Cambridgeshire, which is an accompt of the expences and receptions for acting the play of SAINT GEORGE at Baffingborne, on the feaft of faint Margaret, in the year 1511. They collected upwards of four pounds in twenty-feven neighbouring parishes for furnishing the play. They difburfed about two pounds in the reprefentation. Thefe disbursements are to four minstrels, or waits, of Cambridge, for three days, vs. vjd. To the players, in bread and ale, iijs. ijd. To the garnement-man for garnements and propyrts, that is, for dreffes, decorations, and implements, and for play-books, xxs. To John Hobard, brotherhoode preefte, that is, a priest of the guild in the church, for the play-book, ijs. viiid. For the crofte, or field in which the play was exhibited, js. For propyrte-making, or furniture, js. ivd. For fith and bread, and to fetting up the ftages, ivd, For painting three fanchoms and four tormentors, words which I do not understand, but perhaps fantoms and devils ----. The rest was expended for a feast on the occafion, in which are recited Four chicken for the gentilmen, ivd.' It appears by the manufcript of the Coventry plays,that a temporary scaffold only was erected for thefe performances ❝."

5 The property-room," as Mr. Warton has obferved," is yet known at our theatres."

The following lift of the properties ufed in a Mystery formed on the ftory of Tobit in the Old Teftament, which was exhibited in the Broadgate, Lincoln, in July 1563, (6 Eliz.) appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1787:

"Lying at Mr. Norton's boufe in tenure of William Smart. "First Hell-mouth, with a nether chap. Item, A prifon, with a Govering. It. Sarah's chamber."

"Remaining in St. Swithin's church.

"It. A great Idol. It. A tomb with a covering. It. The cyty of Jerufalem with towers and pinacles. It. The cyty of Rages, with towers and pinacles. It. The city of Nineveh. It. The kings palace of Nineveh. It. Old Tobyes houfe. It. The kyngs palace at Laches. It. A firmament with a firey cloud, and a double cloud, in the cuftody of Thomas Fulbeck, Alderman."

6 HIST. OF E. P. Vol. III. p. 326. "Strype, under the year 1559, fays, that after a grand feaft at Guildhall," the fame day was a fcaffold fet up in the hall for a play." Ann. Ref. I. 197, edit. 1725.

In the ancient religious plays the Devil was very frequently introduced. He was ufually reprefented with horns, a very wide mouth, (by means of a mask) staring eyes, a large nofe, a red beard, cloven feet, and a tail. His conftant attendant was the Vice, (the buffoon of the piece,) whofe principal employment it was to belabour the Devil with his wooden dagger, and to make him roar, for the entertainment of the populace 7.

As the Myfteries or Miracle-plays "frequently required the introduction of allegorical characters, fuch as Charity, Sin, Death, Hope, Faith, or the like, and as the common poetry of the times, efpecially among the French, began to deal much in allegory, at length plays were formed entirely confifting of fuch perfonifications. These were called MORALITIES. The Miracle-plays or MYSTERIES were totally deftitute of invention and plan: they tamely reprefented ftories, according to the letter of the fcripture, or the refpective legend. But the MORALITIES indicate dawnings of the dramatick art: they contain fome rudiments of a plot, and even attempt to delineate characters, and to paint manners. From hence the gradual tranfition to real historical perfonages was natural and obvious"."

Dr. Percy in his account of the English Stage has given an Analyfis of two ancient Moralities, entitled Every Man, and Lufty Juventus, from which a perfect notion of this kind of drama may be obtained. Every Man was written in the reign of king Henry the Eighth, and Lufty Juventus in that of king Edward the Sixth. As Dr. Percy's curious and valuable collection of ancient English Poetry is in the hands of every fcholar, I fhall content myself with merely referring to it. Many other Moralities are yet extant, of fome of which I

"It was a pretty part in the old church-playes," fays Bishop Harfenet, "when the nimble Vice would fkip up nimbly like a Jacke-anapes into the Devil's necke, and ride the devil a courfe, and belabour him with his wooden dagger, till he made him roar, whereat the people would laugh to fee the Devil fo Vice-haunted." Harfenet's Declaration of Popish Impostures, &c. 4to. 1603.

8 Warton's HIST. OF E. P. I. p. 242. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Vol. I. p. 128.

fhall

fhall give the titles below. Of one, which is not now extant, we have a curious account in a book entitled "Mount Tabor, or Private Exercifes of a Penitent Sinner, by R. W. [R. Willis.] Efqr. published in the year of his age 75, Anno Domini, 1639;' an extract from which will give the reader a more accurate notion of the old Moralities than a long differtation on the subject.

"UPON A STAGE-PLAY WHICH I SAW WHEN

I WAS A CHILD.

