In the Mirth play, _Thersytes_, the influence of Plautus is evident,--a school play, to be sure, but written with a view to amusement or rollicking satire rather than instruction. Acted in 1537, this "enterlude" has for its hero a "ruffler forth of the Greke lande" whose "crakying" stands half-way between the classical Pyrgopolinices and Thraso and the modern Roister Doister. For all its academic flavour, the burlesque is coarse and crude, but still genuinely humorous. It deserves notice, in especial, for the variety of its contents, chivalric, romantic, popular, scriptural as well as Greek and Latin; also for its artistic exhibition of the braggart,--the leisurely proceeding of his discomfiture, the subordination of other characters to that end; and for its mastery of technical devices,--concealment, magic, the play upon the word, and that hunting of the word and letter which was so soon to drive conversation out of its wits. As an interlude of foreign origin, the _Thersytes_ has a place in the development of the comic element somewhat analogous to that of the _Calisto_ in the development of the romantic. As far as the quality of mirth is concerned it might be classed with _Roister Doister_ and _Jacke Jugeler_; but those plays are much more highly developed in form and spirit, and must be reserved for consideration with the polytypic, and early regular, comedy. The remaining classes of interlude are manifestly didactic; those of Wit and Youth derive, however, more directly from native sources, while those of the Prodigal Son have close affiliation with the Christian Terence of the continental humanists.