At length Sem and his brethren put her on board by force, and on Noah's welcoming her, " Welcome, wife, into this boate," the gives him a box on the ear: adding, "Take thou that for thy note." Many licentious pleafantries, as Mr. Warton has obferved, were fometimes introduced in these religious reprefentations. "This might imperceptibly lead the way to fubjects entirely profane, and to comedy; and perhaps earlier than is imagined. In a Mystery of The Maffacre of the Holy Innocents," part of the fubject of a facred drama given by the English fathers at the famous Council of Conftance, in the year 1417, a low buffoon of Herod's court is introduced, defiring of his lord to be dubbed a knight, that he might be properly qualified to go on the adventure of killing the mothers of the children of Bethlehem. This tragical bufinefs is treated with the most ridiculous levity. The good women of Bethlehem attack our knight-errant with their fpinning-wheels, break his head with their diftaffs, abufe him as a coward and a difgrace to chivalry, and fend him to Herod as a recreant champion with much ignominy.It is certain that our ancestors intended no fort of impiety by these monftrous and unnatural mixtures. Neither the writers nor the fpectators faw the impropriety, nor paid a separate attention to the comick and the ferious part of these motley scenes; at least they were perfuaded that the folemnity of the fubject covered or excufed all incongruities. They had no juft idea of decorum, confequently but little fenfe of the ridiculous: 7 It is obvious that the tranfcriber of these ancient Myfteries, which appear to have been written in 1328, reprefents them as they were exhibited at Chester in 1600, and that he has not adhered to the original orthography. MSS. Digby 134. Bibl. Bodl. what appears to us to be the higheft burlefque, on them would have made no fort of impreffion. We must not wonder at this, in an age when courage, devotion, and ignorance, compofed the character of European manners; when the knight going to a tornament, firft invoked his God, then his miftrefs, and afterwards proceeded with a fafe confcience and great refolution to engage his antagonift. In thefe Myfteries I have fometimes feen grofs and open obfcenities. In a play of The Old and New Testament, Adam and Eve are both exhibited on the stage naked,' and converfing about their nakedness; this very pertinently introduces the next scene; in which they have coverings of fig-leaves. This extraordinary fpectacle was beheld by a numerous affembly of both fexes with great compofure: they had the authority of fcripture for fuch a reprefentation, and they gave matters juft as they found them in the third chapter of Genefis. It would have been abfolute herefy to have departed from the facred text in perfonating the primitive appearance of our firft parents, whom the fpectators fo nearly refembled in fimplicity; and if this had not been the cafe, the dramatists were ignorant what to reject and what to retain." "I must not omit," adds Mr. Warton,' " an anecdote entirely new, with regard to the mode of playing the Mysteries at this period, [the latter part of the fifteenth century,] which yet is perhaps of 9 This kind of primitive exhibition was revived in the time of King James the Firit, feveral perfons appearing almoft entirely naked in a paftoral exhibited at Oxford before the King and Queen, and the ladies who attended her. It is, if I recollect right, described by Winwood. * Warton's Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. I. pp. 242, et feq. Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. II. p. 206. much higher antiquity. In the year 1487, while Henry the Seventh kept his refidence at the caftle of Winchefter, on occafion of the birth of prince Arthur, on a Sunday, during the time of dinner, he was entertained with a religious drama called Chrifti Defcenfus ad inferos, or Christ's Defcent into Hell. It was reprefented by the Pueri Eleemofynarii, or choirboys, of Hyde Abbey, and Saint Swithin's Priory, two large monafteries at Winchefter. This is the only proof I have ever feen of choir-boys acting in the old Mysteries: nor do I recollect any other inftance of a royal dinner, even on a feftival, accompanied with this fpecies of diverfion. The story of this interlude, in which the chief characters were Christ, Adam, Eve, Abraham, and John the Baptift, was not uncommon in the ancient religious drama, and I believe made a part of what is called the LUDUS PASCHALIS, or Eafter Play. It occurs in the Coventry Plays acted on Corpus Chrifti day,' 4 Except, that on the firft funday of the magnificent marriage of King James of Scotland with the princess Margaret of England, daughter of Henry the Seventh, celebrated at Edinburgh with high fplendour, after dynnar a MORALITE was played by the faid Mafter Inglyfhe and his companions in the prefence of the kyng and qweene.' On one of the preceding days, after foupper the kynge and qweene beynge togader in hyr grett chamber, John Ingly fh and hys companions plaid." This was in the year 1503. Apud Leland, Coll. iii. p. 300. Append. edit. 1770.' 