The outburst of dramatic activity in English schools and universities during the first half of the sixteenth century has already been noted. Wolsey may claim credit for an early encouragement of classical comedy in virtue of the performances of the _Menaechmi_ and the _Phormio_ given in his house by the boys of St. Paul’s in 1527 and 1528[645]. The master of St. Paul’s from 1522 to 1531 was John Ritwise, who himself wrote a Latin play of _Dido_, which also appears to have been acted before Wolsey[646]. The _Plutus_ was given at St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1536; the _Pax_ at Trinity about a decade later[647]. A long series of English translations of classical plays begins with one of the _Andria_ printed, possibly by John Rastell, under the title of _Terens in Englysh_[648]. A more important matter is the influence exercised by classical models upon the vernacular interludes. This naturally showed itself in school dramas, and only gradually filtered down to the professional players. Two plays compete for the honour of ranking as ‘the first regular English comedy,’ a term which is misleading, as it implies a far more complete break with the past than is to be discerned in either of them. One is Nicholas Udall’s _Ralph Roister Doister_, the performance of which can be dated with some confidence in 1553, by which time its author may already have been head master of Westminster; the other is _Gammer Gurton’s Needle_, which was put on the stage at Christ’s College, Cambridge, has been ascribed to John Still, afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells, and to John Bridges, afterwards bishop of Oxford, but is more probably the work of one William Stevenson, who was certainly superintending plays at Christ’s College in 1550-3. Both plays adopt the classical arrangement by acts and scenes. But of the two _Gammer Gurton’s Needle_ is far closer to the mediaeval farce in its choice and treatment of subject. _Ralph Roister Doister_, although by no means devoid of mediaeval elements, is in the main an adaptation of the _Miles Gloriosus_ of Plautus. A slighter and rather later piece of work, _Jack Juggler_, was also intended for performance by schoolboys, and is based upon the _Amphitruo_. The earliest ‘regular English tragedy’ on Senecan lines, or at least the earliest which oblivion has spared, is the _Gorboduc_ or _Ferrex and Porrex_ of 1561. This falls outside the strict scope of this chapter. But a fragment of a play from the press of John Rastell (1516-33) which introduces ‘Lucres’ and Publius Cornelius, suggests that, here as elsewhere, the Elizabethan writers were merely resuming the history of the earlier English Renascence, which religious and political disturbances had so wofully interrupted.