Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/379

 lodge at Trinity College, Cambridge. The latter was engraved at George Steevens's expense in 1789 by J. Jones, after a drawing by Silvester Harding. A second engraving was by Henry Meyer (cf. Cat. Third Loan Exhibition at South Kensington, No. 637).

The serious-minded Still has been generally claimed as the author of the boisterously merry comedy ‘Gammer Gurton's Needle,’ but the evidence in his favour proves on examination to be inconclusive. While Still was in residence at Christ's College the books of the bursar show that a play was performed there ins 1566, when 20s. was paid ‘he carpenters for setting up the scaffold.’ It may be inferred (although there is no positive proof) that the play was identical with the one published in 1575 under the title of ‘A Ryght Pythy, Pleasaunt, and Merie Comedie: Intytuld Gammer Gurton's Nedle: Played on Stage not longe ago in Christes Colledge in Cambridge. Made by Mr. S. Master of Art’ (London, 4to, by Thomas Colwell). It has been argued that the piece was written at an earlier date than 1566, on the ground that a play called ‘Dyccon of Bedlam’ (not now extant) was, according to the ‘Stationers' Register,’ licensed for publication to Thomas Colwell, the publisher of ‘Gammer Gurton's Needle,’ in 1563; and that ‘Diccon the Bedlam’ (a half-witted itinerant beggar) is a leading character in the extant comedy. But the sobriquet was at the period not uncommonly applied to any half-imbecile mendicant, and in itself offers no proof of the two plays' identity. ‘Mr. S. Master of Art,’ the author of ‘Gammer Gurton's Needle,’ was first identified with Still by Isaac Reed in 1782 in his edition of Baker's ‘Biographia Dramatica.’ Reed's main argument was that Still was the only M.A. of Christ's College whose name began with S in 1566, when ‘Gammer Gurton's Needle’ may be assumed to have first been performed. This statement is not accurate, for William Sanderson graduated M.A. from Christ's College in 1566, and was living more than thirty years later, and twelve other masters of arts of the college, all of whose names began with S, proceeded to the degree in or before 1566, and were alive in 1575, when ‘Mr. S. Master of Art’ was put forth as the author of ‘Gammer Gurton's Needle’ on the title-page of the first edition. In his lifetime the comedy was not assigned to Still, who is not know to have manifested any interest in the English drama. The only contemporary references to the question of authorship are indeterminate, but they do not point in Still's direction. During the Martin Mar-Prelate controversy of 1588-90 the puritan assailants of the bishops recorded a rumour that ‘Gammer Gurton's Needle’ was from the pen of arch foe John Bridges (d. 1618), then dean of Salisbury [q. v.] ‘Martin Mar-Prelate’ addresses Bridges in his ‘Epistle’ thus: ‘Your first book was a proper Enterlude called ‘‘Gammer Gurton's Needle,’’ but I thinke that this trifle, which sheweth the author to have had some witte and invention in him, was none of your doing: because your bookes seeme to proceed from the braynes of a woodcock, as having neither wi nor learning.’ In ‘Martin Mar-Prelate's Epitomes’ (1589) there are two passing references to the play, and to one is appended a marginal note to the effect that Bridges ‘made’ it, ‘as they say.’ These inconclusive statements seem negaticed by the fact that Bridges was a graduate of Pembroke Hall, of which he was fellow from 1566, and that on no pretence could ‘Mr. S.’ do duty for the initials.

A study of the play itself throws no light on its authorship, which is now satisfactorily determined. Its wit is coarse, homely, and boisterous. The main theme is the loss of a needle by Gammer Gurton, a village housewife, while she is engaged in mending her husband's breeches. The plot turns on the search for the needle and the suspicion of theft which falls in turn on each of the members of Gammer Gurton's household and of her gossiping neighbours. The dénouement is reached, after much horse-play, when the needle is found by painful experience by Hodge himself in that part of his breeches on which his wife had been exercising her skill. The whole is written in rhyming doggerel, and most of the characters speak in rustic dialect. The only literary feature is a spirited drinking-song, at the opening of the second act, beginning ‘Back and side go bare, go bare;’ it is adapted, with very slight changes, from a popular song of far earlier date (cf. Works, ed. Dyce;, Songs from the Dramatists). Historically the piece is of interest as the second extant attempt at comedy in the language—Udall's ‘Ralph Roister Doister’ being the first—and the first extant play known to have been performed in an English university, while it amply illustrates the phase of merriment which most forcibly appealed to sixteenth-century society. The play was reprinted in 1661; in ‘The Ancient British Drama’ (1810), edited by Sir Walter Scott, vol. i. pp. 100–31; and again in Dodsley's ‘Old Plays,’ ed. Hazlitt, iii. 163 seq. (cf. The Authorship of ‘Gammer Gurton's Needle,’ by Charles H. Ross, in Modern Language Notes, vii. No. 6, Baltimore, June 1892).