HICK-SCORNER, who is drawn as a libertine returned from travel, and agreeably to his name fcoffs at religion. These three are defcribed as extremely vicious, who glory in every act of wickedness: at length two of them quarrel, and Piry endeavours to part the fray; on this they fall upon him, put him in the stocks, and there leave him. Pity then defcants in a kind of lyric measure on the profligacy of the age, and in this fituation is found by Perfeverance and Contemplacion, who fet him at liberty, and advise him to go in fearch of the delinquents. As foon as he is gone, Frewill appears again; and, after relating in a very comic manner fome of his rogueries and escapes from juftice, is rebuked by the two holy men, who, after a long altercation, at length convert him and his libertine companion Imaginacion from their vicious courfe of life: and then the play ends with a few verfes from Perfeverance by way of epilogue. This and every Morality I have feen conclude with a folemn prayer. They are all of them in rhyme; in a kind of loose stanza, intermixed with diftichs. It would be needlefs to point out the abfurdities in the plan and conduct of the foregoing play: they are evidently great. It is fufficient to obferve, that, bat ing the moral and religious reflection of PITY, &c. the piece is of a comic caft, and contains a humorous difplay of fome of the vices of the age. Indeed the author has generally been fo little attentive to the allegory, that we need only fubftitute other names to his perfonages; and we have real characters and living manners. We fee then that the writers of thefe Moralities were upon the very threshold of real Tragedy.and Comedy; and therefore we are not to wonder that Tragedies and Comedies in form foon after took place, especially as the revival of learning about this time brought them. acquainted with the Roman and Grecian models. K 2 II. AT II. Ar what period of time the Myfteries and Moralities had their rife, it is difficult to difcover. Holy plays re presenting the miracles and fufferings of the faints appear to have been no novelty in the reign of Henry II. and a lighter fort of interludes were not then unknown (i). In Chaucer's Time "" Plays of Miracles” in lent were the common refort of idle goflips (k). Towards the latter end of Henry the VIIth's reign Mo ralities were fo common, that John Raftel, brother-inlaw to Sir Thomas More, conceived a defign of making them the vehicle of fcience and natural philofophy. With this view he published C. A new interlude and a mery of the nature of the iiii elements declarynge man? proper points of phylosophy naturall, and of dyvers straunge fandys, (/) &c. It is obfervable that the poet speaks of the discovery of America as then recent ; "Within this xx yere "Weftwarde be founde new landes "That we never harde tell of before this," &c. The West Indies were discovered by Columbus in 1492, which fixes the writing of this play to about 1510. The play of Dick-Scorner was probably fome what (i) See Fitz-stephens's defcription of London, preferved by Stow, Londonia pro fpeétaculis theatralibus, pro ludis fcenicis, ludos babet fanétiores, reprefentationes miraculorum, &c. He is thought to have written in the R. of Hen. II. and to have died in that of Rich. I. It is true at the end of his book we find mentioned Henricum regem tertium; but as it comes in between the names of the Empress Maud and Thomas Becket, it is probably a mistake of some transcriber for Henricum regem ij. as it might be written in MS. From a paffage in his Chap. De Religione, it fhould feem that the body of St. Thomas Becket was just then a new acquifition to the church of Canterbury. (k) See Prologue to Wife of Bath's Tale, v. 338. Urry's edit. (1) Mr. Garrick has an imperfect copy, (Old Plays, i. vol. 3.) The Dramatis Perfonæ are, ". The Meffengere [or Prologue] Nature "naturate. Humanytè. Studyous Defire. Senfuall Appetyte. The Taverner. Experyence. Ygnoraunce. (Alfo yf ye lyfte ye may "brynge what more ancient, as he ftill more imperfectly alludes, to the American difcoveries, under the name of "the Newe founde Ilonde," fign. A. vij. It appears from the play of The Four Elements, that Interludes were then very common: The profeffion of PLAYER was no lefs common; for in an old fatire intitled Cock Jozeflex Bote (m) the author enumerates all the most common trades or callings, as callings, as" Carpenters, Coopers, Joyners, &c. and