ABSTRACT
The very use of the word 'art' in connection with Thomas Heywood may cause at least a slight raising of the eyebrows on the part of some readers. Of the 220 plays which Heywood himself mentions, only some two dozen can now be identified with certainty and little can be conjectured about the rest. The Four Prentices relies still more on accident, coincidence, and lack of recognition, resulting in a bewildering pattern of interchanges between the major characters. Once the Old Earl has assumed that he has only one son, Charles, left alive, the way is left open for a flood of the most improbable situations. Heywood's art of characterization would be accorded no more than cautious praise by the most ardent of his admirers, yet a variety of scholars have made an exception in the case of his clowns. The rapid interchange of serious matter and broad comedy, indeed buffoonery, is a prominent feature of Heywood's art.
