His familiarity with Mary, was doubtless founded on his long service. When she was a mere little girl at Greenwich, Heywood officiated as manager of the troop of child actors who performed in her presence. On one occasion he appears to have received six and eightpence for his pains. Later, he wrote ballads for her, sometimes making herself the subject of them. When her coronation procession passed St. Paul’s, _there_ was mirthful John, seated beneath a vine; and, as the Queen approached, he arose and delivered an oration. When Mary was ill, he went to her chamber and recited verses or read plays to her; and when she was dying, says Flögel, he stood by her death-bed, and solaced her with music; “Er war auch ein berühmter Musikus, und musste der Königin Maria von England, auf ihrem Todbette, mit seiner Musik aufwarten.” This could not have been, however, when her death was very near. Lingard simply says, that “on the morning of her death, Mass was celebrated in her chamber; she was perfectly sensible, and expired a few minutes before the conclusion.” With the reputation of having been “King’s Jester,” Heywood is also known to us as a poet, a dramatist, and a writer of epigrams. In the first capacity, his most laboured piece is the least successful. I have tried in vain to read through his ninety-eight chapters, in octave stanzas, devoted to the subject of “The Spider and the Fly,” in the gaily-bound copy in the British Museum. I quite agree with Harrison’s description of it (quoted by Warton), that “neither he himself that made it, neither any one that readeth it, can read unto the meaning thereof.” It is far less amusing than the comic song, with the same title, by the old free-and-easy poet, Tom Hudson. As a dramatist, Heywood was among the earliest of English writers of comedy. He was not among the best for delicacy, humour, or decency. All these are of the roughest and dirtiest, such as might have been expected from Will Sommers. I must however differ in some degree from Warton, unassailable as his judgments generally are, when he describes Heywood’s plays as “altogether void of plot, humour, and character.” Yet, I confess, detestable as I hold idleness to be, a man were better occupied in doing nothing than in reading these productions. They hardly repay the curiosity of the student of literature, and even _he_ must rise from the perusal sorely in need of civet wherewith to sweeten his imagination. It is as an epigrammatist that this honorary jester was most celebrated, and continues to be best known to the few who care to cultivate acquaintance with him. Of the epigrams I will select a few specimens. Bearing in mind that they are often the versification of his jests, and that the latter must frequently have had allusion to passing subjects, the following probably points at a then living prince. It is entitled:-- OF AN ILL GOVERNOR CALLED JUDE.