as may be feen from the following paffage in an old French history, intitled, La Chronique de Metz composée par le curé de St. Euchaire; which will give the reader no bad idea of the furprizing abfurdity of thefe ftrange reprefentations. L'an 1437 le 3 Juillet (fays the boneft chronicler) fut fait le Jeu de la paffion de N. S. en la plaine de veximiel. Et fut dieu un fire appellé feigneur Nicolle Dom Neufchaftel, lequel toit Curé de St. Victour de Metz, lequel fut prefque mort en la Croix, s'il ne fût eté secourus; & convient qu'un autre Prêtre fut mis en la Croix pour porfaire le personnage du crucifiment pour ce jour; & le lendemain le dit curé de St. Victour parfit la refurrection, et fit très hautement fon perfonage; & dura le dit jeu― Et autre prêtre qui s' appelloit mre. Jean de Nicey, qui eftoit chaplain de Metrange, fut Judas; lequel fut prefque mort en pendant, car le cuer, li faillit, & fut bien hâtivement dependu & porté en voye. Et etoit la bouche d'enfer tres-bien faite; car elle ouvroit & clooit, quand les diables y vouloient entrer et iffer; & avoit deux grofs Culs d'Acier, &c." Alluding to this kind of representations archbishop Harfnet, in his declaration of popish impoftures, p. 71. fays, The little children were never fo afraid of Hell-mouth in the old plays, painted with great gang teeth, ftaring eyes, and foul bottle nofe.' Carew in his furvey of Cornwall, gives a fuller defcription of them in thefe words, The guary miracle, in English a miracle-play, is a kind of interlude compiled in cornish out of fome fcripture-history. For reprefenting it, they raise an earthen amphitheatre in fome open field, having the diameter of an inclofed playne, fome 40 or 50 feet. The country people flock from all fides many miles off, to hear and fee it. For they have therein devils and devices, to delight as well the eye as the ear. The players conne not their parts without book, but are prompted by one called the ordinary, who followeth at their back with the book in his hand, &c. &c. There was always a droll or buffoon in thefe myfteries, to make the people mirth with his fufferings or abfurdities: and they could think of no better a perfonage to sustain this part than the devil himself. Even in the mystery of the paffion mentioned above, it was contrived to make him ridicu lous. Which circumftance is hinted at by Shakespeare (whe has frequent allufions to these things) in the Taming of the Shrew, where one of the players asks for a little vinegar (as a property) to make their devil roar. For after the fpunge with the gall and vinegar had been employed in the reprefentation, they used to clap it to the nofe of the devil; which making him roar, as if it had been holy-water, afforded infinite diverfion to the people. So that vinegar in the old farces, was always afterwards in ufe to torment their devil. We have divers old English proverbs, in which the devil is represented as acting or fuffering ridiculously and abfurdly, which all arofe from the part he bore in thefe myfteries, as in that, for inftance, of Great cry and little wool, as the devil faid when he feared his bogs. For the fheep fhearing of Nabal being reprefented in the mystery of David and Abigail, and the devil always attending Nabal, was made to imitate it by fhearing a bog. This kind of abfurdity, as it is the propereft to create laughter, was the fubject of the ridiculous, in the ancient Mimes, as we learn from these words of St. Auftin: Ne faciamus ut mimi folent, et optemus à libero aquam, à lymphis vinum*. Thefe myfteries, we fee, were given in France at first, as well as in England, fub dio, and only in the Provinces. Afterwards we find them got into Paris, and a company established in the Hôtel de Bourgogne to reprefent them. But good letters and religion beginning to make their way in the latter end of the reign of Francis the firft, the stupidity and prophaneness of the myfteries made the courtiers and clergy join their intereft for their fuppreffion. Accordingly, in the year 1541, the procureur-general, in the name of the king, prefented a request against the company to the parliament. The three principal branches of his charge against them were, that the reprefentation of the old-teftament-ftories inclined the people to Judaism; that the new-teftamentftories encouraged libertiniím and infidelity; and that both of them leffened the charities to the poor: It seems that this profecution fucceeded: for, in 1548, the parliament of Paris confirmed the company in the poffeffion of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, but interdicted the reprefentation of the myfteries. But in Spain, we find by Cervantes, that they continued much longer; and held their own, even after good Civ. D. 1. 