Mr. Warton has remarked, that " in the time of Chaucer, Plays of Miracles appear to have been the common resort of idle gossips in Lent:

'Therefore made I my visitations

To vigilies and to processions;

To prechings eke, and to thise pilgrimages,

To playes of miracles, and mariages,' &c. 5

"And in Pierce Plowman's Creed, a piece perhaps prior to Chaucer, a friar Minorite mentions these Miracles as not less frequented than market-towns and fairs:

'We haunten no taverns, ne hobelen about,

'At markets and Miracles we meddle us never.

The elegant writer whose words I have just quoted, has given the following ingenious account of the origin of this rude species of dramatick entertainment:

"About the eighth century trade was principally carried on by means of fairs which lasted several days. Charlemagne established many great marts of this sort in France, as did William the Conqueror, and his Norman successors in England. The merchants who frequented these fairs in numerous caravans or companies, employed every art to draw the people together. They were therefore accompanied by jug

of tertium we ought to read sccundum, but the text is undoubtedly right; and by tertium, Fitz-Stephen must have meant Henry, the second son of Henry the Second, who was born in London in 1156-7, and being heir-apparent, after the death of his elder brother William, was crowned king of England in his father's lifetime, on the 15th July, 1170. He was frequently styled Rex Filius, Rex Juvenis, and sometimes he and his father were denominated Reges Angliæ. The young king, who occasionally exercised all the rights and prerogatives of royalty, died in 1182. Had he not been living when Fitz-Stephen wrote, he would probably have added nuper defunctum. Neither Henry II. nor Henry III. were born in London. See the Dissertation above, cited, p. 12.

5 The Wif of Bathes Prologue, v. 6137, Tyrwhitt's edit.

glers, minstrels, and buffoons; who were no less interested in giving their attendance, and exerting all their skill on these occasions. As now but few large towns existed, no publick spectacles or popular amusements were established; and as the sedentary pleasures of domestick life and private society were yet unknown, the fair-time was the season for diversion. In proportion as these shows were attended and encouraged, they began to be set off with new decorations and improvements: and the arts of buffoonery being rendered still more attractive, by extending their circle of exhibition, acquired an importance in the eyes of the people. By degrees the clergy observing that the entertainments of dancing, musick, and mimickry, exhibited at these protracted annual celebrities, made the people less religious, by promoting idleness and a love of festivity, proscribed these sports, and excommunicated the performers. But finding that no regard was paid to their censures, they changed their plan, and determined to take these recreations into their own hands. They turned actors; and instead of profane mummeries, presented stories taken from legends or the Bible. This was the origin of sacred comedy. The death of Saint Catherine, acted by the monks of Saint Dennis, rivalled the popularity of the professed players. Musick was admitted into the churches, which served as theatres for the representation of holy farces. The festivals among the French, called La fete de Foux, de l' Ane, and des Innocens, at length became greater favourites, as they certainly were more capricious and absurd, than the interludes of the buffoons at the fairs. These are the ideas of a judicious French writer now living, who has investigated the history of human manners with great comprehension and sagacity.

"Voltaire's theory on this subject is also very in

genious, and quite new. Religious plays, he sup poses, came originally from Constantinople; where the old Grecian stage continued to flourish in some degree, and the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides were represented, till the fourth century. About that period, Gregory Nazianzen, an Archbishop, a poet, and one of the fathers of the church, banished Pagan plays from the stage at Constantinople, and introduced stories from the Old and New Testament. As the ancient Greek tragedy was a religious spectacle, a transition was made on the same plan; and the chorusses were turned into Christian hymns. Gregory wrote many sacred dramas for this purpose, which have not survived those inimitable compositions over which they triumphed for a time: one, however, his tragedy called Xpioтos Tασxwv, or Christ's Passion, is still extant. In the prologue it is said to be an imitation of Euripides, and that this is the first time the Virgin Mary had been introduced on the stage. The fashion of acting spiritual dramas, in which at first a due degree of method and decorum was preserved, was at length adopted from Constantinople by the Italians; who framed in the depth of the dark ages, on this foundation, that barbarous species of theatrical representation called MYSTERIES, or sacred comedies, and which were soon after received in France. opinion will acquire probability, if we consider the carly commercial intercourse between Italy and Constantinople and although the Italians, at the time

