higher platforms. In the first scene of the play of Adam, devils were to take Adam and Eve, to put them into hell, whence a smoke was to rise while our first parents uttered appropriate cries. In the second scene, Abel was to be murdered, and Cain led to hell, "being often struck ;" and afterwards prophets were to come from "convenient places of concealment" and prophesy of Christ. The mouth of hell was represented by a painting on pasteboard of the open jaws of a great beast, with a fire so lighted behind the lower jaw that it might be made to appear to breathe flame. Through this mouth the devils had their entrance and exit.

It was not until the time of Chaucer that these plays were given in the language of the people. Then they were lengthened, several days being occupied with one, and the story of the Bible was presented to the common people from beginning to end. There are three principal series of these plays, the "Towneley," (or "Wakefield ") "Coventry," and "Chester," mysteries. They were acted for two hundred years. The first of these is the best. In order to give the audience some relaxation, there was an introduction of incidents not found in scripture. Thus, when Noah is commanded to build the Ark, he and his family are seen bringing the hatchets, hammers, nails, timbers and other necessary articles, and Japheth's wife gathers chips and cooks the dinners for those who work. Noah's wife declares her determination not to enter the Ark until she has more evidence that it is necessary to do it. After all the family has gone aboard, and the beasts are safely housed, she still stands without, whereupon the Patriarch cries,

"Wife, come in! Why standest thou there?
Thou art ever forward, I dare well swear;

Come in, on Godes name! half time it were,
For fear lest that we drown."

The recalcitrant wife declares that she will not go in, unless she may take all of her gossips with her,

As it would be difficult for Noah to get a new wife, or for some other reason, he calls upon Shem and his brothers to get their mother in. As they approach her, sitting among her gossips, she sings,

"The flood comes flitting in full fast

On every side that spreads full far;

For fear of drowning I am agast;

Good gossips, let us draw near,

And let us drink, or we depart" (separate).

Offering her gossips "a pottle full of malmsey," she tells them that she will

* An evident anachronism.

drink, no matter how long Noah is delayed, but at last her three sons take her in by force, whereupon she is welcomed by her husband, whom she gives a box on the ears, to which he responds,―

It is not probable that such scenes as these could inspire an audience even in old times with great respect for the characters represented, and when the devils degenerated into clowns, as they did in France in some cases, it seems as if the terror they were intended to strike into the audience would hardly be excited.

The Chester mysteries were the oldest. They represented the entire Bible story, from the Creation to Doomsday, beginning even with the fall of Lucifer. Eve was made out of a rib of Adam, and both appeared naked,* until the fig leaves were put on. Strange beasts were let loose to represent the Creation, and Balaam's ass was a man, made in some way to represent the animal. When the angel appeared and sang the "Gloria in Excelsis," the shepherds asked whether he sang" Glore, glare, with a glee," or "Glory, glory, with a glo," or "Glori, glory, glorious," and the burlesque was carried so far that they expressed a suspicion that he was a spy come to steal their sheep! The last scene opens with Christ as God, sending the angels to blow the last trump. The dead rise, and the saved are addressed, –

"In great thirst you gave me drink,
When I was naked, also clothing,

And when me needed harboring,

You harbored me in cold.

Therefore you shall be quit that thing

In heaven an hundred fold."

A hundred years after the time of Chaucer, a new style of dramatic representation came into vogue. It was the "Moral-play." It did not confine itself to scripture story and lives of the saints, but introduced characters which represented abstract moral virtues, avarice, charity, vice, mercy, peace, and the like. The writer descended from the lofty heights of theology to the plane of practical ethics. He aimed to show the rewards of virtue and the punishment of vice. The moralities were sermons in the form of acted allegories. All human interest seems to have been taken from them, and it is difficult to conceive of their interesting audiences.

One of these is entitled Every-Man. It opens with a soliloquy by the Deity, who laments that the people forsake him for the Seven Deadly Sins. "Every-Man" is the human race. Death is sent after him, and he tries to get his friends to go with him as he accompanies Death. All forsake him, except

* It should be remarked that as all the women's parts were played by men or boys previous to the restoration, (1660) the nudity of Eve must have been represented by some sort of costume.

Good-Deeds. Fellowship will murder one for him, but refuses to go on the long journey with him. Kindred has a cramp in the toe, and cannot go. Knowledge, Strength, Discretion, Five-wits, all leave him at the brink of the grave. Only Good-Deeds will go.