4. comedy came in amongst them: As appears from the excellent critique of the canon, in the fourth book, where he fhews how the old extravagant romances might be made the foundation of a regular epic (which, he fays, tambien puede efcrivirfe en profa como en verfo;t) as the mystery-plays might be improved into artful comedy. His words are, Pues que fi venimos à las comedias divinas, que de milagros falfos fingen en ellas, que de cofas apocrifas, y mal entendidas, attribueyendo a un Santo los milagros de otro ; which made them fo fond of miracles that they introduced them into las comedias humanas, as he calls them. To return; Upon this prohibition, the French poets turned themselves from religious to moral farces. And in this we foon followed them: The public tafte not fuffering any greater alteration at first, tho' the Italians at this time afforded many just compofitions for better models. Thefe farces they called moraLities. Pierre Gringore, one of their old poets, printed one of thefe moralities, intitled, La Moralité de l'Homme Obftiné. The perfons of the drama are l'Homme Obftiné-Pugnition Divine-Simonie-Hypocrifie and Demerites-Communes. The Homme Obftiné is the atheift, and comes in blafpheming, and determined to perfift in his impieties. Then Pugnition Divine appears, fitting on a throne in the air, and menacing the atheist with punishment. After this fcene, Simonie, Hypocrifie and Demerites-Communes appear and play their parts. In conclufion, Pugnition Divine returns, preaches to them, upbraids them with their crimes, and, in fhort, draws them all to repentance, all but the Homme Obfliné, who perfifts in his impiety, and is deftroyed for an example. To this fad ferious fubject they added, tho' in a feparate reprefentation, a merry kind of farce called Sottie, in which there was un Payfan (the clown) under the name of Sot Commun (or fool.) But we, who borrowed all thefe delicacies from the French, blended the Moralité and Sottié together: So that the Payfan or Sotcommun, the clown or fool, got a place in our serious moralities: Whofe bufinefs we may understand in the frequent allufions our Shakespeare makes to them: As in that fine fpeech in the beginning of the third act of Measure for Meafure, where we have this obfcure paffage. meerly thou art Death's Fool, For him thou labour'ft by thy flight to shun, And yet runn'ft tow'rd him ftill. For, in thefe moralities, the fool of the piece, in order to fhew the inevitable approaches of death, (another of the Dramatis Perfona) is made to employ all his ftratagems to avoid him; which, as the matter is ordered, bring the fool, at every turn, into the very jaws of his enemy: So that a representation of these scenes would afford a great deal of good mirth and morals mixed together. The very fame thing is again alluded to in these lines of Love's Labour loft, So portent-like I would o'er-rule his state, That he should be my fool, and I his fate. Act.iv. fc. 2. But the French, as we fay, keeping these two forts of farces diftinct, they became, in time, the parents of tragedy and comedy; while we, by jumbling them together, begot in an evil hour, that mungrel fpecies, unknown to nature and antiquity, called Tragi-comedy. WARB. Ibid. Like the old Vice] The allufion here is to the vice, a droll character in our old plays, accoutred with a long coat, a cap with a pair of afs's cars, and a dagger of lath. Shakespeare alludes to his buffoon appearance in TwelfthNight, Act IV. In a trice, like to the old vice; Who with dagger of lath, in his rage, and his wrath In the fecond part of king Henry IV. A& III. Falstaff compares Shallow to vice's dagger of lath. In Hamlet, Act III. Hamlet calls his uncle, Avice of kings: i. e. a ridiculous representation of majesty. These paffages the editors have very rightly expounded. I will now mention fome others, which feem to have escaped their notice, the allufions being not quite fo obvious. The iniquity was often the vice in our old moralities; and is introduced in Ben. Jonfon's play call'd the devil's an ass : and likewife mentioned in his Epigr. CXV. Being no vitious perfon, but the vice About the town. Acts old iniquity, and in the fit Of miming, get's th' opinion of a wit. But a paffage cited from his play will make the following obfervations more plain. Act I. Pug afks the devil" to lend him a vice. "Satan. What vice? "What kind would thou have it of? "Or covetousness, or lady Vanity "Satan, I'll call him hither. "Enter iniquity, the vice. "Ini. What is he calls upon me, and would seem to lack a vice? "Ere his words be half spoken, I am with him in a trice." And in his staple of news, act.II. "Mirth. How like you the vice i' the play? Expectation. Which is he? Mirth. Three or four, old covetoufnefs, the fordid Peniboy, the Money-bard, who is a flesh-bawd too they fay. Tattle. But here is never a friend to carry him away. Befides, he has never a woodendagger! I'd not give a rush for a vice, that has not a woodendagger to snap at every body he meets. Mirth. That was the old way, goffip, when Iniquity came in like hokos pokos, in a jugler's jerkin, &c." He alludes to the Vice in the Alchymift, act I. fc. III. "Subt. And, on your ftall, a puppet, with a vice." Some places of Shakespeare will from hence appear more eafy as in the 1ft part of Henry IV. Act II. where Hal. humorously characterizing Falstaff, calls him, That reverend Vice, that grey Iniquity, that father Ruffian, that Vanity in years, in allufion to this buffoon character. In king Richard III. A& II. Thus like the formal Vice, Iniquity, I moralize two meanings in one word. Iniquity is the formal Vice. Some correct the paffage, Thus, like the formal wife Antiquity I moralize two meanings in one word. |