_Gorboduc_, otherwise _Ferrex and Porrex_. _Ralph Roister
Doister_ was licensed and is thought to have been printed in 1566, but it
may have been acted at Eton by 1541, and the whole cast of the metre,
language, and _scenario_, is of a colour older than Elizabeth's reign. It
may be at least attributed to the middle of the century, and is the work of
Nicholas Udall, a schoolmaster who has left at two great schools a repute
for indulgence in the older methods of instruction not inferior to Busby's
or Keate's. _Ralph Roister Doister_, though a fanciful estimate may see a
little cruelty of another kind in it, is of no austere or pedagogic
character. The author has borrowed not a little from the classical
comedy--Plautine or even Aristophanic rather than Terentian--to strengthen
and refine the domestic interlude or farce; and the result is certainly
amusing enough. The plot turns on the courtship of Dame Christian Custance
[Constance], a widow of repute and wealth as well as beauty, by the gull
and coxcomb, _Ralph Roister Doister_, whose suit is at once egged on and
privately crossed by the mischievous Matthew Merrygreek, who plays not only
parasite but rook to the hero. Although Custance has not the slightest
intention of accepting Ralph, and at last resorts to actual violence,
assisted by her maids, to get rid of him and his followers, the affair
nearly breeds a serious quarrel between herself and her plighted lover,
Gawin Goodluck; but all ends merrily. The metre is the somewhat unformed
doggerel couplet of twelve syllables or thereabouts, with a strong caesura
in the middle, and is varied and terminated by songs from Custance's maids
and others. Indeed the chief charm of the piece is the genuine and unforced
merriment which pervades it. Although Merrygreek's practices on Ralph's
silliness sometimes tend a little to tediousness, the action on the whole
moves trippingly enough, and despite the strong flavour of the "stock part"
in the characters they have considerable individuality. The play is,
moreover, as a whole remarkably free from coarseness, and there is no
difficulty in finding an illustrative extract.

_C. Custance loquitur._

"O Lord! how necessary it is now o' days,
That each body live uprightly all manner ways;
For let never so little a gap be open,
And be sure of this, the worst shall be spoken.
How innocent stand I in this frame o' thought,
And yet see what mistrust towards me it