The firft fcenical direction is," Et primo in alique fupremo loco, five in nubibus, fi fieri poterat, loquatur DEUS ad Noe, extra archam exiftente cum tota familia fua." Then the ALMIGHTY, after expatiating on the fins of mankind, is made to say: Man that I made I will deftroye, Therefore, Noe, my fervant free, Litill chambers therein thou make, To anoynte yt through all thy mighte, &c. After fome dialogue between Noah, Sem, Ham, Japhet, and their wives, we find the following stagedirection: "Then Noe with all his family fhall make a figne as though the wrought uppon the hippe with divers inftruments, and after that God shall speake to Noe: Noe, take thou thy meanye, And in the fhipp hie that ye be, By live in that thou bring, &c. "Then Noe fhall goe into the arke with all his familye, his wife excepte. The arke must be boarded round round aboute, and uppon the bordes all the beaftes and fowles hereafter rehearsed must be painted, that there wordes maye agree with the pictures." SEM, Sier, here are lions, libardes, in, After all the beafts and fowls have been defcribed, Noah thus addreffes his wife: NOE. Wife, come in, why standes thou there? For fear left that wee drowne. WIFE. Yea, fir, fet up your faile, I wil not oute of this toune; They loved me full well by Chrift: And get thee a newe wife. At length Sem and his brethren put her on board by force, and on Noah's welcoming her, " Welcome, wife, into this boate," he gives him a box on the ear: adding, "Take thou that for thy note 2." Many licentious pleafantries, as Mr. Warton has obferved, were fometimes introduced in thefe religious reprefentations. "This might imperceptibly lead the way to fubjects entirely profane, and to comedy; and perhaps earlier than is imagined. In a Myftery of 2 It is obvious that the tranfcriber of these ancient Myfteries, which appear to have been written in 1328, reprefents them as they were exhibited at Chefter in 1600, and that he has not adhered to the original orthography. the The Maffacre of the Holy Innocents 3, part of the fubject of a facred drama given by the English fathers at the famous Council of Conftance, in the year 1417, a low buffoon of Herod's court is introduced, defiring of his lord to be dubbed a knight, that he might be properly qualified to go on the adventure of killing the mothers of the children of Bethlehem. This tragical business is treated with the most ridiculous levity. The good women of Bethlehem attack our knight-errant with their spinning-wheels, break his head with their diftaffs, abuse him as a coward and a difgrace to chivalry, and fend him to Herod as a recreant champion with much ignominy. It is certain that our ancestors intended no fort of impiety by thefe monftrous and unnatural mixtures. Neither the writers nor the fpectators faw the impropriety, nor paid a feparate attention to the comick and the ferious part of these motley fcenes; at least they were perfuaded that the folemnity of the fubject covered or excufed all incongruities. They had no juft idea of decorum, confequently but little fenfe of the ridiculous: what appears to us to be the highest burlesque, on them would have made no fort of impreffion. We must not wonder at this, in an age when courage, devotion, and ignorance, compofed the character of European manners; when the knight going to a tornament, firft invoked his God, then his mistress, and afterwards proceeded with a safe conscience and great refolution to engage his antagonist. In these Mysteries I have fometimes feen grofs and open obfcenities. In a play of The Old and New Testament Adam and Eve are both exhibited on the flage naked, and converfing about their nakedness; this very pertinently introduces the next scene; in which they have coverings of fig-leaves. This extraordinary fpectacle was beheld by a numerous affembly of both fexes with great compofure they had the authority of fcripture for fuch a 3 Ms. Digby 134. Bibl. Bodl. 4 This kind of primitive exhibition was revived in the time of King James the First, feveral perfons appearing almost entirely naked in one of the Mafks, which was reprefented before him, his queen, and a large affembly of the ladies of the court. It is, if I reccollect right, defcribed by Winwood. reprefentation reprefentation, and they gave matters juft as they found them in the third chapter of Genefis. It would have been abfolute herefy to have departed from the facred text in perfonating the primitive appearance of our first parents, whom the fpectators fo nearly refembled in fimplicity; and if this had