upward kind--a kind unknown as a rule to the _miracle_, whose conditions were less fluid, and to the farce, which was too shallow and superficial[102]." [102] Gayley, p. lxiv. If all these claims be justifiable there can be no doubt that the _morality_ was of the utmost importance in the history not only of comedy but of English drama as a whole. Though it was the cousin, not the child of the _miracle_, though it cannot be said to have secularized our drama, it is the link between the ritual play and the play of pure amusement; it connects the rood gallery with the London theatre. When Symonds writes that the _morality_ "can hardly be said to lie in the direct line of evolution between the _miracle_ and the legitimate drama" we may in part agree with him; but he is quite wrong when he goes on to describe it as "an abortive side-effect, which was destined to bear barren fruit[103]." [103] Symonds, p. 199. The real secularization of the drama was in the first place probably due to classical influences--or, to be more precise, I should perhaps say, scholastic influences--and it is not until the 16th century that these influences become prominent. I say "become prominent," because Terence and Plautus were known from the earliest times, and Dr Ward is inclined to think that Latin comedy affected the earlier drama of England to a considerable extent[104], although good examples of Terentian comedy are not found until the 16th century. Humanism again comes forward as an important literary formative element. The part which the student class took in the development of European drama as a whole has as yet scarcely been appreciated. It is to scholars that the birth of the secular Drama must be attributed. Lyly, as we said, made use of his mastership for the production of his plays, but Lyly was by no means the first schoolmaster-dramatist. Schools and universities had long before his day been productive of drama; our very earliest existing saints' play or _marvel_ was produced by a certain Geoffrey at Dunstable, "de consuetudine magistrorum et scholarum[105]." And this was only natural, seeing that at such places any number of actors is available and all are supposed to be interested in literature. It is a remarkable fact, however, and illustrative of the connexion between comedy and music, that of all places of education choir schools seem to have usurped the lion's share of drama. John Heywood, the first to break away from the tradition of the _morality_, was a choir boy of the Chapel Royal, and afterwards in all probability held a post there as master[106]. Heywood's brilliant, but farcical interludes are too slight to merit the title of comedy, yet he is of great importance because of his rejection of allegories and of his use of "personal types" instead of "personified abstractions[107]." It was not until 1540, a few years after Heywood's interlude _The Play of the Wether_, that pure English