Note 811 — Chapter VIII

Udal was not the first, if we could trust Harwood’s Alumni Etonenses, who established an Eton theatre. Of Rightwise, who succeeded Lily as master of St. Paul’s, it is said by him, that he was a most eminent grammarian, and wrote the tragedy of Dido from Virgil, which was acted before Cardinal Wolsey with great applause by himself and other scholars of Eton. But as Rightwise left Eton for King’s College in 1508, this cannot be true, at least so far as Wolsey is concerned. It is said afterwards in the same book of one Hallewill, who went to Cambridge in 1532, that he wrote the tragedy of Dido. Which should we believe, or were there two Didos? But Harwood’s book is not reckoned of much authority beyond the mere records which he copied.