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 fhall give titles below.1 Of one, which is not now extant, we have a curious account in a book entitled, Mount Tabor, or Private Exercises 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 fubject.

"UPON A STAGE-PLAY WHICH I SAW WHEN I WAS A CHILD.

"In the city of Gloucefter the manner is, (as I think it is in other like corporations,) that when players of enterludes come to towne, they first attend the Mayor, to enforme him what noblemans 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 Alderman and CommonCounsell of the city; and that is called the Mayor's

1 Magnificence, written by John Skelton; Impatient Poverty, 1560; The Life and Repentance of Marie Magdalene, 1567; The Trial of Treafure, 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 ConScience, 1581; The Three Ladies of London, 1584; The Three Lords of London, 1590; Tom Tyler and his Wife, &c.

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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 faw 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 pleasures, drew him from his graver counfellors, hearing of fermons, and liftening to good councell and admonitions, that in the end they got him to lye down in a cradle upon the ftage, where thefe three ladies joyning in a fweet fong, rocked him afleepe, that he fnorted againe; and in the mean 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 difcovered 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 ftage, two old men; the one in blew, with a ferjeant at armes his mace on his fhoulder; the other in red, with a drawn fword in his hand, and leaning with the other hand upon the others fhoulder; and fo they went along with a soft pace round about by the fkirt of the ftage, till at laft they

2

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

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 vanifhed; and the defolate prince starting up bare-faced, and finding himfelf 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, Covetoufnefs, 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 estate, it was as fresh in my memory, as if I had seen it newly acted."3

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

I am unable to ascertain when the first 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 fplendid;4 and being then firft enlivened by the introduction of fpeaking allegorical perfonages properly and characteristically habited, they naturally led the way to thofe perfonifications by which Moralities were diftinguifhed from the fimpler religious dramas called

3 Mount Tabor, &c. 8vo. 1659. pp. 110, et feq. With this curious extract I was favoured, feveral years ago, by the Rev. Mr. Bowle of Idmifton near Salisbury.

See Warton's History of English Poetry, Vol. II. p. 199.

Myfteries. We must not, however, fuppofe, that, after Moralities were introduced, Myfteries ceafed to be exhibited. We have already feen that a Mystery was reprefented before King Henry the Seventh, at Winchefter, in 1487. Sixteen years afterwards, on the first Sunday after the marriage of his daughter with King James of Scotland, a Morality was performed.5 In the early part of the

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5 Sir James Ware, in his Annales, folio, 1664, after having given an account of the ftatute, 33 Henry VIII. c. i. 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 fports which followed." Epulas, comoedias, 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 MS. 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 fon of O'Bryan, McCarthy More, with many Irish lords; and on Corpus Chrifti day they rode about the streets 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 Myfteries, 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 Sunday, in the year 1552. See Walker's Efay on the Irish 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 Biographia Britannica afferts,) and that he foon afterwards went to his palace in Kilkenny. Thefe Mysteries were exhibited there on the 20th of Auguft, 1553, the day on which Queen Mary was proclaimed, as appears from his own account: "On the xx daye of Auguft was the ladye Marye with us at Kilkennye proclaimed Quene of England, &c.-The yonge men in the forenone played a tragedy

reign of King Henry the Eighth, they were perhaps performed indifcriminately; but Myfteries were probably feldom reprefented after the ftatute

of Gods Promifes in the old Lawe, at the market-croffe, with organe-plainges and fonges, very aptely. In the afternone agayne they played a comedie of Sanct Johan Baptifies preachinges, of Chriftes baptifynge, and of his temptacion in the wilderneile, to the fmall contentacion of the preftes and other papiftes there." The Vocacyon of Johan Bale, 16mo. no date, fign. C 8.

The only theatre in Dublin in the reign of Queen Elizabeth was a booth (if it may be called a theatre) erected in Hoggin Green, now College Green, where Myfteries and Moralities were occafionally performed. It is ftrange, that fo lately as in the year 1600, at a time when many of Shakspeare's plays had been exhibited in England, and Lord Montjoy, the intimate friend of his patrons Lord Effex and Lord Southampton, was Deputy of Ireland, the old play of Gorboduck, written in the infancy of the ftage, (for this piece had been originally prefented in 1562, under the name of Ferrex and Porrex,) thould have been performed at the Castle of Dublin: but fuch is the fact, if we may believe Chetwood the prompter, who mentions that old Mr. Athbury bad feen a bill dated the 7th of September, 1601, (Queen Elizabeth's birth-day,) "for wax tapers for the play of Gorboduck done at the Cafile, one and twenty fhillings and two groats." Whether any plays were represented in Dublin in the reign of James the Firft, I am unable to ascertain. Barnaby Riche, who has given a curious account of Dublin in the year 1610, makes no mention of any theatrical exhibition. In 1635, when Lord Strafford was Lord Lieutenant, a theatre, probably under his patronage, was built in Werbergh Street; which, under the conduct of the well-known John Ogilby, Master of the Revels in Ireland, continued open till October, 1641, when it was thut up by order of the Lords Juftices. At this theatre, Shirley's Royal Mafter was originally reprefented in 1639, and Burnel's Landgartha in 1641. In 1662 Ogilby was reftored to his office, and a new theatre was erected in Orange Street, (fince called Smock Alley,) part of which fell down in the year 1671. Agrippa, King of Alba, a tragedy translated from the French of Quinault, was acted there before the Duke of Ormond, in 1675; and it continued open, I believe, till the death of King Charles the Second. The disturbances which followed in Ireand put an end for a time to all theatrical entertainments.