, as we said, made use of his mastership for the
production of his plays, but Lyly was by no means the first
schoolmaster-dramatist. Schools and universities had long before his day
been productive of drama; our very earliest existing saints' play or
_marvel_ was produced by a certain Geoffrey at Dunstable, "de
consuetudine magistrorum et scholarum[105]." And this was only natural,
seeing that at such places any number of actors is available and all are
supposed to be interested in literature. It is a remarkable fact,
however, and illustrative of the connexion between comedy and music,
that of all places of education choir schools seem to have usurped the
lion's share of drama. John Heywood, the first to break away from the
tradition of the _morality_, was a choir boy of the Chapel Royal, and
afterwards in all probability held a post there as master[106].
Heywood's brilliant, but farcical interludes are too slight to merit the
title of comedy, yet he is of great importance because of his rejection
of allegories and of his use of "personal types" instead of
"personified abstractions[107]." It was not until 1540, a few years
after Heywood's interlude _The Play of the Wether_, that pure English
comedy appears, and we must turn to Eton to discover its cradle, for
Nicholas Udall's _Roister Doister_ has every claim to rank as the first
completely constructed comedy in our language--the first comedy of flesh
and blood. Roister smacks of the "miles gloriosus"; Merygreeke combines
the vice with the Terentian rogue; and yet, when all is said, Udall's
play remains a remarkably original production, realistic and English.

[104] Ward, I. p. 7.

[105] Gayley, p. xiv.

[106] I put this interpretation upon the account of Heywood's
receiving 40 shillings from Queen Mary "for pleying an interlude with
his children."

[107] Ward, _Dict. of Nat. Biog._, Heywood.

Next, in point of time and importance, comes Stevenson's _Gammer
Gurton's Needle_, still more thoroughly English than the last, though
quite inferior as a comedy, and indeed scarcely rising above the level
of farce. Inasmuch, however, as it is a drama of English rustic life, it
is directly antecedent to _Mother Bombie_, and perhaps also to the
picaresque novel. Secular dramas now began to multiply apace. But
keeping our eye upon comedy, and upon Lyly in particular as we near the
date of his advent, it will be sufficient I think to mention two more
names to comple