books of the Stationers' Company in the year, 1566, is Royster Doister.

"Which against the vayne glorious doth invey

Whose humour the roysting sort continually doth feede." The play turns on Ralph Royster Doistera conceited fool-thinking every woman must fall in love with him. Much of the humour is acoustic, and depends on repetitions

"Then twang with our sonnets, and twang with our dumps, And hey hough for our heart, as heavie as lead lumps. Then to our recorder with toodle doodle poɔpe,

As the howlet out of an yvie bushe should hoope

Anon to our gitterne, thrumpledum, thrumpledrum thrum, Thrumpledum, thrumpledum, thrumpledum, thrumpledum, thrum."

Royster is duped into sending Custance a love-letter, telling her that he seeks only her fortune, and that he will annoy her in every way after marriage. On discovering the deception, he determines to take vengeance on the scribbler who wrote the love-letter for him :

"Yes, for although he had as many lives

As a thousande widowes and a thousande wives, As a thousande lyons and a thousande rattes, A thousande wolves and a thousande cattes, A thousande bulles, and a thousande calves And a thousande legions divided in halves, He shall never 'scape death on my sworde's point Though I shoulde be torne therefore joynt by joynt." Where he prepares to punish Custance and her friends for refusing him, there is a play on the word "stomacke"-used for courage:

Ralph Royster. Yea, they shall know, and thou knowest I have a stomacke.

M. M. A stomacke (quod you) you, as good as ere man had.

Gammer Gurton.

229

R. Royster. I trowe they shall finde and feele that I am a lad.

M.M. By this crosse I have seene you eate your meat as well.

As any that ere I have seene of, or heard tell,
A stomacke quod you? he that will that denie,
I know was never at dynner in your companie.

R. Royster. Nay, the stomacke of a man it is that I meane. M. M. Nay, the stomacke of a horse or a dogge I weene. R. Royster. Nay, a man's stomacke with a weapon mean I. M. M. Ten men can scarce match you with a spoon in a pie.

"Gammer Gurton's Needle" was acted in 1552. It bears marks of an early time in its words being coarsely indelicate, but not amatory. The humour is that of blows and insults, and we may observe the great value then attached to needles. It is "a right pithy, pleasant and merry comedy"—a country story of an old dame who loses her needle when sewing a patch on the seat of her servant Hodge's breeches. The cat's misdoings interrupt her, and her needle is lost. The hunt for the needle is amusing, and Gammer Gurton and Dame Chat, whom she suspects of having stolen it, abuse and call each other witches. Hodge, the man with the patched breeches encourages Gammer Gurton, who seems little to require it.

"Smite, I say Gammer,

Bite, I say Gammer,

Where be your nails? Claw her by the jawes

Pull me out both her eyen.

Hoise her, souse her, bounce her, trounce her,
Pull out her thrott."

On some one giving Hodge a good slap, the needle runs into him, and is thus happily found.

At the opening of the second act of Gammer Gurton there is a drinking song, which deserves notice as it was the first written in English,—

"I cannot eat but little meat

My stomack is not good:

But sure I think that I can drink
With him that wears a hood.
Though I go bare, take ye no care
I nothing am a colde;

I stuff my skin so full within

Of ioly good ale and olde.

Backe and side go bare, go bare,

Booth foot and hand go colde;

But belly, God send thee good ale inoughe,

Whether it be new or olde;

"I love no rost, but a nut browne toste

And a crab laid in the fire;

A little bread shall do me stead

Moche bread I noght desire.

No frost, no snow, no wind I trowe

Can hurt me if I wolde.

I am so wrapt and throwly lapt

Of ioly good ale and olde.

Backe and side, &c.

"And Tib my wife, that as her life

Loveth well good ale to seeke,

Full oft drinkes shee, till ye may see

The teares run downe her cheeke.

Then doth she trowle to me the bowle

Even as a mault-worm sholde,

And saith sweet heart I tooke my part

Of this ioly good ale and olde.'

Backe and side, &c.

"Now let them drinke, till they nod and winke, Even.as good fellows should do ;

They shall not misse to have the blisse

Good ale doth bring men to.

And al goode sowles that have scoured bowles,

Or have them lustely trolde,

God save the lives of them and their wives

Whether they be yong or olde.

Backe and side, &c."

CHAPTER IV.

ROBERT GREEN E.

Robert Greene-Friar Bacon's Demons-The

Glasse"-Nash and Harvey.

Looking

NE of the principal humorists at this

ONE

time was Robert Greene, born at Norwich about 1560. He was educated at Cambridge, and was generally styled "Robert Greene, Maister of Artes." Early in life he became, as he tells us, "an author of playes and a penner of love pamphlets." From the titles of some of them, and from his motto, "Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci," it is evident that they were intended to be humorous. Thus, his "Euphues" professes to contain "Mirth to purge Melancholy;" his "Quips for an Vpstart Courtier" is " A Quaint Dispute between Velvet-breeches and Cloth-breeches," and his "Notable Discovery of Coosnage" has "a delightfull discourse of the coosnage of Colliers;" his "Second and last part of conny

catching" has "new additions containing many merry tales of all lawes worth the reading, because they are worthy to be remembered. Discoursing strange cunning coosnage, which if you reade without laughing, Ile give you my cap for a Noble." But in all these works there is but little humour, and what we learn in reading them is, that a very small amount of it was then thought considerable, and that stories, which we should think slightly entertaining, appeared in that simple age to be very ingenious and even comic. In the "Comicall Historie of Alphonsus, King of Arragon," we do not find anything that could have possibly been humorous, unless the speaking of a brazen head, and the letting Venus down from Heaven and drawing her up again, could have been so regarded. Greene is characteristic of his time in his love of introducing magic and enchanters, and of characters from classic and scripture history. In the "Looking-Glasse for London and England," in which our metropolis is compared to Nineveh, we have angels and magicians brought in. "A hand out of a cloud threateneth. a burning sword," and "Jonas is cast out of the whale's belly upon the stage."

Greene is fond of introducing devils. In "The Honourable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay," Ralph says, "Why, Sirrah Ned