[293] Cf. Warton, _Hist. of English Poetry_, 3, 308; _Interdum etiam exbibet_ [sc. _ludi magister_] _Anglico sermone contextas fabulas, si quæ babeant acumen et leporem_. Eton was the only place where _we know_ of _English_ plays; but Radulphus Radclif at Hitchin _may_ have performed some of his school comedies in English, as the "plebs" mentioned by Bale would not much have appreciated Latin performances, _Catalogus_, 8, 98, fol. 700; Herford, _Literary Relations_, p. 110, citing the occasional admission of English school plays at Eton, says that to "this concession we owe the _Ralph Roister Doister_." More likely we owe the concession to _Roister Doister_. Cf. Herford on Udall's _De Papatu_. [294] It seems improbable that the _R. D._ was ever performed at Court; Udall's "interludes and devices" were pageants, as the _Loseley Mss._ prove; see below. [295] Tusser's _500 Pointes_, ed. Payne & Heritage, p. 205. [296] Cooper attributes to Udall's severity the running away from school of "divers" Eton boys alluded to by Roger Ascham (_Schoolmaster_). But this passage refers to 10 Dec. 1563, twenty-two years after Udall had ceased to swing the rod over the Eton boys! [297] Cf. quotation from Nicolas's _Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council_, 7, 152-53, in Cooper; the date is 14 March 32 Henry VIII. (1541-42) and _not_ 1543, as Arber gives it. Arber dates Udall's letter also wrongly 1543; it is referred to 1541-42 in Ellis's _Original Letters of Eminent Literary Men_, Camden Soc., 1843, P. 1. [298] "Accepte this myn honest chaunge from vice to virtue, from prodigalitee to frugall livyng, from negligence of teachyng to assiduitee, from playe to studie, from lightness to gravitee." He speaks about his "offenses," does not wish to excuse himself, but says "humana quidem esse, et emendari posse." He begs for a chance to show his "emendyng and reformac̄on," and quotes instances from ancient history of great men who had indulged in a "veray riottous and dissolute sorte of livyng" in their youth, had been "drowned in voluptuousness" and had lived in "slaundre and infamie," but had reformed. Not a word is said about thefts, "robberies," and such "felonious trespasses." Cf. the whole letter from a new collation in Flügel's _Lesebuch_, I, 351. [299] U. does not beg in this letter for his "restitution," as Arber seems to accept. [300] Cf. Cooper, XXIII. [301] Mars had "the rule" there October, 1542-July, 1543 (Froude, 3, 525-570), then again August, 1547 (Somerset in Berwick, Froude, 4, 288); the naval expedition of Hertford in May, 1544, being here out of the question (_Ib._ 4, 32). [302] This translation (published in September) might also indicate some connection between Udall and Aldrich during the summer of 1542. Aldrich was a great "Erasmian"; he had been the _juvenis blandæ eloquentiæ_ whom Erasmus used as interpreter on that immortal pilgrimage to Walsingham, and he kept up a correspondence with Erasmus.