Another "excellent old play," called Tom Tyler and His Wife,[78] deserves to be mentioned in this sequence because it combines characteristics of the farce in a peculiar fashion with reminiscences of the moral interlude. Tom Tyler was written probably between 1550 and 1560, and is an admirable portrayal of matrimonial infelicities in low life, the forerunner of a series of "shrew" plays, not of the nature of the Taming, but of the Tamer Tamed. The temporary revolt of the husband, "whose cake was dough," his fleeting triumph by the ruse of the doughty Tom Taylor, and his lapse into irremediable servitude, "for wedding and hanging is destinie," these alone would make the farce worthy of honourable mention. But the dialogue and songs are themselves of snap, verve, and wit not inferior to the best of that day; and the coöperation of solemn allegorical figures, such as Destinie and Patience, in the humorous programme of Desire the Vice, side by side with the three lusty "shrowes," Typple, Sturdy, and Strife, lends to the farce a mock-moral appearance which entitles it to a place among these polytypic dramas historically unique. For it should not be regarded as an example of the moral in transition from abstract to concrete, but as a conscious and cleverly ironical presentation of a comic episode from utterly unideal life, under the form, and by the modes and machinery, of the pious allegorical drama.
For the printing of the next play in this series, the Misogonus, heretofore accessible only in manuscript at Chatsworth, we are indebted to Professor Brandl.[79] This interesting moral comedy was written in 1560, probably by Thomas Richardes,[80] whose name followes the prologue. Brandl points out certain resemblances to the Acolastus of Gnapheus, printed 1534. The contrast of the good and wayward sons might likewise be traced to the Studentes of Stymmelius[81] (1549), but the more evident sources are Terence, the biblical parable, common experience, and dramatic imagination, Professor Brandl thinks that the play is connected with The Supposes or its source, but I must confess that I cannot see the remotest relation. In Mr. Fleay's opinion this is the earliest English comedy. I suppose because it not only applies a classical treatment to certain elements of romantic form,—the Italian scene and baronial life,—and of romantic content and method such as the ideal friendship, the discovery and recognition, but combines therewith a realistic portrayal of native character, and various technical qualities vital to both the serious and comic kinds of composition. If, however, the names of the principal characters had been English, the relation to the moral interlude would at once be evident. This is a Prodigal Son play of the humanist school, save that it has supplemented the general characteristics of the Christian Terence and of Plautus by episodes and minor characters from the native farce. Although it is not superior in technique to Roister or Gammer Gurton, it is more distinctively polytypic than either. It is, also, of broader ethical significance. But this dominant didactic intent renders it less of a comedy than they, and much less than the Jacob and Esau—which is as good a representative of the fusion of dramatic kinds and qualities as the Misogonus, and a better specimen of workmanship. The simpler characters of the Misogonus, Codrus, poore, but "trwe and trusty"; the stammering Madge Mumbelcrust, who "coude once a said our lordyes saw—saw—sawter by rote"; and her gossip "Tib, who has tongue inough for both"; Alison, who knows "what a great thinge an oth is"; and Sir John, the priest, who knows how to use one,—these, their ways and colloquies, are of a piece with Stevenson's work and Heywood's and the world that their work represents. The conditions and conduct of the leading dramatis personæ are, on the other hand, more closely akin to the Plautine and Terentian, to the school of Udall and the humanists. Cacurgus, the domestic parasite and fool, remotely connected with the Vice, but actually a counterfeit-simple and wag, is as good a Will Summer as the early comedy can boast. When Greene made his Nano, Adam, and Slipper, he had in mind a generation of such creatures. If one could eliminate the sermonizing, there would remain a plot as satisfactory in unity, in situations, recognitions, crises, and denouement as any produced during the next twenty years. But, as I have said above, the moral urgency of the play injures the art. Since the Prodigal Son is reclaimed, we are, however, justified in ranking the production among early attempts at English comedy.
Godly Queen Hester, published 1561,[82] is exactly described as a "newe enterlude drawen out of the Holy Scripture." According to Fleay, it is the latest "scriptural morality" extant to be acted on the English stage.[83] But it is much more than a scriptural morality. Not only by its fusion of biblical characters, like Assuerus and Hester, with allegorical types, like Pride and the half-moral, half-native Vice, does the play give evidence of its polytypic nature, but by its atmosphere, which is charged with local and personal allusions and ironical references to the economic abuses of the day. In nervous energy of style and in forthright dramatic movement, the play is an improvement upon its predecessors; and as a satirical drama of political purpose, it should have had a numerous progeny. Strange to say, however, this kind of scriptural satire has had no great success in the field of English drama. Its bloom, as in Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, has been in the by-paths of poetry. Of a peculiar historical importance is the character of Hardy-dardy. Mr. Fleay regards him as a domestic fool, and remarks that this interlude and the Misogonus are the only two early plays in which the Vice is replaced by such a personage. But neither of these statements is correct, for Hardy-dardy and Cacurgus do not totally abandon the quality of Vice, and various other plays yet to be mentioned have characters closely resembling them. Hardy-dardy is, indeed, a professed jester dressed in a fool's coat; in his assumption of stupidity and his proffer of service to Aman, he resembles Slipper in Greene's James the Fourth; and in his shrewd simplicity, repartee, and indirection he anticipates some of Shakespeare's fools. But he still retains characteristics of his ancestry. He stands, in conception, half-way between the minor Vices of the play, Ambition, Adulation, and Pride, to whose jocosities and deviltries he succeeds,—for he appears only when they have departed,—and the waggish weathercocks of later interludes, Haphazard and Conditions.
