SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS. The chief action of the fifteenth pageant of the Widkirk collection, called Magnus Herodes, is the slaughter of Widkirk the innocents; but it is introduced by some singular Plays. matter. A Messenger, in the outset, gives the following enumeration of the kingdoms that own the sway of Herod : 'Tuskane and Turky, all Inde and Italy, From Paradise to Padwa, to Mount Flascon, Can no tong tell: from heven unto hell ; Bot his cosyn Mahowne.' Herod entering commands silence, on pain that he will cleave all who make a noise 'small as flesh to pot'. He is in a fury when he learns that the three kings have escaped, and asks his council what they find in ‘Vyrgyll, in Homere,1 and all other thing, but legende', as well as in 'poetes taylys', regarding the birth of Christ. The moment he hears of the prophecy of Isaiah, his rage is exasperated, and he swears by 'coks dere bonys', that his council are 'thefys and dottypols'. Being at a loss, nevertheless, how to act, he again appeals to them for advice, and is so pleased with the recommendation of the slaughter of all male infants, that he promises to make Pope the councillor who gives it : 1 This early mention of Homer may seem remarkable. 'If I lyf in land Good lyfe, as I hope, This dare I the warand To make the Pope.'1 He instantly dispatches his knights, and they as quickly execute his orders: three children are slain, after a conflict with three mothers, and the knights having reported the execution they have done, Herod promises, 'Now by mighty Mahowne, That is good of renowne, And wed at his wyll:' or, if they like it better, a pecuniary reward of one hundred thousand pounds each. The knights, very ungallantly, seem to prefer the latter, and Herod ends the piece with a speech in his usual strain, concluding with these two lines. 'Bot adew to the Devyll, I can no more French.' Yet no part of his address is in that language now, though it probably had been so formerly. The title of the Chester play on this subject, is De OcciChester sione Innocentum, and in the commencement of it, Plays. Herod vows vengeance against that 'mysbegotten marmosett', Christ. He then sends a messenger into 'Judy' to summon his knights, and 'Sir Grymbald and Sir Launcler' 1 The word 'Pope' has been erased in the MS., but that circumstance and the rhyme show how it stood originally. Among Thomas Cromwell's papers, in the Chapter-house, Westminster, is an order 'to put out of all service bokes this word Papa'. It was subsequently erased from many other existing manuscripts. 2 Ilkon is each one. arrive: when charged to kill 'all knave children' they hesitate until they receive a fresh and more imperative command. One of the knights then replies : 'And I also, without bost, Though the Kinge of Scots, and all his host Were here, I set not by their best To dryve them downe by deene." They proceed to their work, and among others, by accident, kill Herod's own son.2 After their return, Herod is taken suddenly ill, dies, and the devil carries him away. The conclusion of the pageant is the return of Mary and Joseph to the scene. In the Coventry plays relating to the same events, the knights, after having killed all the male infants, sit Coventry down to a banquet with Herod; and here we have a Plays. personification of Death, 'nakyd and of poor aray', who states that he is 'god's mesangere', and that he comes to slay Herod the following is part of his speech: 'I am sent fro god, Deth is my name : All thynge that is on grownd I welde at my wylle; Whan that I come them to with deth I do them kylle : Ya, the grete myghty okys with my dent I spylle.' The introduction of this character seems one of the compara This passage is in Harl. MS. No. 2124 only. 2 This incident is also found in the French Mistère de la Conception, etc., Paris, 1486. The nurse exclaims, 'Ha, faulx murdriers! qu'avez vouz fait? Occis avez villainement Le fils d'Herode proprement!' See also Mr. Markland's note upon this portion of the Chester play in Malone's Shakespeare by Boswell, iii, 542. tively modern interpolations, and the whole of his speech indicates a considerable improvement in poetical thought and expression. This portion is, probably, not older than the reign of Henry VI, or Edward IV. While Herod is rejoicing in the slaughter, and swearing 'by Mahound', and his two knights 'by Sathanas our sire', Death strikes them, and Diabolus recipiat eos. The devil exclaims: 'All oure! all oure! this catel is myne! I shall hem brynge onto my celle : I shall hem teche pleys fyne, 2 And showe suche myrthe as is in helle,' etc.2 The purification, which in the Widkirk and Chester plays follows the slaughter of the innocents, in the Ludus Coventriæ 1 Mr. Sharp (Dissertation on the Coventry Mysteries, 53) mentions the Mother of Death as one of the characters in the Cappers pageant, but Death himself does not appear in any of the entries. When Mr. Sharpe illustrates the item by reference to Death in the Moral of Every Man, he omits to notice that he forms an important character in the pageant before us. He also figures, as will be seen hereafter, in the MS. Morals once in the possession of Dr. Cox Macro, and formerly in the library of the late Mr. Hudson Gurney, which, we apprehend, were written about the date when the interpolation in the Coventry Miracleplay under review was inserted. 2 The piece called Childemas Day, printed in Hawkins's Origin of the English Drama, has more marks of antiquity about it, in some respects, than the Coventry pageant on the slaughter of the innocents. It is, perhaps, the very same piece played by the English fathers at Constance, in 1417, mentioned by Warton, Hist. Eng. Poet., ii, 75. It is clearly much older than the date when the copy in the Bodleian Library (MSS., Digby, 133) was made in 1512. The death of Herod is managed as inartificially as in the Chester play, but the Devil does not fly away with him. In Le Mistère de la Nativité, Passion, etc., Joué a Paris, 1507, the death of Herod is very singularly brought about: Satan and Astaroth are present, but invisible, when Herod, who is paring an apple, receives precedes it. In the two former it also includes the dispute between Christ and the Doctors in the temple, which forms a separate pageant (No. 21) in the Coventry series. CHRIST'S BAPTISM AND TEMPTATION.—THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY, ETC. The seventeenth pageant of the Widkirk Collection is the baptism of the Saviour by St. John: and it affords Widkirk proof that this series of plays was represented after Plays. the Reformation, for a passage, formerly repeated, relating to and enforcing the seven Roman Catholic sacraments, is crossed out with red ink, and the number of those sacraments is carefully erased. In the margin, in a handwriting of perhaps the reign of Edward VI, are inserted the words 'corrected and not played'. The lines cancelled are the following: 'Here I the anoynt also with oyle and creme, in this intent, That men may wit where so thay go, this is a worthy sacrament. There are othere and no mo, the which thy self to teche was sent, And in true tokyn oone of tho, the fyrst, on thee now is spent." unlooked-for tidings of the escape of Jesus Christ. Satan then tempts him to commit suicide, 'Mechant homme, fiers en ton ventre Le cousteau, sant tant endurer', etc. Herod takes his advice, and after a few blasphemous lines, stabs himself. The devils seize his soul, and Lucifer orders it to be plunged in molten lead: it is added icy font les diables tempeste. 1 In the twenty-fourth pageant of the Towneley series the following lines, supporting the doctrine of transubstantiation, from the mouth of the Saviour on the cross, are also cancelled for the same reason. 'That ilk veray brede of lyfe Becomys my fleshe in words fyfe : |