the touch of the master's
hand to become a tragedy of supreme effectiveness. A yet further step
was taken in the _Tragedy of Sir Thomas More_ (c. 1590)--in which
Shakespeare's hand has been thought traceable, and which deserves its
designation of "tragedy" not so much on account of the relative nearness
of the historical subject to the date of its dramatic treatment, as
because of the tragic responsibility of character here already clearly
worked out.

Earliest comedies.

Such had been the beginnings of tragedy in England up to the time when
the genius of English dramatists was impelled by the spirit that
dominates a great creative epoch of literature to seize the form ready
to their hands. The birth of English comedy, at all times a process of
less labour and eased by an always ready popular responsiveness to the
most tentative efforts of art, had slightly preceded that of her serious
sister. As has been seen from the brief review given above of the early
history of the English academical drama, isolated Latin comedies had
been performed in the original or in English versions as early as the
reign of Henry VIII.--perhaps even earlier; while the morality and its
direct descendant, the interlude, pointed the way towards popular
treatment in the vernacular of actions and characters equally well
suited for the diversion of Roman, Italian and English audiences. Thus
there was no innovation in the adaptation by N. Udal (q.v.) of the
_Miles Gloriosus_ of Plautus under the title of _Ralph Roister Doister_,
which may claim to be the earliest extant English comedy. It has a
genuinely popular vein of humour, and the names fit the characters after
a fashion familiar to the moralities. The second English comedy--in the
opinion of at least one high authority our first--is _Misogonus_, which
was certainly written as early as 1560. Its scene is laid in Italy; but
the Vice, commonly called "Cacurgus," is both by himself and others
frequently designated as "Will Summer," in allusion to Henry VIII.'s
celebrated jester. _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, long regarded as the
earliest of all _English_ comedies, was printed in 1575, as acted "not
long ago in Christ's College, Cambridge." Its authorship was till
recently attributed to John Still (afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells),
who was a resident M.A. at Christ's, when a play was performed there in
1566. But the evidence of his authorship is inconclusive, and the play
"made by Mr. S., Mas