In the reign of Henry VIII., another sort of dramatic entertainment arose. It was invented apparently by John Heywood, a friend of Sir Thomas More. It was called the " Interlude," because it was intended for the entertainment of guests during or after dinner. One of these is called "The Four P's,” and turns on a dispute between a palmer, a pardoner, a 'potecary and a pedlar as to which can tell the greatest lie. The palmer wins by incidentally averring that he never saw a woman out of patience. There are some interesting passages in the interlude. In one place the pardoner asks the pedlar why women take so long to dress in the morning, and the pedlar, punning on the word "let," says,

'Forsooth, women have many lets (hindrances),

And they be masked in many nets,

As front-lets, fil-lets, part-lets, brace-lets,
And then their bon-nets and their poy-nets.
By these lets and nets the let is such

Their speed is small when haste is much."

Heywood's earliest piece (1533) is "A merry play between the Pardoner, the Friar, the Curate, and Neighbor Pratt." It is rough, boisterous and humorous. Another still more comic, is "A merry play between John the husband, Tib the wife, and Sir John the Priest." An anonymous interlude of broad comedy of life and manners, written in 1537, is called "Thersites." It has no historical foundation. Is 1556 Heywood published "The Spider and the Flie," the spider standing for the Protestants and the fly for the Catholics. The interludes were grotesque and jovial, intended as a relief from the moralities, as well as a means of enlivening social occasions. They appear to have also been made use of in the battles of Protestants and Romanists, which were then waging. Heywood was an ardent member of the Romish communion, but the other views were not without their champions.

All that we have thus far observed seems not to have contained even the germ of the drama as it now stands, though it shows clearly the innate love of mimic representations which has ever existed in the human breast. The Mystery, the Miracle and the Morality all sprang from the church. The interlude, like the Masques of a later period, appears to have been a product of court circles. The drama proper arose from the university. Latin was the language of the learned, and many pieces, written in imitation of Terence and Seneca, were performed at the universities, in the inns of courts, and at other places where students were found. This taste sprang up before the accession of Elizabeth, and was a marked feature in her reign and in that of King James. The theatres were at first of the simplest sort, being often merely a stage

erected in the courtyard of some inn, with a curtain hung behind it, the better classes of the audience sitting in the balconies while the commoner listeners occupied benches in the yard itself.

Bishop Bale, author of tracts against Popery, and of "An account of the lives of eminent writers of Great Britain, from Japhet the son of Noah to the year 1557," wrote a new sort of mixed drama, in which he introduced historical characters, in addition to the personifications of abstract qualities of the moralities. One of these was entitled " Kynge Johan." The plays of Bale were intended to further the Protestant cause.

The first English comedy came from the master of Westminster school, Nicholas Udall, and dates from 1551. It is "Ralph Royster Doyster," and the title gives some notion of the character of the production.

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Udall calls it a Comedy or Interlude," and distinctly declares, and with truth, that he avoids "all scurrility," but thinks that

The characters are lively and discriminated, and there is considerable wit and humor in it. In it we see Mathew Merygreeke, a character taken from the "Vice" of the Moralities; Dame Custance, a widow whom Ralph desires to woo; Truepenny, Dame Custance's man; Madge Mumblecrust, her nurse; Goodluck, a merchant, and Dobinet Doughty, his servant; a Scrivener, very useful at a time when reading and writing did not come by nature; and other minor persons. Gawin Goodluck, instead of the swaggering Ralph, wins the widow, Custance, and the play ends with the appointment of the wedding.

About fourteen years later John Still, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, wrote a comedy entitled "Gammer Gurton's Needle." It was a play of low life, or rather of life among the poor, for the play turns upon the loss of the woman's needle with which she had been mending her goodman's trousers. It was a great loss to one in her position, and the search was long. The needle was at last found by the husband himself, who sat down upon it, for it was in the patch on which the gammer had been at work! In this comedy occurs the song, "Jolly good ale and old," of which the following is a stanza, –

"I cannot eat but little meat,

My stomach is not good:

But sure I think that I can drink

With him that wears a hood.*
Though I go bare, take ye no care,
I nothing am a-cold;

I stuff my skin so full within
Of jolly good ale and old.

Back and side go bare, go bare;

Both foot and hand go cold;

But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,

Whether it be new or old!"

This is one sample of the satire aimed at the churchman, always prominent in early English works.

A play in a London Inn Yard in the time of Queen Elizabeth,