I have said that in all probability there was nothing unusual in the presentation of saints' plays by Hilarius and Geoffrey. Latin plays were not a novelty in the twelfth century, at any rate to men of culture and the church. When we consider the history of the Terentian and Plautine manuscripts, how carefully the former were cherished, and with what appreciation a portion at least of the latter, during the Middle Ages, we cannot but apprehend the extent of their influence, even when unapparent, upon taste, style, and thought. Plautus (in whose comedies, with those of Terence, St. Jerome was wont to seek consolation after seasons of strenuous fasting and prayer) was imitated in a _Querolus_ and probably a _Geta_, as early as the fourth century; and Terence was adapted by Hrosvitha in the tenth. We are, therefore, not at all surprised when we find Latin comedy during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries clothing itself through France and Italy in the verdure of another spring. To be sure the new style of production--a declamation by way of dialogue or conversational narrative, in elegiac verse--was not intended for histrionic presentation; but it was nevertheless of the dramatic _genus_; little by little the narrative outline dwindled and the mimetic opportunities of the speaker were emphasized. His success was measured by his skill in representing diverse characters merely by changes of voice, countenance, and gesture. He is the impersonator in transition to the actor. These elegiac comedies indicate the continuing influence of Latin comedy upon the literary creativity of the day; they furnish, besides, both the material for the regular drama that was coming, and the taste by which it should be controlled. I am, indeed, of the opinion that from this source the farce interludes of England, France, and Italy drew much of their content during the next three centuries, and that the saint's plays of that period, at least those in Latin, derived therefrom their dramatic technique. The revival of Latin comedy during the twelfth century was partly by way of adaptations, as in the dramatic poems of Vitalis of Blois; partly of independent productions, fashioned upon classical models but dealing with _contes_, _fabliaux_ or _novelle_ of contemporary quality. Of the latter kind the more interesting examples upon the continent were the _Alda_ of William of Blois, and two elegiac poems, perhaps Italian, of lovers and go-betweens,--a graceful and passionate comedy of _Pamphilus_ and a dramatic version by one Jacobus of the intrigue, so dear to mediæval satirists, between priest and labourer's wife. The subject and treatment of the last of these suggest, at once, a kinship with an _Interludium de Clerico et Puella_ in English of the end of the thirteenth century, and with an earlier English story from which that is derived; also with Heywood's much later play of _Johan_. That there was a Latin elegiac comedy in England