The "scheme for an interlude, in which the persons of the drama were to be _a King_, _a Knight_, _a Judge_, _a Preacher_, _a Scholar_, _a Serving-man_," which Hazlitt (_Handbook_, 622) carelessly attributes to Udall, is not connected with his name; cf. _Loseley Mss._, p. 64. [310] These _may_ refer to another pageant, _l.c._ [311] No exact date given by Cooper, XXXIV. Hales gives good reasons for the probability that Udall's mastership commenced in 1553; cf. _Englische Studien_, 18, 421; cf. _ib._, a very interesting note on the Terentian Plays, annually performed at the Westminster School. It seems almost as if here, as well as at Eton, Udall's headmastership had some significance for the history of the English school comedy. [312] _Funerall Monuments_, ed. 1631, fol. 497. [313] See above, p. 90, and notes. [314] The Date of the First English Comedy, in _Englische Studien_, 18, 408-421. [315] Professor Hales, in his essay on the date of _Roister_ (_Englische Studien_, 18, 419) quotes for these usury laws the incomplete account of them in Craik's _History of British Commerce_, 1, 22, 231. The law of 1545 (_so_ dated by Ruffhead; and not 1546) is far more important on account of its clause about the "yearly interest" than of that about the ten per cent. [316] To Collier has been given the credit of first ("soon after 1820") connecting Udall's name with _Roister Doister_, the unique copy of which had been published by the finder, the Revᵈ. Thoˢ. Briggs, in 1818. But, in the first place, Collier could not have identified the "ambiguous" letter in "Wilson's _Art of Logic_, printed by Richard Grafton, 1551," as he says he did, since "The rule of Reason, contei || nyng the Arte of || Logique, set forth || in Englishe, || by Thomas || Vuilson. || _An._ M. D. LI. _does not contain the quotation from Roister Doister_ (copy in the Bodleian kindly examined for me by Professor Gayley), _neither does the edition of 1552_ (cf. Arber). On folio 66 of the _third_ edition (1553) appears for the first time: "An example of soche doubtful writing whiche by reason of poincting maie haue double sense, and contrarie meaning, taken out of an entrelude made by Nicolas Vdal." And, in the second place, Collier had been anticipated, in part, for as early as 1748 reference had been made to the passage from Wilson by Tanner, who writes (_Bibliotheca_, 8. n.): In Thos. Wilson's _Logica_, p. 69 [it is _leaf_ 67 of edition 1567 in my possession] _sunt quidem versus ambigui sensus ex Comœdia quadam huius Nic. Udalli desumpti_. [317] With this opinion, and that of p. 90, _n._ 4, contrast Fleay's argument, _Hist. Stage_, pp. 59, 60. _Gen. Ed._ [318] Ward in _Dict. Nat. Biog._ 26, 332. Ward says that in Heywood's Plays the "bridge had been built" to English Comedy. I think rather that this bridge was a temporary structure, waiting to be replaced by the more solidly planned work of a higher architect.