14/14 Yes, yes, a merry play shall it be, and then I will call it boldly and fearlessly a comedy!" He seized his pen and wrote: "Gammer Gurton's Needle, a right pithy, pleasant, and merry comedy." And thus originated the first English comedy, by John Heywood, fool to King Henry the Eighth. [Footnote: This comedy was first printed in the year 1661, but it was represented at Christ College fully a hundred years previously. Who was the author of it is not known with certainty; but it is possible that the writer of it was John Heywood, the epigrammatist and court-jester .-- See Dramaturgic oder Theorie und Geschichte der dramatischen Kunst, von Theodore Mundt, vol i, p. 809. |