John Heywood is important in the history of English drama as the first writer to turn the abstract characters of the morality plays into real persons. His interludes link the morality plays to the modern drama, and were very popular in their day. They represent ludicrous incidents of a homely kind in a style of the broadest farce, and approximate to the French dramatic renderings of the subjects of the _fabliaux_. The fun in them still survives in spite of the long arguments between the characters and what one of their editors calls his "humour of filth." Heywood's name was actually attached to four interludes. _The Playe called the foure PP; a newe and a very mery interlude of a palmer, a pardoner, a potycary, a pedler_ (not dated) is a contest in lying, easily won by Palmer, who said he had never known a woman out of patience. _The Play of the Wether, a new and a very mery interlude of all maner of Wethers_ (printed 1533) describes the chaotic results of Jupiter's attempts to suit the weather to the desires of a number of different people. _The Play of Love_ (printed 1533) is an extreme instance of the author's love of wire-drawn argument. It is a double dispute between "Loving not Loved" and "Loved not Loving" as to which is the more wretched, and between "Both Loved and Loving" and "Neither Loving nor Loved" to decide which is the happier. The only action in this piece is indicated by the stage direction marking the entrance of "Neither loved nor loving," who is to run about the audience with a huge copper tank on his head full of lighted squibs, and is to cry "Water, water! Fire, fire!" _The Dialogue of Wit and Folly_ is more of an academic dispute than a play. But two pieces universally assigned to Heywood, although they were printed by Rastell without any author's name, combine action with dialogue, and are much more dramatic. In _The Mery Play between the Pardoner and the Frere, the Curate and Neybour Pratte_ (printed 1533, but probably written much earlier) the Pardoner and the Friar both try to preach at the same time, and, coming at last to blows, are separated by the other two personages of the piece. The _Mery Play betwene Johan Johan the Husbande, Tyb the Wyfe, and Syr Jhan the Preest_ (printed 1533) is the best constructed of all his pieces. Tyb and Syr Jhan eat the "Pye" which is the central "property" of the piece, while Johan Johan is made to chafe wax at the fire to stop a hole in a pail. This incident occurs in a French _Farce nouvelle tres bonne et fort joyeuse de Pernet qui va au vin_. Heywood has sometimes been credited with the authorship of the dialogue of _Gentylnes and Nobylyte_ printed by Rastell without date, and Mr Pollard adduces some ground for attributing to him the anonymous _New Enterlude called Thersytes_ (played 1538). Heywood's other works are a collection of proverbs and epigrams, the earliest extant edition of which is dated 1562; some ballads, one of them being the "Willow Garland," known to Desdemona;