Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Udall, Nicholas
UDALL, Nicholas (b. 1505-d. 1556[1]), author of the earliest extant regular English comedy. Udall was a typical man of the Renaissance in England, a schoolmaster by profession, a classical scholar, a translator of Terence and Erasmus, and a writer of pageants and interludes. He was high in favour at court, wrote verses for the city pageant exhibited at Anne Boleyn's coronation in 1533, and was honoured by Mary in 1554 as one that had "heretofore showed and mindeth hereafter to show his diligence in setting forth of dialogues and interludes before us for our regal disport and recreation." The severity of his discipline at Eton, where he was headmaster, has been immortalized by the quaint lines of one of his pupils, Thomas Tusser. The exact history of the production of his comedy Ralph Royster Doyster is not known. A printed copy wanting the title-page came to light in 1818, and we know that it was licensed to be printed in 1566. It is a distinct advance in construction on the Merry Interludes of John Heywood, but it is not a comedy in the strict English sense, being, like the interludes, essentially farcical in motive, character, and incident. Although an imitation of the Latin comedy, it is far from being a servile imitation, and abounds in fresh fun and cleverness. It has been twice reprinted,—by the Shakespeare Society (with a memoir by Mr Cooper) and in Arber's Reprints.
- ↑ The date of Udall's death is sometimes erroneously given as 1564, in which year his play of Ezekias was performed at Cambridge before Queen Elizabeth. He was buried at St Margaret's, Westminster, on 23d December 1556 (see memoir in Cooper's edition of Royster Doyster).