place of performance was close at hand to what one still goes to see
in the black centre of the heart of London, those blossoming gardens
of the Temple, verdant to-day as when the red-cross knights walked in
them, or the fateful red and white roses were plucked there, or the
voices of the young declaimers were heard from them, rolling out the
turgid lines of Sackville's piece, the somewhat unpromising day-spring
which a glorious sun-burst was to succeed. From Lincoln's Inn, in
1613, when the Princess Elizabeth married the elector-palatine and
went off to Heidelberg Castle, the students came to the palace with a
piece written by Chapman, and the performance cost a thousand pounds.

A famed contemporary of Udal was Richard Mulcaster, head-master of St.
Paul's school, and afterward of Merchant Taylors', concerning whom we
have, from delightful old Fuller, this quaint and naive description:

In a morning he would exactly and plainly construe
and parse the lesson to his scholars, which
done, he slept his hour (custom made him critical
to proportion it) in his desk in the school; but woe
be to the scholar that slept the while. Awaking, he
heard them accurately; and Atropos might be persuaded
to pity as soon as he to pardon where he
found just fault. The prayers of cockering mothers
prevailed with him just as much as the requests of
indulgent fathers, rather increasing than mitigating
his severity on their offending children.

The name of this Rhadamanthus of the birch occurs twice in entries of
Elizabeth's paymaster, as receiving money for plays acted before
her; and a certain proficiency as actors possessed by students of