darning the lower habiliments of Hodge, loses her needle

"A little thing, with a hole in the end, as bright as any siller (silver), Small, long, sharp at the point, and strait as any piller."

Had a needle not been a domestic implement of more rarity than it is since Birmingham flourished, we had not had such a pointed and polished description. In fact, the loss of the Gammer's needle sets the whole village in flames; the spark falling from the mischievous waggery of a Tom o' Bedlam in an artful insinuation against a certain gossip, notable for the luxuriance of her grotesque invectives. Dame Chat is a scold, whose curses and oaths neither the fish-market nor Shakespeare himself could have gone beyond. Brawls and battles involve the justice, the curate, and the devil himself, in their agency. The prime author of all the mischief produces the catastrophe; for he contrives to make Hodge extract from a part more tender than his heart the cause of so much discord, with great risk to its point and straightness; and the parties conclude

"For Gammer Gurton's needle's sake let us have a PLAUDITE!"

The writer of this extraordinary, and long supposed to be the earliest comedy in our language, the titlepage informs us was Mr. S-, master of arts; and, moreover, that it was acted at the University of Cam

bridge. When afterwards it was ascertained that Mr. Swas no less a person than JOHN STILL, subsequently bishop of Bath and Wells, it did not diminish the number of its admirers. The black-letter brotherhood were long enamoured of this most ancient comedy, as a genuine beauty of the infancy of the drama. Dodsley and Hawkins enshrined "Gammer Gurton's Needle" in their Reliquary; and literary superstition

"Swore it was the relick of a saint."

The mere lovers of antiquity endured the raillery of the wits, for the puerility of the plot, the vulgar humour, and the homeliness of the style. One had asserted that "STILL had displayed the true genius of comedy, and the choice of his subject only was to be regretted;" another declared that "the vein of familiar humour and a kind of grotesque imagery are not unlike some parts of Aristophanes, but without the graces of language." Thus one admirer gives up the subject, and another the style! Even Warton fondly lingered in an apology for the grossness of the "Gammer." ."-"In a polished age that writer would have chosen, nor would he perhaps have disgraced, a better subject. It has been thought surprising that a learned audience could have endured some of the indelicate But the established festivities of scholars were

scenes.

gross, and agreeable to their general habits." This apology has turned out to be more plausible than true.

This ancient comedy is the work of a truly comic genius, who knew not how to choose his subject, and indulged a taste repulsive to those who only admit of delicate, and not familiar humour. Its grossness,

however, did not necessarily result from the prevalent grossness of the times; since a recent discovery, with which Warton was unacquainted, has shown the world that an English comedy which preceded the hitherto supposed first comedy in our language, is remarkable for its chasteness-the propriety of its great variety of characters, the truth of the manners in a wide circle of society, and the uninterrupted gaiety pervading the whole airy composition.

So recently as in 1818 an ancient printed drama, styled "Ralph Roister Doister," was discovered *; a legitimate comedy of five acts in rhyme, and, as the writer himself professes, modelled on the dramas of Plautus and Terence. He claims for it the honour of

* Reprinted by the Rev. Mr. Briggs, the possessor. After a limited reprint it was republished as the first number of a cheap edition of Old English Dramas, published by T. White, 1830. Whether this work was carried on I know not. The text reads apparently very correct, and seems to have passed under a skilful eye. I have read it with attention, because I read it with delight.

the highest class-that of "Comedy," but this term was then so indistinct that the poet adds the more usual one of "Enterlude."

GAMMER GURTON is a representation of sordid rusticity. ROISTER DOISTER Opens the moveable scenery of domestic life in the metropolis-touched with care, and warm with reality. The plot, without involution, progresses through the acts. An egotistical and affectedly amorous hare-brain, ever lamenting the dangerous beauty of his ridiculous self, fancies to marry a fair dame. He is hit off as

"So fervent hot wooing, and so far from wiving,

I trow, never was any creature living."

He is the whetstone of a sharp parasite, whose opening monologue exhibits his full portrait

"But, know ye, that for all this merry note of mine,

He might appose me now that should ask where I dine."

He runs over a nomenclature of a most variegated acquaintance, with some fugitive strictures exquisitely personal. We find ourselves in a more advanced stage in society than we expected in the reigns of our last Henry or Edward. Such personages abounded in the twenty years of peace and luxury under James the First, when the obsequious hanger-on flourished among the town-heroes of "The Gull's Horn-book." This parasite is also one of those domestic dependents whose

shrewdness and artifices supply a perpetual source of comic invention; such as those found among the Latin dramatists, whose scenes and incidents are Grecian, and from whom this "Matthew Merry-greek" by his name seems happily transplanted. This poet delights by scenes coloured with the truth of nature, and by the clear conception of his domestic personages. There is a group of domestics-the ancient housekeeper spinning on her distaff amidst her maidens, some sowing, some knitting, all in free chat; these might have formed a study for the vivid Teniers, and even for Shakespeare in his happiest vein. They are not the domestics of Swift and of Mandeville-the spoilers of the establishment; not that they are without the common feelings of the servants' hall, for they have at heart the merry prosperity of their commonwealth. After their "drudgerie," to dissipate their "weariness" was the fundamental principle of the freedom of servitude. Their chorus is "lovingly to agree." A pleasant song, on occasion of the reception of "a new-come man" in the family, reveals the "mystery" of their ancient craft*.

*This song of Domesticity, as probably it never has been noticed, I preserve in the note, that the reader may decide on the melody of such native simplicity.

This song may have been written about the close of the reign of Henry the Eighth. The short ballad metres, in our ancient