I wish I could have included among the reprints of the present volume both of the plays next to be mentioned, but limitations of space and other reasons have forbidden. When Puttenham said that for comedy and interlude such doings as he had "sene of Maister Edwardes deserved the hyest price," and Turberville, that "for poet's pen and passing witte," that poet "could have no English Peere," I think that they were not greatly exaggerating. Richard Edwardes' Damon and Pithias, written before 1566, maybe as early as 1563-65, takes steps significant in literary history. It is not only entirely free from allegorical elements, and almost from didactic, but it is rich in qualities of the fusion drama. The subject of a classical story is handled in a genuinely romantic fashion, although no previous drama of romantic friendship had existed in England. Comic and serious strains flow side by side, occasionally mingling. A quick satire, dramatic and personal, pervades the play. The names and scenes may be Syracusan, and types from Latin comedy may walk the streets, but the life is of the higher and lower classes of England; and the creatures of literary tradition are elbowed and jostled by children of the soil. The farcical episodes may be indelicate, but they have the virility of fact. The plot as a whole is skilfully conducted; while it proceeds directly to the goal, it encompasses a wider variety of ethical interests, dramatic motives, and attractions, than that of any previous play. The relation to an interlude of which we shall presently speak, Like wil to Like, is beyond doubt. In both a crude psychological pairing and contrasting of characters may be observed; but in the development of the characters, Damon and Pithias is decidedly superior. The author calls this "a matter mixt with myrth and care ... a tragical comedie"; but while he thus aims at a fusion of the ideal with the commonplace, he makes a close approximation, always, to probability of incident and character, and so observes the criterion which he himself enunciates:—
"In commedies the greatest skyll is this, lightly to touch
All thynges to the quicke; and eke to frame each person so
That by his common talke, you may his nature rightly know."
In its defects, such as the disregard of time and place, as in its merits, the Damon and Pithias is a commendable experiment in romantic comedy—a contribution worthy of more attention than historians have ordinarily accorded it. Undoubtedly Edwardes' "much admired play" of Palamon and Arcite, which the queen witnessed in hall at Christ Church, Oxford, 1566 (and laughed heartily thereat, and thanked "the author for his pains"), was of the fashion and vogue of the drama which we have discussed, though it had not the abiding influence.
If it were not for the fact that The Supposes (acted 1566) is a translation of Ariosto's play of the same title, I should be inclined to say that it was the first English comedy in every way worthy of the name. It certainly is, for many reasons, entitled to be called the first comedy in the English tongue. It is written, not for children, nor to educate, but for grown-ups and solely to delight. It is done into English, not for the vulgar, but for the more advanced taste of the translator's own Inn of Court; it has, therefore, qualities to captivate those who are capable of appreciating high comedy. It is composed, like its original, in straightforward, sparkling prose. It has, also, the rarest features of the fusion drama: it combines character and situation, each depending upon the other; it combines wit of intellect with humour of heart and fact, intricate and varied plot with motive and steady movement, comic but not farcical incident and language with complications surprising, serious, and only not hopelessly embarrassing. It conducts a romantic intrigue in a realistic fashion through a world of actualities. 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. Without historical apology or artistic concessions it would act well to-day. Both whimsical and grave, its ironies are pro bono publico; it is constructive as well as critical, imaginative as well as actual. Indeed, when one compares Gascoigne's work with the original and observes the just liberties that he has taken, the Englishing of sentiment as well as of phrase, one is tempted to say, with Tom Nashe, that in comedy, as in other fields, this writer first "beat a path to that perfection which our best poets have aspired to since his departure." He did not contrive the plot; but no dramatist before him had selected for his audience, translated, and adapted a play so amusing and varied in interest, so graceful, simple, and idiomatic in its style. It was said by R. T., in 1615, that Gascoigne was one of those who first "brake the ice for our quainter poets who now write, that they may more safely swim through the main ocean of sweet poesy"—a remark which would lose much of its force if restricted to the poet's achievements in satire alone; in the drama of the humanists he excelled his contemporaries, and in the romantic comedy of intrigue he anticipated those who, like Greene and Shakespeare,[84] adapted the Italian plot to English manners and the English taste. Nor are these the only claims of Gascoigne to consideration: The Supposes, as Professor Herford has justly remarked, is the most Jonsonian of English comedies before Jonson.