If it were not for the fact that _The Supposes_ (acted 1566) is a translation of Ariosto's play of the same title, I should be inclined to say that it was the first English comedy in every way worthy of the name. It certainly is, for many reasons, entitled to be called the first comedy in the English tongue. It is written, not for children, nor to educate, but for grown-ups and solely to delight. It is done into English, not for the vulgar, but for the more advanced taste of the translator's own Inn of Court; it has, therefore, qualities to captivate those who are capable of appreciating high comedy. It is composed, like its original, in straightforward, sparkling prose. It has, also, the rarest features of the fusion drama: it combines character and situation, each depending upon the other; it combines wit of intellect with humour of heart and fact, intricate and varied plot with motive and steady movement, comic but not farcical incident and language with complications surprising, serious, and only not hopelessly embarrassing. It conducts a romantic intrigue in a realistic fashion through a world of actualities. With the blood of the New Comedy, the Latin Comedy, the Renaissance in its veins, it is far ahead of its English contemporaries, if not of its time. Without historical apology or artistic concessions it would act well to-day. Both whimsical and grave, its ironies are _pro bono publico_; it is constructive as well as critical, imaginative as well as actual. Indeed, when one compares Gascoigne's work with the original and observes the just liberties that he has taken, the Englishing of sentiment as well as of phrase, one is tempted to say, with Tom Nashe, that in comedy, as in other fields, this writer first "beat a path to that perfection which our best poets have aspired to since his departure." He did not contrive the plot; but no dramatist before him had selected for his audience, translated, and adapted a play so amusing and varied in interest, so graceful, simple, and idiomatic in its style. It was said by R. T., in 1615, that Gascoigne was one of those who first "brake the ice for our quainter poets who now write, that they may more safely swim through the main ocean of sweet poesy"--a remark which would lose much of its force if restricted to the poet's achievements in satire alone; in the drama of the humanists he excelled his contemporaries, and in the romantic comedy of intrigue he anticipated those who, like Greene and Shakespeare,[84] adapted the Italian plot to English manners and the English taste. Nor are these the only claims of Gascoigne to consideration: _The Supposes_, as Professor Herford has justly remarked, is the most Jonsonian of English comedies before Jonson. =12. Survivals of the Moral Interlude=