The Disobedient Child (printed 1560), of which the title is a sufficient clue to its purpose, permits a boy to refuse to go to school, and, as a young man, to flout his father's advice in regard to matrimony, only to bring him to the bottom rung of miserable drudgery and servitude under a scolding wife. Of some interest is the lad's report of a schoolboy's life, voicing, as it possibly does, a needed criticism of the excessive severity of sixteenth-century pedagogues. Speaking of the boys he says:
For as the bruit goeth by many a one,
Their tender bodies both night and day
Are whipped and scourged and beat like a stone,
That from top to toe the skin is away.
A slightly fuller outline of The Marriage of Wit and Science (1570 approx.) will show how pleasantly, yet pointedly, the younger generation of that day was taught the necessity of sustained industry if scholarship was to be acquired. It has been suggested, with good reason, that the play was written by a schoolmaster for his pupils' performance. The superior plot-structure, and the rare adoption of subdivision into acts and scenes, indicate an author of some classical knowledge.
Wit, a promising youth, son of Nature, decides to marry Science, the daughter of Reason and Experience. Nature approves of his intention, but warns him that 'travail and time' are the only two by whose help he can win the maid. For his servant and companion, however, she gives him Will, a lively boy, full of sprightly fire. Science is now approached. But it appears that only he who shall slay the giant, Tediousness, may be her husband. To this trial Wit volunteers. He is advised first to undergo long years of training under Instruction, Study, and Diligence; but, soon tiring of them, he rashly goes to the fight, trusting that his own strength, backed by the courage of Will and the half-hearted support of Diligence, will prove sufficient. Too self-confident, he is overthrown and his companions are put to flight. Will soon returns with Recreation, by whose skill Wit is restored to vigour and better resolution. Nevertheless, directly afterwards, he accepts the gentle ministrations of the false jade, Idleness, who sings him to sleep and then transforms him into the appearance of Ignorance. In this plight he is found by his lady-love and her parents, who do not at first recognize him. Shame is called in to doctor him. On his recovery he returns very repentantly to the tuition of his three teachers, until, by their help and Will's, he is able to slay the giant. As his reward he marries Science.
As one of several good things in this pleasant Interlude may be quoted Will's speech on life before and after marriage, from the point of view of a favoured servant:
I am not disposed as yet to be tame,
And therefore I am loth to be under a dame.
Now you are a bachelor, a man may soon win you,
Methinks there is some good fellowship in you;
We may laugh and be merry at board and at bed,
You are not so testy as those that be wed.
Mild in behaviour and loth to fall out,
You may run, you may ride and rove round about,
With wealth at your will and all thing at ease,
Free, frank and lusty, easy to please.
But when you be clogged and tied by the toe
So fast that you shall not have pow'r to let go,
You will tell me another lesson soon after,
And cry peccavi too, except your luck be the better.
Then farewell good fellowship! then come at a call!
Then wait at an inch, you idle knaves all!
Then sparing and pinching, and nothing of gift,
No talk with our master, but all for his thrift.
Solemn and sour, and angry as a wasp,
All things must be kept under lock and hasp;
All that which will make me to fare full ill.
All your care shall be to hamper poor Will.
The liberty and, we may infer, good hearing extended to these unblushingly didactic Interludes attracted into authorship writers with purposes more aggressive and debatable than those pertaining to wise conduct. Zealous reformers, earnest proselytizers, fierce dogmatists turned to the drama as a medium through which they might effectively reach the ears and hearts of the people. Kirchmayer's Pammachius, translated into English by Bale (author of King John), contained an attack on the Pope as Antichrist. In 1527 the boys of St. Paul's acted a play (now unknown) in which Luther figured ignominiously. Here then were Roman Catholics and Protestants extending their furious battleground to the stage. This style of thing came to such a pitch that it was actually judged necessary to forbid it by law. Similar plays, however, still continued to be produced; and even King Edward VI is credited with the authorship of a strongly Protestant comedy entitled De Meretrice Babylonica.
A very fair example of these political and controversial Interludes is New Custom, printed in 1573, and possibly written only a year or two before that date. Here, for instance, are a few of the players' names and descriptions as given at the beginning: Perverse Doctrine, an old Popish Priest; Ignorance, another, but elder; New Custom, a Minister; Light of the Gospel, a Minister; Hypocrisy, an old Woman. Then, as to the matter, here is an extract from Perverse Doctrine's opening speech, the writer's intention being to expose the speaker to the derision of his enlightened hearers.
What! young men to be meddlers in divinity? it is a goodly sight!
Yet therein now almost is every boy's delight;
No book now in their hands, but all scripture, scripture,
Either the whole Bible or the New Testament, you may be sure.
The New Testament for them! and then too for Coll, my dog.
This is the old proverb—to cast pearls to an hog.
Give them that which is meet for them, a racket and a ball,
Or some other trifle to busy their heads withal,
Playing at quoits or nine-holes, or shooting at butts:
There let them be, a God's name.
Or here again is a bold declaration from New Custom, the Reformation minister: