[285] Wood's _Fasti_, quoted by Arber. Arber assigns 1504 as the year
of Udall's birth, but makes him "æt. 18" in 1524. Cf. Cooper's Extracts
from C. C. C. Register.
[286] Cf. Bale, _Catal._ ed. 1557, Cent. 9, 45 (fol. 717; general
statement concerning Udall's Protestantism). _Lutheranis disciplinis
dum in academia studuit addictus fuit_, Tanner after Wood, cf.
Cooper, XII. It is remarkable, however, that we do not find Udall in
correspondence with the reformers "in exile."
[287] In March, 1521, cf. Ellis, _Original Letters_, I. i, 239 _sqq._
[288] Reprinted from Leland's _Collectanea_, V. by Cooper, XII. XIV.
XXVI.
[289] Cf. the epigram "_de liberalitate Nic. Odoualli_," quoted by
Cooper, XII.
[290] Original among the _Royal Mss._, 18 A. L. XIV. Cf. _Calendars_,
etc., VI., No. 564; _Ib._ 565, referring to Latin verses on this
coronation by Richard Coxe, Udall's predecessor at Eton (from _Harl.
Ms._ 6148, f. 117). Udall's verses are reprinted by Arber, _English
Garner_, 2, 52; parts of them published by Collier and Fairholt. Cf.
Cooper (XIII.), who dates the pageant 1532 (as does Ward, _Hist. Dram.
Poetry_, I. 141). This pageant shows Udall's earliest connection with
the revels, and may have given him a name at the side of Heywood.
[291] U. speaks later of the Eton mastership as "that roume which I was
neuer desirous to obtain."
[292] Cf. Arber, p. 3.
[293] Cf. Warton, _Hist. of English Poetry_, 3, 308; _Interdum etiam
exbibet_ [sc. _ludi magister_] _Anglico sermone contextas fabulas,
si quæ babeant acumen et leporem_. Eton was the only place where _we
know_ of _English_ plays; but Radulphus Radclif at Hitchin _may_ have
performed some of his school comedies in English, as the "plebs"
mentioned by Bale would not much have appreciated Latin performances,
_Catalogus_, 8, 98, fol. 700; Herford, _Literary Relations_, p. 110,
citing the occasional admission of English school plays at Eton, says
that to "this concession we owe the _Ralph Roister Doister_." More
likely we owe the concession to _Roister Doister_. Cf. Herford on
Udall's _De Papatu_.
[294] It seems improbable that the _R. D._ was ever performed at Court;
Udall's "interludes and devices" were pageants, as the _Loseley Mss._
prove; see below.
[295] Tusser's _500 Pointes_, ed. Payne & Heritage, p. 205.
[296] Cooper attributes to Udall's severity the running away
from school of "divers" Eton boys alluded to by Roger Ascham
(_Schoolmaster_). But this passage refers to 10 Dec. 1563, twenty-two
years after Udall had ceased to swing the rod over the Eton boys!
[297] Cf. quotation from Nicolas's _Proceedings and Ordinances of
the Privy Council_, 7, 152-53, in Cooper; the date is 14 March 32
Henry VIII. (1541-42) and _not_ 1543, as Arber gives it. Arber dates
Udall's letter also wrongly 1543; it is referred to 1541-42 in Ellis's
_Original Letters of Eminent Literary Men_, Camden Soc., 1843, P. 1.
[298] "Accepte this myn honest chaunge from vice to virtue, from
prodigalitee to frugall livyng, from negligence of teachyng to
assiduitee, from playe to studie, from lightness to gravitee." He
speaks about his "offenses," does not wish to excuse himself, but
says "humana quidem esse, et emendari posse." He begs for a chance
to show his "emendyng and reformac̄on," and quotes instances from
ancient history of great men who had indulged in a "veray riottous
and dissolute sorte of livyng" in their youth, had been "drowned in
voluptuousness" and had lived in "slaundre and infamie," but had
reformed. Not a word is said about thefts, "robberies," and such
"felonious trespasses." Cf. the whole letter from a new collation in
Flügel's _Lesebuch_, I, 351.
[299] U. does not beg in this letter for his "restitution," as Arber
seems to accept.
[300] Cf. Cooper, XXIII.
[301] Mars had "the rule" there October, 1542-July, 1543 (Froude, 3,
525-570), then again August, 1547 (Somerset in Berwick, Froude, 4,
288); the naval expedition of Hertford in May, 1544, being here out of
the question (_Ib._ 4, 32).
[302] This translation (published in September) might also indicate
some connection between Udall and Aldrich during the summer of
1542. Aldrich was a great "Erasmian"; he had been the _juvenis
blandæ eloquentiæ_ whom Erasmus used as interpreter on that immortal
pilgrimage to Walsingham, and he kept up a correspondence with Erasmus.
[303] Udall took as his share _St. Luk_ and the "disposition" of
the rest with exception of _St. John_ and _St. Mark_; perhaps he
assisted also in the translation of _Matthew_ and _Acts_. The Prefaces
are dated 1545, 1548. The whole must have been quite a lucrative
business-undertaking, because every parish in England had, by law, to
buy a copy of this work and "every parson had to have and diligently
study the same conferring the one [_the New Testament both in Latin and
English_] with the other [_the paraphrase_]." Cf. Cranmer's _Remains_,
155, 156 (1548); the Injunctions of Edward, 1547 (_Ib._ 499, 501),
etc.; cf. also Grindal's _Works_, 134, 157; Hooper's _Works_, 2, 139,
143 (_Parker Soc._).
[304] Cranmer too wrote "_Answers to the Fifteen Articles of the
Rebels_, Devon, Anno 1549," reprinted in his _Remains_, 163; and a
number of references to the Rebellion may be found in the writings
of the Reformers, f. i. _Letter of Hooper to Bullinger_, 25 June,
1549, _of John ab Ulmis to Bullinger_, May 28, 1550, of _Burcher to
Bullinger_, 25 August, 1549. But none of these correspondents ever
mention Udall.
[305] Cf. Cooper, XXX.
[306] An interesting letter of Udall's, dated August, 1552, referring
to his place at Windsor, was printed in _Archæologia_, 1869, Vol. XLII.
91, but has not hitherto been utilized for Udall's Biography. The
preface to a translation of T. Geminie's _Anatomy_ by Udall is dated
20 July, 1552; cf. Cooper, XXXI.; Udall's _Epistolæ et Carmina ad Gul.
Hormannum et ad Jo. Lelandum_, are quoted by Bale, etc., and given
under this year by Cooper (who reads: Hermannum). Hormann died 1535, as
vice-provost of Eton.
[307] This warrant was communicated to the Archæological Society,
December 9, 1824, by Mr. Bray (_Archæologia_, 21, 551), but not printed
until 1836 in the _Loseley Mss._, now first edited by A. J. Kempe; No.
31, p. 63.
[308] See below, under Date of the Early Edition of _R. D._ Another
early allusion to Udall as a playwright is that from Nichols's
_Progresses of Queen Elizabeth_, 3, 177, according to which "an English
play called _Ezekias_, made by Mr. Udall and handled by King's College
men only," was performed before Elizabeth August 8, 1564, at Cambridge;
see Cooper's Preface, xxxiii. Bale, who does not mention Udall as a
playwright in the edition 1548 of his _Catalogus_ (he mentions only
[Ochino's?] _Tragoedia de papatu_), says in the edition September,
1557, that Udall wrote "comœdias plures." There is nothing on Udall in
his _Supplement_ of 1559.
[309] It is remarkable that these documents should never have been
utilized for Udall's biography. Cf. the "Miscellaneous Extracts from
Various Accounts relating to the Office of the Revels," printed among
the _Loseley Mss._, p. 90. The Muniment Room of James More Molyneux at
Loseley House, Surrey, would furnish these and perhaps other documents
most valuable for Udall's History and that of the Early Drama.
The "scheme for an interlude, in which the persons of the drama were
to be _a King_, _a Knight_, _a Judge_, _a Preacher_, _a Scholar_, _a
Serving-man_," which Hazlitt (_Handbook_, 622) carelessly attributes to
Udall, is not connected with his name; cf. _Loseley Mss._, p. 64.
[310] These _may_ refer to another pageant, _l.c._
[311] No exact date given by Cooper, XXXIV. Hales gives good reasons
for the probability that Udall's mastership commenced in 1553; cf.
_Englische Studien_, 18, 421; cf. _ib._, a very interesting note on the
Terentian Plays, annually performed at the Westminster School. It seems
almost as if here, as well as at Eton, Udall's headmastership had some
significance for the history of the English school comedy.
[312] _Funerall Monuments_, ed. 1631, fol. 497.
[313] See above, p. 90, and notes.
[314] The Date of the First English Comedy, in _Englische Studien_, 18,
408-421.
[315] Professor Hales, in his essay on the date of _Roister_
(_Englische Studien_, 18, 419) quotes for these usury laws the
incomplete account of them in Craik's _History of British Commerce_, 1,
22, 231.
The law of 1545 (_so_ dated by Ruffhead; and not 1546) is far more
important on account of its clause about the "yearly interest" than of
that about the ten per cent.
[316] To Collier has been given the credit of first ("soon after 1820")
connecting Udall's name with _Roister Doister_, the unique copy of
which had been published by the finder, the Revᵈ. Thoˢ. Briggs, in
1818. But, in the first place, Collier could not have identified the
"ambiguous" letter in "Wilson's _Art of Logic_, printed by Richard
Grafton, 1551," as he says he did, since "The rule of Reason, contei
|| nyng the Arte of || Logique, set forth || in Englishe, || by Thomas
|| Vuilson. || _An._ M. D. LI. _does not contain the quotation from
Roister Doister_ (copy in the Bodleian kindly examined for me by
Professor Gayley), _neither does the edition of 1552_ (cf. Arber). On
folio 66 of the _third_ edition (1553) appears for the first time: "An
example of soche doubtful writing whiche by reason of poincting maie
haue double sense, and contrarie meaning, taken out of an entrelude
made by Nicolas Vdal." And, in the second place, Collier had been
anticipated, in part, for as early as 1748 reference had been made to
the passage from Wilson by Tanner, who writes (_Bibliotheca_, 8. n.):
In Thos. Wilson's _Logica_, p. 69 [it is _leaf_ 67 of edition 1567 in
my possession] _sunt quidem versus ambigui sensus ex Comœdia quadam
huius Nic. Udalli desumpti_.
[317] With this opinion, and that of p. 90, _n._ 4, contrast Fleay's
argument, _Hist. Stage_, pp. 59, 60. _Gen. Ed._
[318] Ward in _Dict. Nat. Biog._ 26, 332. Ward says that in Heywood's
Plays the "bridge had been built" to English Comedy. I think rather
that this bridge was a temporary structure, waiting to be replaced by
the more solidly planned work of a higher architect.
[319] These traits as well as the practical jokes would, of course, be
especially enjoyed by the Eton players and their youthful audience.
[320] Ward, _Hist. Dram. Lit._, 1, 157 (Lond.: 1899).
[321] Cf. the splendid essay on the Roman _Colax_ and Parasite in O.
Ribbeck's _Hist. of Roman Lit._ (_Stuttgart_, 1887), 1, 83 _sqq._
[322] "These lies are like their father--gross as a mountain, open,
palpable."--Shak., _1 Hen. IV._ 2, 4.
[323] Ward, _l.c._, calls Roister "a vain-glorious, cowardly blockhead,
of whom the Pyrgopolinices of Plautus is the precise prototype." That
his character has some fine points, modelled after the Terentian
Thraso, is shown in the notes (cf. especially the last scene).
Roister's character, indeed, is the least original of the play, but he
is not Udall's favourite figure. Udall did not spend as much labour on
him as on Merygreeke.
[324] This possible complication, which would have yielded a fine
scene, seems not to have occurred to Udall.
[325] In this respect even _Jack Juggler_ deserves credit. I find no
trace of Plautus and Terence in Heywood's plays.