"Ones y me ordayned, as y have ofte doon,

With frendes, and felawes, frendemen, and other;
And caught me in a company on Corpus Christi even,
Six, other seven myle, oute of Suthampton,
To take melodye, and mirthes, among my makes;
With redyng of romaunces, and revelyng among,
The dym of the darknesse drowe into the west,
And began for to spryng in the grey day."*

Perhaps the inquiring youth from Stratford would meet with some old Coventry
man, who would describe the pageants as they were acted by the Grey Friars
before the dissolution of their religious house. The old man would tell him
how these pageants, "acted with mighty state and reverence by the friars of
this house, had theatres for the several scenes, very large and high, placed upon
wheels, and drawn to all the eminent parts of the city for the better advantage
of spectators; and contained the story of the New Testament composed into old
English rhyme, as appeareth by an ancient manuscript, entitled Ludus Corporis
Christi, or Ludus Coventriæ." That ancient man, who might have been a
friar himself, but felt it not safe to proclaim his vocation, might describe how
Henry V. and his nobles took great delight in seeing the pageants; how Queen
Margaret in the days of her prosperity came from Kenilworth to Coventry
privily to see the play, and saw all the pageants played save one, which could
not be played because night drew on; how the triumphant Richard III. came
to see the Corpus Christi plays; and how Henry VII. much commended them.‡
He could recite lines from these Corpus Christi plays with a reverential solem-
nity; lines that for the most part sounded rude in the ear of that youth, but
which, nevertheless, had a vigorous simplicity, fit for the teaching of an unin-
structed people. He would tell how in the play of The Creation' the pride
of Lucifer disdained the worship of the angels, and how he was cast down-
"With mirth and joy never more to mell."

How in the play of The Fall,' Eve sang

"In this garden I will go see

All the flowers of fair beauty,

And tasten the fruits of great plenty

That be in Paradise;"

and how the first pair lost that garden, and went forth into the land to labour. He could repeat, too, a hymn of Abel, very sweet in its music:

Moreover, in the play of Noah,' when the dove returned to the ark with the

* See Percy's 'Reliques:' On the Alliterative Metre. We give the lines as corrected in Sharp's 'Coventry Mysteries."

† Dugdale.

See Sharp's quotations from the manuscript Annals of Coventry, Dissertation,' page 4.

olive-branch, there was a joyful chorus, such as now could never be heard in the streets of Coventry :—

"Mare vidit et fugit,

Much more would he

but time would not.

Jordanis conversus est retrorsum.

Non nobis, Domine, non nobis,

Sed nomini tuo da gloriam."

have told of those ancient plays, forty-three in number, He defended the objects for which they were instituted: the general spread of knowledge might have brought other teaching, but they familiarized the people with the great scriptural truths; they gave them amusements of a higher nature than military games, and contentions of mere brute force. They might be improved, and something like the drama of Greece and Rome might be founded upon them. But now the same class of subjects were to be handled by rude artificers, who would make them ridiculous. There was much truth in what the old man said; and the youth of Stratford would go thoughtfully to rest.

The morning of Corpus Christi comes, and soon after sunrise there is stir in the streets of Coventry. The old ordinances for this solemnity require that the Guilds should be at their posts at five o'clock. There is to be a solemn procession-formerly, indeed, after the performance of the pageant-and then, with hundreds of torches burning around the figures of our Lady and St. John, candlesticks and chalices of silver, banners of velvet and canopies of silk, and the members of the Trinity Guild and the Corpus Christi Guild bearing their crucifixes and candlesticks, with personations of the angel Gabriel lifting up the lily, the twelve apostles, and renowned virgins, especially St. Catherine and St. Margaret. The Reformation has, of course, destroyed much of this ceremonial; and, indeed, the spirit of it has in great part evaporated. But now, issuing from the many ways that lead to the Cross, there is heard the melody of harpers and the voice of minstrelsy; trumpets sound, banners wave, riding-men come thick from their several halls; the mayor and aldermen in their robes, the city servants in proper liveries, St. George and the Dragon, and Herod on horseback. The bells ring, boughs are strewed in the streets, tapestry is hung out of the windows, officers in scarlet coats struggle in the crowd while the procession is marshalling. The crafts are getting into their ancient order, each craft with its streamer and its men in harness. There are "Fysshers and Cokes,-Baxters and Milners,-Bochers,-Whittawers and Glovers,-Pynners, Tylers, and Wrightes, Skynners,- Barkers, -Corvysers, -Smythes,-Wevers,- Wirdrawers, Cardemakers, Sadelers, Peyntours, and Masons,-Gurdelers,—Taylours, Walkers, and Sherman,-Deysters,-Drapers,-Mercers." At length the procession is arranged. It parades through the principal lines of the city, from Bishopgate on the north to the Grey Friars' Gate on the south, and from Broadgate on the west to Gosford Gate on the east. The crowd is thronging to the wide area on the north of Trinity Church and St. Michael's, for there is

* See the Ludus Coventriæ,' published by the Shakespeare Society.

