of Wit and Science_ is the earliest known instance of a
Moral-Play regularly distributed into five Acts, and these again into
scenes. The allegory is quite elaborate and wire-drawn; and the piece
has something of humour in the matter, and of melody in the
versification. _Like Will to Like, Quoth the Devil to the Collier_,
printed in 1568, has some rude approaches to individual character;
which is my reason for noticing it. Nichol Newfangle, though in fact
the hero, enacts the Vice, and is armed with the wooden dagger; among
his friends are Ralph Royster, Tom Tosspot, Philip Fleming, Pierce
Pickpurse, and Cuthbert Cutpurse, who have some lines of individual
peculiarity. To these are added several allegorical personages, as
Good Fame, Severity, Virtuous Life, and Honour. Lucifer also figures
in the piece; Newfangle claims him as godfather, and is at last
carried off by him. _The Conflict of Conscience_ is worthy of notice
as being one of the earliest germinations of the Historical Drama. The
hero, though called Philologus, is avowedly meant for Francis Speira,
an Italian lawyer, who, it is said, "forsook the truth of God's
Gospel, for fear of the loss of life and worldly goods." The
characters of the piece are partly historical, partly allegorical.

If _The Conflict of Conscience_ deserves mention as an approach to
Tragedy, _Tom Tiler and his Wife_ equally deserves it as an early
sprout of Comedy. It contains a mixture of allegorical and individual
persons, the latter, however, taking the chief part of the action. Tom
Tiler has a spouse named Strife, who is not only a great scold, but
hugely given to drinking with Sturdy and Tipple. Tiler meets his
friend Tom Tailor, an artificer of shreds and patches, and relates his
sufferings. Tailor changes clothes with him; in this disguise goes to
Strife as her husband, and gives her such a drubbing that she submits.
Tiler then resumes his own clothes, goes home, and pities his wife,
who, ignorant of the trick, vows she will never love him again: to
appease her, he unwarily owns up; whereupon she snatches a stick, and
belabours him till he cries out for life; and she declares that Tailor
had better eaten her than beaten her. Tiler flies to his friend
Tailor, and tells him what has happened; Tailor then falls to beating
him; and the lady, coming up just at the time, goes to playing her
batteries on them both, until Patience arrives and restores harmony
all round, charming the discont