Heywood, JOHN

Heywood, JOHN, the epigrammatist, was born near St Albans about 1497. After his studies at Oxford he was introduced at court by Sir Thomas More, and soon made himself by his merry wit and his skill in music a favourite with Henry VIII., and later with Mary. He was a devout Catholic, and on the accession of Elizabeth betook himself to Malines, where he died in 1580. He wrote several short plays which he called interludes. The name had hitherto meant short dramatic pieces performed in the intervals of a banquet or court-pageant, in which the characters were merely personified qualities, but Heywood introduced the novelty of making these individual persons represent classes, as the Pedlar, the Pardoner, and the like, instead of Youth, Felicity, &c. His interludes thus form an important stage between the old moralities and the modern drama. Among them are Johan, Tyb his wife, and Sir Johan the preste; A Merry Play betwene the Pardonere and the Frere, the Curate and Neighbour Pratte; and The Play called the four P's, a new and very Merry Interlude of a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Potieary, and a Pedlar. His three collections of Epigrams reach the number of six hundred. His longest work is the wearisome allegorical poem, The Spider and the Fly, in which the relative merits of Catholics and Protestants are contrasted.