and freshness are considerable, and in many passages we recognize familiar situations and favourite figures in later masterpieces of the English historical drama. The second is _The Troublesome Raigne of King John_, in two parts (printed in 1591), an epical narrative transferred to the stage, neither a didactic effort like Bale's, nor a living drama like Shakespeare's, but a far from contemptible treatment of its historical theme. _The True Chronicle History of King Leir_ (acted in 1593) in form resembles the above, though it is not properly on a national subject (its story is taken from Geoffrey of Monmouth); but, with all its defects, it seems only to await the touch of the master's hand to become a tragedy of supreme effectiveness. A yet further step was taken in the _Tragedy of Sir Thomas More_ (c. 1590)--in which Shakespeare's hand has been thought traceable, and which deserves its designation of "tragedy" not so much on account of the relative nearness of the historical subject to the date of its dramatic treatment, as because of the tragic responsibility of character here already clearly worked out. Earliest comedies. Such had been the beginnings of tragedy in England up to the time when the genius of English dramatists was impelled by the spirit that dominates a great creative epoch of literature to seize the form ready to their hands. The birth of English comedy, at all times a process of less labour and eased by an always ready popular responsiveness to the most tentative efforts of art, had slightly preceded that of her serious sister. As has been seen from the brief review given above of the early history of the English academical drama, isolated Latin comedies had been performed in the original or in English versions as early as the reign of Henry VIII.--perhaps even earlier; while the morality and its direct descendant, the interlude, pointed the way towards popular treatment in the vernacular of actions and characters equally well suited for the diversion of Roman, Italian and English audiences. Thus there was no innovation in the adaptation by N. Udal (q.v.) of the _Miles Gloriosus_ of Plautus under the title of _Ralph Roister Doister_, which may claim to be the earliest extant English comedy. It has a genuinely popular vein of humour, and the names fit the characters after a fashion familiar to the moralities. The second English comedy--in the opinion of at least one high authority our first--is _Misogonus_, which was certainly written as early as 1560. Its scene is laid in Italy; but the Vice, commonly called "Cacurgus," is both by himself and others frequently designated as "Will Summer," in allusion to Henry VIII.'s celebrated jester. _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, long regarded as the earliest of all _English_ comedies, was printed in 1575, as acted "not long ago in Christ's College, Cambridge." Its authorship was till recently attributed to John Still (afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells), who was a resident M.A.