and for the amusement of adults, not of children; and if it were the
only product of Gascoigne's pen it would justify the remark of an early
17th century critic, who says of this writer that he "brake the ice for
our quainter poets who now write, that they may more safely swim through
the main ocean of sweet poesy"; for, to quote a modern writer, "with the
blood of the New comedy, the Latin comedy, the Renaissance in its veins,
it is far ahead of its English contemporaries, if not of its time[110]."
The play was well known and popular among the Elizabethans, being
revived at Oxford in 1582[111]. Shakespeare used it for the construction
of his _Taming of the Shrew_: and altogether it is difficult to say how
much Elizabethan drama probably owed to this one comedy, which though
Italian in origin was carefully adapted to English taste by its
translator. There can be no doubt that Lyly studied this among other of
Gascoigne's works, and that he must have learnt many lessons from it,
though the fact does not appear to have been sufficiently appreciated by
Lylian students; for even Mr Bond fails, I think, to realise its
importance.

[109] 1566.

[110] Gayley, p. lxxxv.

[111] _Dict. of Nat. Biog._, Gascoigne, George.

This, in brief outline, is the history of our comedy down to the time
when Lyly took it in hand; or should we not rather say "an introduction
to the history of our comedy"? For true English comedy is not to be
found in any of the plays we have mentioned. Heywood, Udall, Stevenson,
Edwardes, are the names that convey "broken lights" of comedy, hints of
the dawn, nothing more; and Gascoigne was a translator. The supreme
importance of a writer, who at this juncture produced eight comedies of
sustained merit, and of varying types, is something which is quite
beyond computation. But if we are to attempt to realise the greatness
of our debt to Lyly, let us estimate exactly how much these previous
efforts had done in the way of pioneer work, and how far also they fell
short of comedy in the strict sense of that word.

The fifty years which lie between Heywood and Lyly saw considerable
progress, but progress of a negative rather than a constructive nature,
and moreover progress which came in fits and starts, and not
continuously. It was in fact a period of transition and of individual
and disconnected experiments. Each of the writers above mentioned
contributed something towards the common development, but not