1953-4 You playd once i’th Vniuersitie you say]
Malone (ed. 1790): “The practice of acting Latin plays in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, is very ancient, and continued to near the middle of the last century. They were performed occasionally for the entertainment of princes and other great personages; and regularly at Christmas, at which time a
Lord of misrule was appointed at Oxford, to regulate the exhibitions, and a similar officer with the title of
Imperator, at Cambridge. The most celebrated actors at Cambridge were the students of St.
John’s and King’s colleges: at Oxford, those of Christ-Church. In the hall of that college a Latin comedy called
Marcus Geminus, and the Latin tragedy of
Progne, were performed before Queen Elizabeth in the year 1566; and in 1564, the Latin tragedy of
Dido was played before her majesty, when she visited the university of Cambridge. The exhibition was in the body or nave of the chapel of King’s college, which was lighted by the royal guards, each of whom bore a staff-torch in his hand. See Peck’s
Desider. Cur. p. 36. n. x. The actors in this piece were all of that college. The authour of the tragedy, who in the Latin account of this royal visit, in the Museum, [MSS. Baker, 7037, p. 203,] is said to have been
Regalis Colleggi olim socius, was, I believe,
John Rightwise, who was elected a fellow of King’s college, in 1507, and according to Anthony Wood, ‘made the tragedy of
Dido out of Virgil, and acted the same with the scholars of his school, [St. Paul’s, of which he was appointed master in 1522,] before Cardinal Wolsey with great applause.’ In 1583, the same play was performed at Oxford, in Christ-Church hall, before Albertus de Alasco, a Polish prince Palatine, as was William Gager’s Latin comedy, entitled
Rivales. On Elizabeth’s second visit to Oxford, in 1592, a few years before the writing of the present play, she was entertained on the 24th and 26th of September, with the representation of the last mentioned play, and another Latin comedy, called
Bellum Grammaticale.”