may notice in this connexion
that the _morality_ certainly gave us that peculiar form of
plot-movement which is most suitable to comedy. To quote Mr Gayley's
words: "In tragedy, the movement must be economic of its ups and downs;
once headed downwards it must plunge, with but one or two vain recovers,
to the abyss. In comedy, on the other hand, though the movement is
ultimately upward, the crises are more numerous; the oftener the
individual stumbles without breaking his neck, and the more varied his
discomfitures, so long as they are temporary, the better does he enjoy
his ease in the cool of the day.... Now the novelty of the plot in the
_moral_ play, lay in the fact that the movement was of this oscillating,
upward kind--a kind unknown as a rule to the _miracle_, whose conditions
were less fluid, and to the farce, which was too shallow and
superficial[102]."

[102] Gayley, p. lxiv.

If all these claims be justifiable there can be no doubt that the
_morality_ was of the utmost importance in the history not only of
comedy but of English drama as a whole. Though it was the cousin, not
the child of the _miracle_, though it cannot be said to have secularized
our drama, it is the link between the ritual play and the play of pure
amusement; it connects the rood gallery with the London theatre. When
Symonds writes that the _morality_ "can hardly be said to lie in the
direct line of evolution between the _miracle_ and the legitimate drama"
we may in part agree with him; but he is quite wrong when he goes on to
describe it as "an abortive side-effect, which was destined to bear
barren fruit[103]."

[103] Symonds, p. 199.

The real secularization of the drama was in the first place probably due
to classical influences--or, to be more precise, I should perhaps say,
scholastic influences--and it is not until the 16th century that these
influences become prominent. I say "become prominent," because Terence
and Plautus were known from the earliest times, and Dr Ward is inclined
to think that Latin comedy affected the earlier drama of England to a
considerable extent[104], although good examples of Terentian comedy are
not found until the 16th century. Humanism again comes forward as an
important literary formative element. The part which the student class
took in the development of European drama as a whole has as yet scarcely
been appreciated. It is to scholars that the birth of the secular Drama
must be attributed. Lyly