, takes possession of the house gate, and swears to the delinquent idler, that he is Jenkin Careaway, and boldly calls the real Jenkin a drunken knave for pretending to that name. Juggler beats the puzzled Jenkin till he denies his own identity, and bewilders him by telling him all that he has done that day, till the boy is disposed to think as well as to say that he is not himself. When left alone, he cries—

"Good Lord of heaven, where did I myself leave? Or who did me of my name by the way bereave?

For I am sure of this in my mind

That I did in no place leave myself behind.
If I had my name played away at dice,

Or had sold myself to any man at a price,

Or had made a fray and had lost it in fighting,

Or it had been stolen from me sleeping,

It had been a matter and I would have kept patience,

But it spiteth my heart to have lost it by such open negli

gence."

In his anxiety about his personality, he forgets all the lies he has invented to excuse his delays to his mistress and his master, and tells them what he has done; so that Juggler has the satisfaction of seeing "the calf" soundly thrashed, Dame Coy shouting to her enraged husband

"Lay on and spare not for the love of Christ,

Joll his head to a post, and favour your fist:

Now, for my sake, sweetheart, spare and favour your hand, And lay him about the ribs with this wand."

The interlude concludes with moralisings by Jenkin on the wrongs inflicted on innocent simplicity by strength and subtlety.

The well-known play of 'Gammer Gurton's Needle' (which is entitled a right pithy, pleasant, and merry comedy, and is divided into Acts and Scenes), is supposed to have been written about 1560, and, before the discovery of 'Roister Doister,' enjoyed the distinction of being considered our first regular comedy. It is said to have been written by "Mr S., Master of Arts ;" and its humour, which is certainly more robust than the humour of 'Roister Doister,' may have been considered suitable to the expanded tastes of Eton boys after they became undergraduates. It has, however, less of the character of a comedy than 'Roister Doister;' it is essentially a farce, designed throughout for the free play of lungs and diaphragm, and the broadening and empurpling of long and pale countenances. An irascible old gammer, such as Noah's wife, has always been a favourite character on the farcical stage: we see at the present day in Christmas Pantomimes how much can be got out of such a personage when enacted by a man, and in those days when greater freedom was allowed, we may imagine how laughter was made to hold both his sides. Gammer Gurton's temper is sorely tried. One day when she is mending her husband's breeches, Gib the cat seizes the opportunity of indulging herself with a little milk. Gammer starts up and flings the breeches at the thief. On taking them up again, she cannot find the needle, and turns the house topsyturvy in the search for it, interfering sadly with the comfort of goodman Hodge, who makes desperate suggestions as to possible places of concealment. A mischievous neighbour Diccon is tickled by the loss, and devises sundry practical jokes out of it. He tells the Gammer that Dame Chat has stolen it, and then goes to Dame Chat and tells her that Gammer Gurton accuses her of stealing her cock: in con

sequence of which malicious misinformation the two dames proceed to words, and from words to blows. Again, Diccon informs Dr Rat the curate that, if he goes to Dame Chat's, he will find her sewing with the very needle; and then informs Dame Chat that that evening Hodge intends to make a return visit to her roost: the result of which plot is that the curate's skull is nearly fractured by the enraged dame with a door-bar. Ultimately the needle is discovered by accident embedded in the part of Hodge's apparel on which he usually sits.

VI.-THOMAS SACKVILLE (1536-7-1608): The

Mirror for Magistrates.

In 1559, two years after the publication of Tottel's Miscellany, was published a collection of poems more sombre in their hues than the gay songs and sonnets of Surrey and Wyatt. Instead of Love, their burden was the mutability of Fortune as shown in the rise and fall of kings, rebels, and noble ministers of state; and the gloomy record of ambition and disaster was called 'The Mirror for Magistrates' a glass wherein rulers might see the dangers that beset unrighteous aspiration.

:

The work was projected in 1555, about the middle of the reign of Mary and critics have not failed to remark how naturally the time called for such a mirror. It should, however, be borne in mind that in the same year, 1555, appeared an edition of Chaucer; and that Tottel's Songs and Sonnets first saw the light in print during the same "bloody" reign. I have already (p. 105) made some remarks on the dubiety of the connection between literature and politics. The origin of the 'Mirror for Magistrates' is one of the facts that most strikingly illustrate how quietly literary operations proceed in the midst of political disquietude. In 1554 or 1555, Wayland the printer was producing an edition of Lydgate's translation of Boccaccio's 'Fall of Princes' (in rivalry to an edition by Tottel), and was advised by several of his patrons, "both honourable

and worshipful," "to have the story continued from whereas Bochas left unto this present time, chiefly of such as Fortune had dallied with here in this island, which might be a mirror to all men as well nobles as others." Wayland applied to one William Baldwin-a graduate of Oxford, who in 1549 described himself as "servant with Edward Whitchurch" the printer, and who was prepared to write plays and philosophical treatises as well as poems; but Baldwin would not undertake the task without assistance. Accordingly, learned men, to the number of seven, were invited to a consultation, to which Baldwin resorted with Lydgate's translation under his arm; and there and then they agreed to supplement Boccaccio (who had left off with the capture of the King of France at Poictiers in 1359) by calling up the shades of unfortunate English kings and ministers, from the time of Richard II., and making them bewail "their grievous chances, heavy destinies, and woful misfortunes." It was agreed that Baldwin should "usurp Bochas' room," the ghostly figures being supposed to address themselves to him, and that each of the company should take upon him some unfortunate's lament. George Ferrers-a lawyer who maintained himself in Court favour under Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, and who was noted as a director of dramatic pageants-undertook the first of the tragic series, the fall of Chief-Justice Tresilian, remarking on the abundant material in our earlier history, but deferring to the printer's wish to have merely a continuation of Boccaccio as an experimental speculation. This was the origin of the 'Mirror for Magistrates.' An enterprising printer was eager for trade, ready to print anything, whether grave or gay, that was likely to sell; and when he had in hand an edition of Lydgate's translation of the Fall of Princes,' one of his customers suggested a continuation of the work to modern times. This is what it comes to when we scrutinise the phantom of a gloomy book rising out of a gloomy reign. It rises side by side with another bookseller's speculation of

1 Printers now began to be, to some extent, the patrons of literary men ; who still, however, depended more upon the munificence of noble patrons.