This

6" At Constantinople," as Mr. Warton has elsewhere observed, "it seems that the stage flourished much, under Justinian and Theodora, about the year 540; for in the Basilical codes we have the oath of an actress, μη αναχωρειν της πορνείας. Tom. vii. p. 628, edit. Fabrot, Græco-Lat. The ancient Greek fathers, particularly Saint Chrysostom, are full of declamation against the drama; and complain, that the people heard a comedian with much more pleasure than a preacher of the gospel." Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 244, n.

when they may be supposed to have imported plays of this nature, did not understand the Greek language, yet they could understand, and consequently could imitate, what they saw.

"In defence of Voltaire's hypothesis, it may be further observed, that The feast of Fools, and of the Ass, with other religious farces of that sort, so common in Europe, originated at Constantinople. They were instituted, although perhaps under other names, in the Greek Church, about the year 990, by Theophylact, patriarch of Constantinople, probably with a better design than is imagined by the ecclesiastical annalists; that of weaning the minds of the people from the pagan ceremonies, by the substitution of christian spectacles partaking of the same spirit of licentiousness. To those who are accustomed to contemplate the great picture of human follies, which the unpolished ages of Europe hold up to our view, it will not appear surprising, that the people who were forbidden to read the events of the sacred history in the Bible, in which they were faithfully and beautifully related, should at the same time be permitted to see them represented on the stage, disgraced with the grossest improprieties, corrupted with inventions and additions of the most ridiculous kind, sullied with impurities, and expressed in the language of the lowest farce.

"On the whole, the Mysteries appear to have originated among the ecclesiasticks; and were most probably first acted with any degree of form by the monks. This was certainly the case in the English monasteries". I have already mentioned the play of

7" In some regulations given by Cardinal Wolsey to the monasteries of the Canons regular of St. Austin, in the year 1519, the brothers are forbidden to be lusores aut mimici, players or mimicks. But the prohibition means that the monks should not go abroad to exercise these arts in a secular and mercenary capacity. See Annal. Burtonenses, p. 437."

Saint Catherine, performed at Dunstable Abbey, by the novices in the eleventh century, under the superintendance of Geoffrey a Parisian ecclesiastick: and the exhibition of the Passion by the mendicant friars of Coventry and other places. Instances have been given of the like practice among the French. The only persons who could now read were in the religious societies; and various circumstances, peculiarly arising from their situation, profession, and institution, enabled the monks to be the sole performers of these representations.

"As learning encreased, and was more widely disseminated, from the monasteries, by a natural and easy transition, the practice migrated to schools and universities, which were formed on the monastick plan, and in many respects resembled the ecclesiastical bodies."

Candlemas day, or The Slaughter of the Innocents, written by Ihan Parfre, in 1512, Mary Magdalene, produced in the same year, and The Promises of God, written by John Bale, and printed in 1538, are curious specimens of this early species of drama. But the most ancient as well as most complete collection of this kind is The Chester Mysteries, which were written by Ralph Higden, a monk of the Abbey of Chester, about the year 13281, of which a parti

In 1589, however, an injunction made in the Mexican Council was ratified at Rome, to prohibit all clerks from playing in the Mysteries, even on Corpus Christi day. See History of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 201.

8 Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. ii. pp. 366, et seq. 9 MSS. Digby, 133, Bibl. Bodl.

1 MSS. Harl. 2013, &c. "Exhibited at Chester in the year 1327, at the expence of the different trading companies of that city. The Fall of Lucifer, by the Tanners. The Creation, by the Drapers. The Deluge by the Dyers. Abraham, Melchisedech, and Lot, by the Barbers. Moses, Balak, and Balaam, by the Cappers. The Salutation and Nativity, by the Wrightes.: The Shepherds Feeding their Flocks by Night, by the Painters: