comedy appears, and we must turn to Eton to discover its cradle, for Nicholas Udall's _Roister Doister_ has every claim to rank as the first completely constructed comedy in our language--the first comedy of flesh and blood. Roister smacks of the "miles gloriosus"; Merygreeke combines the vice with the Terentian rogue; and yet, when all is said, Udall's play remains a remarkably original production, realistic and English. [104] Ward, I. p. 7. [105] Gayley, p. xiv. [106] I put this interpretation upon the account of Heywood's receiving 40 shillings from Queen Mary "for pleying an interlude with his children." [107] Ward, _Dict. of Nat. Biog._, Heywood. Next, in point of time and importance, comes Stevenson's _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, still more thoroughly English than the last, though quite inferior as a comedy, and indeed scarcely rising above the level of farce. Inasmuch, however, as it is a drama of English rustic life, it is directly antecedent to _Mother Bombie_, and perhaps also to the picaresque novel. Secular dramas now began to multiply apace. But keeping our eye upon comedy, and upon Lyly in particular as we near the date of his advent, it will be sufficient I think to mention two more names to complete the chain of development. From Cambridge, the nurse of Stevenson, we must now turn to Oxford; and, as we do so, we seem to be drawing very close to the end of our journey. Thus far we have had nothing like the romantic comedy--the comedy of sentiment, of love, the comedy which is at once serious and witty, and which contains the elements of tragedy. This appears, or is at least foreshadowed for the first time, about four years after Stevenson's "first-rate screaming farce," as Symonds has dubbed it, in the _Damon and Pithias_ of Richard Edwardes, a writer with whom, as we have seen, Lyly was thoroughly familiar. Indeed, the play in question anticipates our author in many ways, for example in the introduction of pages, in the use of English proverbs and Latin quotations, and in the insertion of songs[108]. With reference to the last point, we may remark that Edwardes like Lyly was interested in music, and like him also held a post in a choir school, being one of the "gentlemen of the Chapel Royal." In the _Damon and Pithias_ the old _morality_ is once and for all discarded. The play is entirely free from all allegorical elements, and is only faintly tinged with didacticism. But we cannot express the aim of Edwardes better than in his own words: "In comedies the greatest skyll is this, lightly to touch All thynges to the quick; and eke to frame each person so That by his common talke, you may his nature rightly know." To touch lightly and yet with penetration, to reveal character by dialogue, this is indeed to write modern drama, modern comedy. [108] Bond, II. p. 238.