GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE, a "comedie" by Bishop John Still, very popular during the 16th century, and supposed to have been the first play that was acted in the English tongue. In 1575, nine •years after its appear ance on the stage of the university mentioned below, it appeared in print under the quaint title, 'A Ryght Pithy, Pleasaunt, and Merie Comedie; Intytuled Gammer Gurton's Needle; played on Ye Stage not long ago in Christes College in Cambridge; Made by Mr. Skill], Master of Art.' Thomas Warton had been misled into believing that the first issue of the play from the press dated from 1551, and hav ing so described it in his 'History of Poetry,' he misled others, who on this account took it to be the very first English comedy. 'Ralph Roister Doister,> and possibly even another comedy, had however, already appeared when Bishop Still's work was not yet in press. Readers of the present time who penetrate be hind the quaint, uncouth language of this old play, will find in it an interesting picture of the 16th century village life. The plot, one
of the simplest sort, turns on merely the loss of Gammer ("old wife") Gurton's "needle,* as she mends her man Hodge's "breeches." The action proceeds on the search for the needle a search by the entire household — and the pranks of Diccon the Bedlam, a clown (the "vice" of this play) who induces a quarrel be tween Gurton and the neighbors; and con cludes, to the discomfiture of the wearer, in the finding of the needle in exactly the place on which Gammer Gurton's industry had been employed. Lord Morley, a high authority in these matters, in an attempt at a literary evalua tion, found this play— to use his own words — "indelicate, but not indecent.° It was revived successfully by Stuart Walker and the Port manteau players in 1917. Consuk Morley, "English Writers> (Vol. VIII, 1897) ; and Saintsbury, 'History of Elizabethan Literature.>