procure him forgiveness. Throughout the piece there is much abuse of the superstitions of popery, and the Devil is made to lament its downfall as the loss of the chief instrument by which he obtained possession of the souls of men. At the end we find the words 'Finis, quod R. Wever', and, perhaps, he was the author of the piece, although he might be only its transcriber. Lusty Juventus is a wearisome performance compared with The Interlude of Youth; but it opens with the following song by the hero, which we afterwards find mentioned in another piece of the same class, and which may be fitly quoted, as an early specimen of a lyrical production, in a drama intended for public representation. 'In a herber grene, aslepe where as I lay, The byrdes sange swete in the middes of the daye : I dreamed fast of myrth and play. In youth is pleasure-in youth is pleasure! 'Methought I walked stil to and fro, And from her company I could not go ; But when I waked, it was not so. In youth is pleasure-in youth is pleasure! "Therfore my hart is surely pyght Of her alone to have a sight, Which is my joy and hartes delyght. In youth is pleasure-in youth is pleasure!' There is little peculiar in any part of the dialogue beyond its heaviness, and Good-council quotes the Scriptures, chapter and verse, in a manner truly edifying, but not very dramatic. The only material variation between Vele's edition and that by Copland is, that in the epilogue to the first, the King, i. e., Edward VI, is prayed for, while in the epilogue to the last, the word 'King' is changed for 'Queen'; but so careless was Cop land, that he did not trouble himself to alter the corresponding rhyme in his copy the lines stand thus:— 'Now let us make oure supplicacions together For ye prosperous estate of our noble and vertuous quene, Which seeketh the glory of God above all other thynge,' etc. Possibly, Copland thought, in the irregular verse of that day, that 'queen' and 'thing' rhymed sufficiently, and the word 'meane' might not occur to him. GENERAL MORAL PLAYS. THE NATURE OF THE FOUR ELEMENTS.-MAGNIFICENCE.THE TRIAL OF TREASURE. THE LONGER THOU LIVEST THE MORE FOOL THOU ART.-LIKE WILL TO LIKE.—THE MARRIAGE OF WIT AND SCIENCE.-ALL FOR MONEY.THREE LADIES OF LONDON.-THREE LORDS AND THREE LADIES OF LONDON.--CONTENTION BETWEEN LIBERALITY AND PRODIGALITY. THE Moral-Plays of a more general nature, and enforcing various lessons for human conduct, printed from the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII to the end of that of Elizabeth, are numerous; but the examination of some of them will be sufficient, as in their material features they often resemble each other. One of the most singular, as well as one of the earliest of these, is an 'interlude of The Nature of the Four Elements',1 1 Dr. Percy attributes it, without citing any authority, to 'John Rastell, brother-in-law of Sir Thomas More,' and if he were not the writer, he was probably the printer of it. The only known copy is in the Garrick collection, and that is imperfect at the end, and it wants sheet D in the middle. The full title is this:-'A new interlude and a mery of the nature of the iiij elements, declarynge many proper poynts of phylosophy naturall, and of dyvers straunge landys, and of dyvers straunge effects and causes: which interlude, if ye hole matter be playde, wyl conteyne the space of an hour and a halfe, but yf ye list ye may leve out muche. of the sad mater, as the messengers pte and some of naturys parte and some of experyens pte, and yet the matter wyl depend convenyently, THE HISTORY OF DRAMATIC POETRY. 237 the whole scheme of which is an endeavour by Nature-naturate and Experience, assisted by Studious Desire, to bring Humanity to a conviction of the necessity of studying philosophy and the sciences. They are opposed in this undertaking by Sensual Appetite, Ignorance, and a Taverner; and this is, perhaps, the first instance, in a Moral-play, of the introduction of a character, the representative of a trade, or occupation, and not of some virtue, vice, or quality: these three argue with Humanity that he should only gratify his passions. The motive of the author is explained in the long prologue (spoken by a 'Messenger'), where he complains of the 'toys and trifles' printed in his time, so that while in English there were scarcely any works of connynge', the most 'pregnant wits' were employed in compiling 'ballads' and 'other matter not worth a mite': he adds, near the close, This phylosophycall work is myxyd With mery conseytis to gyve men comfort, To here this matter.' All that the author on the title-page calls sad matter', is and than it wyll not be paste thre quarters of an hour of length.' This is succeeded by 'the namys of the pleyers', eight in number; and it is added, ‘also yf ye lyst ye may brynge in a dysgysinge.' Dr. Dibdin (Typogr. Ant., iii, 105) inserts it among the works from John Rastell's press, and in a MS. note at the beginning of the copy in the British Museum, it is asserted that it was printed by him in 1519. It is perhaps impossible, until another copy is discovered, to settle with precision the date when it appeared. Ritson (Anc. Songs, new edit. ii, lxxii) calls The Nature of the Four Elements the earliest Morality now extant'; but he must have forgotten, or not been acquainted with, H. Medwall's Interlude of Nature, which was written before the commencement of the sixteenth century, whereas Henry VII is spoken of as dead in The Nature of the Four Elements, so that there was, perhaps, an interval of twenty years between them. serious and dull enough, Nature and Experience lecturing with most tedious learning on points of cosmography. The following is curious, as it relates to the discovery of America, about twenty years before the piece was written; and, as a compliment to Henry VII (then recently dead), he is made the cause of that discovery 'This See is called the great Occyan ; So great it is, that never man That we never harde tell of before this, By wrytynge nor other meanys ; Yet many nowe have ben there. And that contrey is so large of rome, For dyvers maryners have it tryed And also what an honorable thynge, Bothe to the realme and to the kynge, To have had his domynyon extendynge 1 Dr. Dibdin and others have supposed from hence that this interlude was written about 1510, as Columbus discovered the West Indies in 1492; but the author says nothing of Columbus, and does not seem to have known of his existence, attributing the finding of America to Americus Vespucius, who did not sail from Cadiz until 1497: 'But this newe lands founde lately, Ben callyd America, by cause only This would fix the date of writing the piece about the year 1517, two years before it is supposed to have been printed, which seems more probable. |