"In the city of Gloucester the manner is, (as I think it is in other like corporations,) that when players of enterludes come to towne, they firft attend the Mayor, to enforme him what noble-mans fervants they are, and fo to get licence for their publike playing; and if the Mayor like the actors, or would fhew refpect to their lord and mafter, he appoints them to play their first play before himself and the Aldermen and CommonCounfell of the city; and that is called the Mayors play: where every one that will, comes in without money, the Mayor giving the players a reward as hee thinks fit to fhew refpect unto them. At fuch a play, my father tooke me with him, and made me ftand between his leggs, as he fate upon one of the benches, where we saw and heard very well. The play was called The Cradle of Security, wherein was perfonated a king or fome great prince, with his courtiers of feveral kinds, among which three ladies were in fpecial grace with him; and they keeping him in delights and pleafures, drew him from his graver counfellors, hearing of fermons, and

9 Magnificence, written by John Skelton; Impatient Poverty, 1560; The Life and Repentance of Marie Magdalene, 1567; The Trial of Treasure, 1567; The Nice Wanton, 1568; The Difobedient Child, no date; The Marriage of Wit and Science, 1570; The Interlude of Youth, no date; The longer thou liveft, the more Fool thou art, no date; The Interlude of Wealth and Health, no date; All for Money, 1578; The Conflict of Confcience, 1581; The three Ladies of London, 1584; The tbree Lords of London, 1590; Tom Tyler and bis Wife, &c.

1 The Cradle of Securitie is mentioned with feveral other Moralities, in a play which has not been printed, entitled Sir Thomas More, Ms. Harl. 3768.

C 3

liftening

listening to good councell and admonitions, that in the end they got him to lye down in a cradle upon the ftage, where these three ladies, joyning in a sweet song, rocked him afleepe, that he fnorted againe; and in the meane time clofely conveyed under the cloaths wherewithall he was covered, a vizard, like a fwines fnout, upon his face, with three wire chains faftened thereunto, the other end whereof being holden feverally by those three ladies; who fall to finging againe, and then discovered his face, that the fpectators might fee how they had transformed him, going on with their finging. Whilft all this was acting, there came forth of another doore at the fartheft end of the stage, two old men ; the one in blew, with a ferjeant at armes his mace on his shoulder; the other in red, with a drawn fword in his hand, and leaning with the other hand upon the others fhoulder; and fo they two went along with a foft pace round about by the fkirt of the ftage, till at last they came to the cradle, when all the court was in the greatest jollity; and then the foremost old man with his mace ftroke a fearfull blow upon the cradle; wherewith all the courtiers, with the three ladies, and the vizard, all vanished; and the defolate prince starting up bare-faced, and finding himself thus fent for to judgement, made a lamentable complaint of his miferable cafe, and fo was carried away by wicked fpirits. This prince did perfonate in the Morall, the wicked of the world; the three ladies, Pride, Covetousness, and Luxury; the two old men, the end of the world, and the last judgement. This fight took fuch impreffion in me, that when I came towards mans eftate, it was as fresh in my memory, as if I had feen it newly acted."

The writer of this book appears to have been born in the fame year with our great poet (1564). Suppofing him to have been seven or eight years old when he faw this interlude, the exhibition must have been in 1571 or 1572.

2 Mount Tabor, &c. 8vo. 1639, pp. 110, et feq. With this curious extract I was favoured, feveral years ago, by the Rev. Mr. Bowle of Idmifton near Salisbury.

I am unable to afcertain when the firft Morality appeared, but incline to think not fooner than the reign of king Edward the Fourth (1460). The publick pageants of the reign of king Henry the Sixth were uncommonly fplendid3; and being then firft enlivened by the introduction of fpeaking allegorical perfonages properly and characteristically habited, they naturally led the way to those personifications by which Moralities were diftinguished from the fimpler religious dramas called Myfteries. We must not however suppose, that, after Moralities were introduced, Mysteries ceafed to be exhibited. We have already feen that a Myftery was reprefented before king Henry the Seventh at Winchester in 1487. Sixteen years afterwards, on the first Sunday after the marriage of his daughter with king James of Scotland, a Morality was performed. In the early part of the reign of king Henry the

3 See Warton's HIST. OF E. P. Vol. H. p. 199.

4 Sir James Ware in his Annales, folio, 1664, after having given an account of the Statute, 33 Henry VIII. c. 1. by which Henry was declared king of Ireland, and Ireland made a kingdom, informs us, that the new law was proclaimed in St. Patrick's church, in the prefence of the Lord Deputy St. Leger, and a great number of peers, who attended in their parliament robes. "It is needlefs," (he adds,) "to -mention the feafts, comedies, and sports, which followed." Epulas, comedias, et certamina ludicra, quæ fequebantur, quid attinet dicere?" The mention of comedies might lead us to fuppofe that our fifter kingdom had gone before us in the cultivation of the drama; but I find from a MI. in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, that what are here called comedies, were nothing more than pageants. "In the parliament of 1541," (fays the author of the memoir,)" wherein Henry VIII. was declared king of Ireland, there were prefent the earls of Ormond and Defmond, the lord Barry, M'Gilla Phædrig, chieftaine of Offory, the son of O'Bryan, M'Carthy More, with many Irish lords; and on Corpus Chrifti day they rode about the ftreets in their parliament-robes, and the NINE WORTHIES Was played, and the Mayor bore the mace before the deputy on horfeback."

Two of Bale's Mysteries, God's Promifes, and St. John Baptift, we have been lately told, were acted by young men at the market-crofs in Kilkenny, on a funday, in the year 1552. See Walker's Efay on the Irife Stage, 4to. 1789, and Collect. de Rebus Hiber. Vol. II. p. 388: but there is a flight error in the date. Bale has himself informed us, that he was confecrated Bishop of Offory, February 2, 1552-3, (not on the 25th of March, as the writer of Bale's Life in Biograpbia Britannica afferts,) and that he foon afterwards went to his palace in Kil