5 See an account of the Coventry Plays in Stevens's Monafticon, Vol. I. p. 238. "Sir W. Dugdale, fpeaking of the Gray-friars or Francifcans at Coventry, fays, before the fuppreffion of monafteries this city was very famous for the pageants that were played therein upon Corpus-Chrifti day; which pageants being acted with mighty ftate and reverence by the friers of this houfe, had theatres for the feveral fcenes, very large and high, placed upon wheeles, and drawn to all the eminent parts of the city, for the better advantage of the fpectators. An ancient manufcript of the fame is now to be feen in the Cottonian Library, fub. effig. Vefp. D. 8. Sir William cites this manufcript by the title of Ludus Coventriæ; but in the printed catalogue of that library, p. 113, it is named thus: A collection of and in the Whitfun-plays at Chefter, where it is called the HARROWING OF HELL. The reprefentation is, Christ entering hell triumphantly, deliver And plays in old English metre; h. e. Dramata facra, in quibus exhibentur biftorie Veteris & N. Teftamenti, introductis quafi in fcenam perfonis illic memoratis, quas fecum invicem colloquentes pro ingenio fingit poeta. Videntur olim coram populo, five ad inftruendum, five ad placendum, a fratribus mendicantibus repræfentata. It appears by the latter end of the prologue, that these plays or interludes were not only played at Coventry, but in other towns and places upon occafion. poffibly this may be the fame play which Stow tells us was played in the reign of Henry IV. which lafted for eight days. The book feems by the character and language to be at leaft 300 years old. It begins with a general prologue, giving the arguments of forty pageants or gefticulations, (which were as fo many feveral acts or fcenes,) reprefenting all the hiftories of both teftaments, from the creation to the chufing of St. Mathias to be an apoftle. The ftories of the New Teftament are more largely expreffed, viz. The Annunciation, Nativity, Vifitation; but more efpecially all matters relating to the Paffion very particularly, the Refurrection, Afcenfion, the choice of St. Mathias: after which is alfo reprefented the Affumption, and laft Judgement. All these things were treated of in a very homely ftyle, as we now think, infinitely below the dignity of the fubject: But it feems the guit of that age was not nice and delicate in these matters; the plain and incurious judgement of our ancestors, being prepared with favour, and taking every thing by the right and easiest handle: For example, in the fcene relating to the Vifitation: • Maria. But hufband of on thyng pray you moft mekeley, If ought we myth comfort her, it wer to me blys. Than will her husband Zachary be mery. In Montana they dwelle, fer hence, fo mory the, We ar like to be wery or we come at the fame. A little before the refurrection. • Nunc dormient milites, & veniet anima Chrifti de inferno, cum Adam & Eva, Abraham, John Baptist, et aliis. ing our first parents, and the moft facred characters of the old and new teftaments, from the dominion of Satan, and conveying them into paradife. The compofers of the Myfteries did not think the plain and probable events of the new teftament fufficiently marvellous for an audience who wanted only to be furprised. They frequently felected their materials from books which had more of the air of romance. The fubject of the Myfterics just mentioned was borrowed from the Pfeudo-Evangelium, or the fabulous Gospel, afcribed to Nicodemus: a book, which together with the numerous apocryphal narratives, containing infinite innovations of the evangelical history, and forged at Conftantinople by the early writers of the Greek church, gave birth to an endless variety of legends concerning the life of Chrift and his apoftles; and which, in the barbarous ages, was better efteemed Anima Chrifti. Come forth, Adam, and Eve with the, In paradys come forth with me In blyffe for to dwelle. The fende of hell that is yowr foo, He fhall be wrappyd and woundyn in woo: With myrth ever mor to melle. • Adam. I thank the, Lord, of thy grete grace, That now is forgiven my gret trefpace, Now fhall we dwellyn in blyfsful place,' &c. "The laft fcene or pageant, which reprefents the day of Judgement, begins thus: Michael. Surgite, All men aryfe, Venite ad Judicium; For now is fet the High Juftice, And hath affignyd the day of dome; Kepe you redyly to this grett affyfe, Both gret and fmall, all and fum, • And of your anfwer you now advife, • What you shall fay when that yow com," &c. Hiftoria Hiftrionica, 8vo. 1699, pp. 15, 17, 18, 19. |