assumed with later growths of English comedy. The later academical drama. Such was also the case with a special growth which had continued side by side, but in growing frequency of contact, with the progress of the national drama. The academical drama of the later Elizabethan period and of the first two Stuart reigns by no means fell off either in activity or in variety from that of the preceding generations. At Oxford, after an apparent break of several years--though in the course of these one or two new plays, including a _Tancred_ by Sir Henry Wotton at Queen's, seem to have been produced--a long succession of English plays, some in Latin doubtless from time to time intervening, were performed, from the early years of the 17th century onwards to the dark days of the national theatre and beyond. The production of these plays was distributed among several colleges, among which the most conspicuously active were Christ Church and St John's, where a whole series of festal performances took place under the collective title of _The Christmas Prince_ (i.e. master of the Christmas revels). They included a wide variety of pieces, from the treatment by an author unnamed of the story of "Ovid's owne Narcissus" (1602) and S. Daniel's _Queen's Arcadia_ (1606) to Barten Holiday's _Technogamia_ (1618), a complicated allegory on the relations between the arts and sciences quite in the manner of the moralities; interspersed by romantic dramas of the ordinary contemporary type by T. Goffe (1591-1629), W. Cartwright, J. Maine (1604-1672) and others. At Cambridge the list of Latin and English academical plays, performed in the latter half of Elizabeth's reign at Trinity, St John's, Queen's and a few other colleges, contains several examples in each language which for one reason or another possess a special interest. Thus E. Forsett's _Pedantius_, probably acted at Trinity in 1581, ridicules a personage who lived very near the rose--the redoubtable Gabriel Harvey;[201] a _Laelia_, acted at Queen's in 1590 and again in 1598, resembles _Twelfth Night_ in part of its plot; while in _Silvanus_, performed in 1596, probably at St John's, there are certain striking similarities to _As You Like It_. These are in Latin, as are the comedies _Hispanus_ (containing some curious allusions to the Armada, Drake and Dr Lopez) and _Machiavellus_, acted at St John's in 1597.[202] By far the most interesting of the English plays of the later Cambridge series, and, it may be averred, of the remains of the English academical drama as a whole, are the Parnassus Plays (q.v.), successively produced at St John's in 1598-1602, which illustrate with much truthfulness as well as fancy the relations between university life and the outside world, including the world of letters and of the stage. Upon a different, but also a very notable, aspect of English university life--the relations between town and gown--a partisan light is thrown by _Club-Law_, acted at Clare in 1599--and in G.