not been the cafe, the dramatifts were ignorant what to reject and what to retains." "I must not omit," adds Mr. Warton", "an anecdote entirely new, with regard to the mode of playing the Myfteries at this period, [the latter part of the fifteenth century,] which yet is perhaps of much higher antiquity. In the year 1487, while Henry the feventh kept his refidence at the caftle of Winchester, on occafion of the birth of prince Arthur, on a Sunday,during the time of dinner, he was entertained with a religious drama called Chrifti Defcenfus ad inferos, or Chrift's defcent into Hell. It was reprefented by the Pueri Eleemofynarii, or choir-boys, of Hyde Abbey, and Saint Swithin's priory, two large monafteries at Winchester. This is the only proof I have ever feen of choir-boys acting in the old Myfteries: nor do I recollect any other instance of a royal dinner, even on a feftival, accompanied with this fpecies of diverfion 7. The ftory of this interlude, in which the chief characters were Christ, Adam, Eve, Abraham, and John the Baptift, was not uncommon in the ancient religious drama, and I believe made a part of what is called the LUDUS PASCHALIS, or Eafter Play. It occurs in the Coventry Plays acted on Corpus Chrifti day, and in the Whitfun 5 Warton's HIST. OF ENGLISH POETRY. I. pp. 242, et seq. HIST. OF E. P. II. p. 206. 7 "Except,that on the first funday of the magnificent marriage of king James of Scotland with the princess Margaret of England, daughter of Henry the feventh, celebrated at Edinburgh with high fplendour, "after dynnar a MORALITE was played by the faid Master Inglyfhe and hys companions in the prefence of the kyng and qweene." On one of the preceding days, after foupper the kynge and qweene beynge togader in hyr grett chamber, John Inglyfh and hys companions plaid." This was in the year 1503. Apud Leland, coll. iii. p. 300. Append. edit. 1770." * See an account of the Coventry Plays in Stevens's Monafticon, gol. 1. p. 238. Sir W. Dugdale, fpeaking of the Gray-friars or Francifcans Whitfun-plays at Chefter, where it is called the HAR ROWING OF HELL. The reprefentation is, Chrift entering hell triumphantly, delivering our first parents, and Francifcans at Coventry, fays, before the fuppreffion of monafteries this city was very famous for the pageants that were played therein upon Corpus-Chrifti day; which pageants being acted with mighty ftate and reverence by the friers of this houfe, had theatres for the feveral fcenes, very large and high, placed upon wheeles, and drawn to all the eminent parts of the city, for the better advantage of the fpectators. An ancient manufcript of the fame is now to be seen in the Cottonian Library, fub. etfig. Vefp. D. 8. Sir William cites this manufcript by the title of Ludus Coventriæ; but in the printed catalogue of that library, p. 113, it is named thus: A collection of plays in old English metre; h. e. Dramata facra, in quibus exhibentur biftoria Veteris & N. Tefiamenti, introduétis quafi in fcenam perfonis illic memoratis, quas fecum invicem colloquentes pro ingenio fingit poetas Videntur olim coram populo, five ad inftruendum, five ad placendum, a fratribus mendicantibus repræfentata. It appears by the latter end of the prologue, that thefe plays or interludes were not only played at Coventry, but in other towns and places upon occafion. And poffibly this may be the fame play which Stow tells us was played in the reign of King Henry IV. which lafted for eight days. The book seems by the character and language to be at least 300 years old. It begins with a general prologue, giving the arguments of forty pageants or gefticulations, (which were as fo many feveral acts or scenes,) reprefenting all the hiftories of both teftaments, from the creation to the chufing of St. Matbias to be an apoftle. The ftories of the New Teftament are more largely expreffed, viz. The Annunciation, Nativity, Vifitation; but more especially all matters relating to the Paffion very particularly, the Refurrection, Afcenfion, the choice of St. Mathias: after which is alfo reprefented the Affumption, and laft Judgment. All these things were treated of in a very homely ftile, as we now think, infinitely below the dignity of the subject: But it feems the guft of that age was not nice and delicate in these matters; the plain and incurious judgment of our ancestors, being prepared with favour, and taking every thing by the right and easiest handle : For example, in the scene relating to the Vifitation: Maria. 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