=Former Attributions of Authorship=.--It is necessary to say something about the two persons to whom the authorship of _Gammer Gurtons Nedle_ has hitherto been attributed--Dr. John Bridges, who was in succession Dean of Salisbury and Bishop of Oxford, and Dr. John Still, who was made Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1593. It is curious that both the distinguished churchmen who have been credited with the composition of this very unclerical play received the degree of D.D. in the same year in which it was published. The evidence on which it has been attempted to assign the play to John Bridges is contained in certain passages of the "Martin Marprelate" tracts. In the first of these, the _Epistle_, published in 1588, the author addresses Bridges in the following terms:-- "You have bin a worthy writer, as they say, of a long time; your first book was a proper enterlude, called _Gammar Gurtons Needle_. But I think that this trifle, which sheweth the author to have had some witte and invention in him, was none of your doing, because your books seeme to proceede from the braynes of a woodcocke, as having neither wit nor learning." In his second pamphlet, the _Epitome_, "Martin Marprelate" twice alludes to the dean's supposed authorship of the play, in a manner which conveys the impression that he really believed in it. None of "Martin's" adversaries seem to have contradicted his statement on this point, though Cooper in particular was at great pains to refute the pamphleteer's "slanders" on other dignitaries. It must be admitted that everything that is known of Bridges is decidedly favourable to the supposition that he might have written comedy in his youth. His voluminous _Defence of the Government of the Church of England_ abounds in sprightly quips, often far from dignified in tone; and his controversial opponents complained, with some justice, of his "buffoonery." He is recorded by Harrington to have been a prolific writer of verse; and that his interests were not exclusively theological appears from the fact that he is said to have translated, in 1558, three of Machiavelli's _Discourses_, having previously resided in Italy. The only reason for rejecting "Martin Marprelate's" attribution of _Gammer Gurtons Nedle_ to him is that he was not "Mr. S.," and that he belonged not to Christ's College, but to Pembroke. But as he was resident at Cambridge in 1560 (having taken the degree of A.M. in that year), it is quite possible that he may have assisted William Stevenson in the composition or revision of the play.