ch appeared in the
middle of the sixteenth century: (a printed copy of 1551 was discovered in
1818.) Its author was Nicholas Udall, the master of Eton, a clergyman, but
very severe as a pedagogue; an ultra Protestant, who is also accused of
having stolen church plate, which may perhaps mean that he took away from
the altar what he regarded as popish vessels and ornaments. He calls the
play "a comedy and interlude," but claims that it is imitated from the
Roman drama. It is regularly divided into acts and scenes, in the form of
our modern plays. The plot is simple: Ralph, a gay Lothario, courts as gay
a widow, and the by-play includes a designing servant and an intriguing
lady's-maid: these are the stock elements of a hundred comedies since.

Contemporary with this was _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, supposed to be
written, but not conclusively, by John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells,
about 1560. The story turns upon the loss of a steel needle--a rare
instrument in that day, as it was only introduced into England from Spain
during the age of Elizabeth. This play is a coarser piece than Ralph
Roister Doister; the buffoon raises the devil to aid him in finding the
lost needle, which is at length found, by very palpable proof, to be
sticking in the seat of Goodman Hodge's breeches.

THE FIRST TRAGEDY.--Hand in hand with these first comedies came the
earliest tragedy, _Gorboduc_, by Sackville and Norton, known under another
name as _Ferrex and Porrex_; and it is curious to observe that this came
in while the moralities still occupied the stage, and before the
interludes had disappeared, as it was played before the queen at White
Hall, in 1562. It is also to be noted that it introduced a chorus like
that of the old Greek drama. Ferrex and Porrex are the sons of King
Gorboduc: the former is killed by the latter, who in turn is slain by his
own mother. Of Gorboduc, Lamb says, "The style of this old play is stiff
and cumbersome, like the dresses of the times. There may be flesh and
blood underneath, but we cannot get at it."

With the awakened interest of the people, the drama now made steady
progress. In 1568 the tragedy of _Tancred and Gismunda_, based upon one of
the stories of Boccaccio, was enacted before Elizabeth.

A license for establishing a regular theatre was got out by Burbage in
1574. Peele and Greene wrote plays in the new manner: Marlowe, the
greatest name in the English drama, except those of Shakspeare and Ben
J