When we turn from these academic and amateur productions to the more popular performances,[7] we have to deal with a very different class of plays. The four to be considered were all written by men of scholarly training, and all deal with classical themes, but the Senecan influence is slight and mainly discernible in the figurative and hyperbolic diction and the fondness for sententious maxims. None of the four are divided into acts; none have choruses or other characteristic marks of Senecan structure; all present action to the exclusion of reflection, and all are in rhymed verse, the favorite metre, at least in the serious portions, being doggerel. All admit comic and farcical scenes, and three are in a large measure moralities. In the tragic portions all admit violence and murders of all kinds on the stage; there is a beheading, a hanging, and, in the case of "Cambyses," a flaying, accomplished, the stage direction reassures us, "with a false skin." "Damon and Pithias" (1571), by Richard Edwards, was acted by the Children of the Chapel at court in 1563-64, and, judging from the title-page, probably also in public. The prologue, which contains a discussion of "decorum," explains that the term "tragicall comedy" is used because the story is a matter "mixed up with mirth and care." The serious portion of the play presents the tyrant Dionysius as well as the two faithful friends, and shows evidence of a study of Seneca; but it is intermixed with comedy, where the influence of Plautus is noticeable, and indeed with scenes of broadest farce. Carisophus, the parasite, is hardly distinguishable from the vice of the moralities, and is not only clown and mischief-maker, but the villain, whose infamy brings about the tragic entanglements. The play contains a number of songs, and this mixture of tragedy, farce, and musical comedy seems typical of the children's plays of this period.