victor as to what new game the vanquished may shortly be at if he be not there to see. The all-important feature to be noticed in Heywood's work is that here we have the drama escaping from its alliance with religion into the region of pure comedy. Here is no well planned moral, no sententious mouthpiece of abstract excellence, no ruin of sinners and crowning of saints. Here, too, is no Vice, no Devil, although they are the chief media for comedy in other Interludes, nor is there any buffoonery; even of its near cousins, scuffling and fighting, only one of the three plays has more than a trace. Hence the earlier remark, that Heywood was before his time. It is not devils in bearskins and wooden-sworded vices that create true comedy; they belong to the realm of farce. Yet they continued to flourish long after Heywood had set another example, and with them the cuffing of ears and drunken gambolling which we may see, in the works of other men, trying to rescue prosy scenes from dullness. In _Johan Johan_ is simple comedy, the comedy of laughter-raising dialogue and 'asides'. We do not say it is perfect comedy, far from it; but it is comedy cleared of its former alloys. It is the comedy which Shakespeare refined for his own use in _Twelfth Night_ and elsewhere. [Footnote 34: Translation by W.C. Robinson, Ph.D. (Bohn's Standard Library).] [Footnote 35: aright.] [Footnote 36: world's.] [Footnote 37: company.] [Footnote 38: wealth.] [Footnote 39: know.] [Footnote 40: know not.] [Footnote 41: solace.] [Footnote 42: stealing.] [Footnote 43: lying.] [Footnote 44: fright.] [Footnote 45: glad.] [Footnote 46: alehouse sign.] [Footnote 47: The reader is warned against chronological confusion. In order to follow out the various dramatic contributions of the Interludes one must sometimes pass over plays at one point to return to them at another. Care has been taken to place approximate dates against the plays, and these should be duly regarded. The treatment of so early an Interlude writer as Heywood (his three best known productions may be dated between 1520 and 1540) thus late is justified by the fact that he is in some ways 'before his time', notably in his rejection of the Morality abstractions.] [Footnote 48: sweet.] CHAPTER IV RISE OF COMEDY AND TRAGEDY