failing of this, he calls in Neighbour Pratt, and then seizes the Friar, leaving Pratt to manage the other, the purpose being to put them both in the stocks.  But they get the worst of it altogether; so that they gladly come to terms, allowing the Pardoner and Friar quietly to depart.  As a sample of the incidents, I may add that the Friar, while his whole sermon is against covetousness, harps much on the voluntary poverty of his order, and then gives notice of his intention to take up a collection.  In a like satirical humour, the Pardoner is made to exhibit some laughable relics, such as “the great toe of the Holy Trinity,” and the “blessed jaw-bone” of all the saints in the Calendar.  Of course his purpose also is to bless money into his purse.

Another of Heywood’s pieces, also printed in 1533, is called A merry Play between John the Husband, Tib the Wife, and Sir John the Priest.  Here the comic vein runs out even more freely than in the former piece, and has quite as much relish of home-made observation.  Still another of Heywood’s pieces, also full of broad fun, and equally smacking of real life, is called The Four Ps; while a fourth, called The Play of the Weather, has something the character of a Moral-Play, the Vice figuring in it under the name of Merry Report.—­Thus much must suffice for indicating the steps taken by Heywood in the direction of genuine Comedy.

An anonymous interlude called Thersites, and written in 1537, deserves mention as the oldest dramatic piece in English, with characters purporting to be borrowed from secular history.  The piece, however, has nothing of historical matter but the names:  it is merely a piece of broad comedy in the vein of English life and manners.

The oldest known specimen of a regular English comedy is Ralph Roister Doister, written as early as 1551.  It was the work of Nicholas Udall, a name distinguished in the early literature of the Reformation; who, in 1534, was appointed Head-Master of Eton, then famous for teaching the classics, became Prebendary of Windsor in 1551, was afterwards made Head-Master of Westminster School, and died in 1556.

In his prologue the author refers to Plautus and Terence as his models.  The play is in five Acts, which are subdivided into scenes; the scene is in London, the persons and manners all English.  The hero and heroine are Ralph Roister Doister and Dame Custance, a widow; in the train of the former are Matthew Merrygreek and Harpax; of the latter, Truepenny her man, Madge Mumblecrust her nurse, Tibet Talkapace, and Annot Alyface.  The play is opened by Matthew, who enters singing, and expounds his mind in a soliloquy, dilating on his patron’s qualities and his own.  Presently Ralph comes in talking to himself, and calls on Matthew for counsel and help, as he is dying for love of a lady whose name he does not at first remember, and who, he hears, is engaged to a merchant named Goodluck.  Matthew stuffs him with the assurance