He, no doubt, was no further interested than to have masterpieces of Greek and Latin drama represented, that the students might have exercise in those languages; but before the reign of Henry VIII. was finished, the practice was becoming pursued for other ends, and growing in importance. Gammer Gurton’s Needle, long supposed to be the first English comedy, was first acted by students at Cambridge.  That our more rollicking boys had their counterparts then, we may know from its rousing drinking-song, which the fellows rang out at the opening of the second act, way back there in 1551.  The chorus is not yet forgotten: 

  “Backe and side go bare, go bare,
  Booth foot and hand go colde;
  But, belly, God send thee good ale inoughe,
  Whether it be new or olde!”

For the most part, probably, the performances were of a more dignified character than this.  Among the statutes of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1546, there is one entitled de praefectu ludorum qui imperator dicitur, under whose direction and authority Latin comedies are to be exhibited in the hall at Christmas.  This “imperator” must be a master of arts, and the society was to be governed by a set of laws framed in Latin verse.  The authority of this potentate lasted from Christmas to Candlemas, during which time six spectacles were to be represented.  Dr. John Dee, a prodigy of that century, who might have been illustrious like Bacon almost, but who wasted his later years in astrological dreams, in his younger life, while Greek lecturer at Cambridge, superintended in the refectory of the college the representation of the [Greek:  Eirhene]; of Aristophanes, with no mean stage adjuncts, if we may trust his own account.  He speaks particularly of the performance of a “Scarabeus, his flying up to Jupiter’s palace with a man and his basket of victuals on his back; whereat was great wondering and many vain reports spread abroad of the means how that was effected.”  The great Roger Ascham, too, has left an indirect testimony to the splendour with which the Cambridge performances at this time were attended.  In a journey on the Continent, wishing to express in the highest terms his sense of the beauty of Antwerp, he can say nothing stronger than that it as far surpasses other cities as the refectory of St. John’s College at Cambridge, when adorned for the Christmas plays, surpasses its ordinary appearance.  On these occasions, the most dignified personages of the University were invited, and at length, as was the German fashion, the representation of plays was adopted as part of the entertainment of visitors.  In 1564, Queen Elizabeth visited Cambridge, and the picture transmitted to us of the festivities is full of brilliant lights.  With the rest, five doctors of the University selected from all the colleges the youths of best appearance and address, who acted before the queen a series of plays of varied character, sometimes grave, sometimes gay, in part of classic, in part of contemporary authorship.