+ Sharp's Dissertation,' page 160.

the pageant to be first performed. There was a high house or carriage which stood upon six wheels; it was divided into two rooms, one above the other. In the lower room were the performers; the upper was the stage. This ponderous vehicle was painted and gilt, surmounted with burnished vanes and streamers, and decorated with imagery; it was hung round with curtains, and a painted cloth presented a picture of the subject that was to be performed. This simple stage had its machinery, too; it was fitted for the representation of an earthquake or a storm; and the pageant in most cases was concluded in the noise and flame of fireworks. It is the pageant of the company of Shearmen and Tailors which is now to be performed, -the subject the Birth of Christ and Offering of the Magi, with the Flight into Egypt and Murder of the Innocents. The eager multitudes are permitted to crowd within a reasonable distance of the car. There is a moveable scaffold erected for the more distinguished spec

tators.

The men of the Guilds sit firm on their horses. Amidst the sound of harp and trumpet the curtains are withdrawn, and Isaiah appears, prophesying the blessing which is to come upon the earth. Gabriel announces to Mary the embassage upon which he is sent from Heaven. Then a dialogue between Mary and Joseph, and the scene changes to the field where shepherds are abiding in the darkness of the night-a night so dark that they know not where their sheep may be; they are cold and in great heaviness. Then the star shines, and they hear the song of " Gloria in excelsis Deo." A soft melody of concealed music hushes even the whispers of the Coventry audience; and three songs are sung, such as may abide in the remembrance of the people, and be repeated by them at their Christmas festivals. "The first the shepherds sing:"

O sisters two, how may we do

For to preserve

this day

This poor youngling, for whom we do sing
By, by, lully, lullay?

Herod the king, in his raging,

Charged he hath this day

His men of might, in his own sight,

All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor child, for thee,

And ever mourn and say,

For thy parting neither say nor sing
By, by, lully, lullay."

The shepherds again take up the song:

"Down from heaven, from heaven so high,

Of angels there came a great company,
With mirth, and joy, and great solemnity:
They sang terly, terlow:

So merrily the shepherds their pipes can blow."

The simple melody of these songs has come down to us; they are part songs, each having the treble, the tenor, and the bass. The star conducts the shepherds to the "crib of poor repast," where the child lies; and, with a simplicity which

*Enders night-last night.

This very curious Pageant, essentially different from the same portion of Scripture-history in the Ludus Coventria,' is printed entire in Mr. Sharp's Dissertation,' as well as the score of these songs.

is highly characteristic, one presents the child his pipe, the second his hat, and the third his mittens. Prophets now come, who declare in lengthened rhyme the wonder and the blessing:

"Neither in halls nor yet in bowers

Born would he not be,

Neither in castles nor yet in towers
That seemly were to see."

The messenger of Herod succeeds; and very curious it is, and characteristic of a period when the king's laws were delivered in the language of the Conqueror, that he speaks in French. This circumstance would carry back the date of the play to the reign of Edward III., though the language is occasionally modernized. We have then the three kings with their gifts. They are brought before Herod, who treats them courteously, but is inexorable in his cruel decree. Herod rages in the streets; but the flight into Egypt takes place, and then the massacre. The address of the women to the pitiless soldiers, imploring, defying, is not the least curious part of the performance; for example

"Sir knightes, of your courtesy,

This day shame not your chivalry,
But on my child have pity,"

is the mild address of one mother.

Another raves—

"He that slays my child in sight,

If that my strokes on him may light,
Be he squire or knight,

I hold him but lost."

The fury of a third is more excessive:—

"Sit he never so high in saddle,

But I shall make his brains addle,
And here with my pot ladle
With him will I fight."

We have little doubt that he who described the horrors of a siege,

"Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus'd

Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen,"*-

had heard the howlings of the women in the Coventry pageant. And so "fynes lude de taylars and scharmen."

The pageants thus performed by the Guilds of Coventry were of various subjects, but all scriptural. The Smiths' pageant was the Crucifixion; and most curious are their accounts, from 1449 till the time of which we are speaking, expenses of helmets for Herod and cloaks for Pilate; of tabards for Caiaphas

for

* Henry V., Act III., Scene 1.