Principio ego vos credere ambos hoc mi vehementer volo
Me huius quicquid faciam id facere maxume causa mea.
I may be mistaken, but I cannot find that the classical parasite has any fine touch of the humour that is inseparable from "humanity," from good nature. The classical parasite is, on account of this deficiency, distinctly inferior to this modern creation.
As completely as in Merygreeke's case, Udall disarms the moralist in the case of Roister himself, whose lying[322] and bragging, whose cowardice, matched only by his vanity, cannot possibly be regarded as setting a bad example, because they have reached dimensions which are grotesque and plainly ridiculous. They result only in the propagation of his folly, and that is allowed to reap its—poor—external fruit: Roister is "invited" to the banquet (and Roister has constitutionally a good "stomach"), and he is made to believe that he is a much "dreaded lion." Fate has fortunately not pressed the mirror into his hands. He is saved the sight of the ass's ears visible to every one else.[323] And as kind as Fate is his "friend" Merygreeke, who never reveals to him his absolute wretchedness, and who has to the last the satisfaction of knowing Roister a "glad man." Here was a great danger for a less skilful writer than Udall—a danger of marring our enjoyment of Merygreeke's part by inserting traits of a finer or grosser brutality, a danger of spoiling the whole feast by some drop of malice. The element of conscious humiliation is absent; the pathetic is consequently avoided.
The other figures of the play are kept in the background; even Custance, and Gawin Goodluck, who comes in at the end of the play to give the coup de grace to Roister's foolish hopes. As a lover Goodluck is hardly a success. He is so fish-blooded that, in a scene which savours of a judicial procedure, the evidence of Trusty becomes necessary before he can be satisfied of the fidelity of his betrothed. Goodluck is obviously no Romeo. In the widow ready to marry again Udall presents a good study of character. Custance is a well-to-do London city-wife of the days of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., ruling like a queen over servants who themselves are happily introduced and capitally delineated. We imagine her neither lean, nor pale, but rather like the wife of Bath—like her, resolute and substantial, but more faithful. She is, to a certain extent, even shrewd; she enjoys fun,—after she has been made to see it,—and she is not without a touch of sentimentality.
Indeed, to Custance Udall has assigned the only serious scene in the play, Act V., Scene iii. This monologue appears pathetic, and sounds like a prayer of innocence, extremely well justified in a woman who finds herself surrounded by difficulties and involved in a complication which seems to question her honour. The last words of the complaint indicate, however, that Goodluck would better not doubt too much, because Custance's patience might reach a limit, and her natural independence might sharply bring him to his senses.[324] She appears in that very scene as the match of Goodluck, who will be very happy with her if he gets her.
Udall shows his complete superiority over his predecessors in these delineations of character even more than in the creation of the plot. Though in the development of the latter everything fits together and is arranged in good order and proportion, it is, after all, the dramatis personæ that interest us most. Udall's persons are men and women of flesh and blood, interesting and amusing living beings, not the wax figures of "Sapience" or "Folly," "Virtuous Living" or "Counterfet Countenance." Udall's persons are vastly superior to these wooden "dialoguers," whom one feels to be acting merely for a school-bred morality, and they leave the coarse-grained but witty figures even of Heywood's farces far behind.
If anything, his persons show that Udall had studied his Plautus and Terence as a clear and sharp observer,[325] and that he had learned from them where the originals for a comedy were to be found—in life, in the actual world surrounding the poet.
The Present Text is based upon Arber's reprint of July 1, 1869, which has been carefully collated by Professor Gayley with the unique copy in the library of Eton College. The courtesy of the librarian, F. Warre Cornish, M.A., and the other authorities of Eton College, is hereby heartily acknowledged. In the present text all variations from the original are inclosed in brackets. But, in uniformity with the regulation adopted for this series, j and v have been substituted for i and u when used as consonants, and u has been printed for v when used as a vowel. References in the footnotes to previous editions are thus indicated: A., Arber's reprint; C., W. D. Cooper's edition for the Shakespeare Society, 1847; H., Hazlitt's Dodsley (edition in Vol. III.), Lond. 1874; M., Professor J. M. Manly's edition in "Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama," Vol. II., Boston, 1897. References to the Eton copy are indicated by E.
Ewald Flügel.