among others, PLAYERS, tho' it must be acknowledged he has placed them in no very reputable company. "PLAYERS, purfe-cutters, money-batterers, Sign. B. vj, It is obfervable that in the old Moralities of Hick Scorner, Every-man, &c. there is no kind of stage direction for the exits and entrances of the perfonages, no divifion of acts and fcenes. But in the moral interlude of Lusty Juventus (n), written under Edw. VI. the exits and entrances begin to be noted in the mar gin () at length in Q. Elizabeth's reign Moralities appeared K 3 brynge in a dyfgyfynge.)" Afterwards follows a table of the matters handled in the interlude. Among which are ". Of cer.86 teyn conclufions prouvynge the yerthe muft nedes be rounde, and "that it hengyth in the myddes of the fyrmament, and that yt is "in circumference above xxi M. myle.""C. Of certeyne "points of cofmographye and of dyvers ftraunge regyons, and of "the new founde landys and the maner of the people." This part is extremely curious, as it shows what notions were entertained of the new American difcoveries by our own countrymen. (m) Pr. at the Sun in Fleet-ftr. by W. de Worde, no date. bl. 1. 4to. (n) Described in vol. 2. p. 112. The Dramatis Perfonæ of this piece are, ". Meffenger. Lufty Juventus. Good Counfaill. Knowedge. Sathan the devyll. Hypocrifie. Fellowship. AbominableJyving [an Harlot.] God's-merciful-promises." (0) I have alfo discovered fome few Excats and Intrats in the very old Interlude of the Four Elements. appeared formally divided into acts and scenes, with a regular prologue, &c. One of thefe is reprinted by DodЛley. In the time of Hen. VIII. one or two dramatic pieces had been published under the claffical names of Comedy and Tragedy (p), but they appear not to have been intended for popular use: it was not till the religious ferments had fubfided that the public had leifure to attend to dramatic poetry. In the reign of Eliz. Tragedies and Comedies began to appear in form, and could the poets have perfevered, the firft models were good. Gorboduç, a regular tragedy, was acted in 1561 (9); and Gafcoigne, in 1566, exhibited Tocasta, a tranflation from Euripides, as alfo The Supposes, a regular comedy, from Ariofto: near thirty years before any of Shakespeare's were printed. The people however ftill retained a relish for their old Myfteries and Moralities (r), and the popular dramatic poets feem to have made them their models. The graver fort of Moralities appear to have given birth to our modern TRAGEDY; as our COMEDY evidently took its rife from the lighter interludes of that kind. And as most of these pieces contain an abfürd mixture of religion and buffoonery, an eminent critic (s) has well deduced from thence the origin of our un natural (p) Bp. Bale had applied the name of Tragedy to his Mystery of Geds Premises, iu 1538. In 1540 John Palfgrave, B. D. had republished a Latin comedy, called Acolastus, with an English verfion. Holingfhed tells us, (vol. 3. p. 850.) that fo early as 1520, the king had " a goodlie comedie of Plautus plaied" before him at Greenwich; but his was in Latin, as Mr. FARMER informs us in his late curious" Effay on the Learning of Shakespeare." 8vo. p. 31. (q) See Ames, p. 316. This play appears to have. been first printed under the name of Sorbobuc; then under that of Ferrey and Porrer, in 1569; and again, under Gozboduç, 1590.Ames calls the firft edit. Quarto; Langbaine, Utavo; ' and Tanner, 12mo. (r) The general reception the old Moralities had upon the flage, will account for the fondness of all our first poets for allegory. Subs jects of this kind were familiar to every body. (s) Bp. Warburt. Shakefp. vol. 5. Even after the people had natural TRAGI-COMEDIES. been accustomed to Tragedies and Comedies, Moralities ftill kept their ground: one of them intitled The New Custom (t) was printed fo late as 1573 at length they affumed the name of MASQUES (u), and with fome claffical improvements, became in the two fɔllowing reigns the favourite entertainments of the court. As for the old Myfteries, which ceased to be acted after the Reformation, they feem to have given rife to a third fpecies of ftage exhibition, which, though now confounded with Tragedy or Comedy, were by our firft dramatic writers confidered as quite diftinct from them both these were Historical Plays, or HISTORIES, a fpecies of dramatic writing, which refembled the old Myfteries in reprefenting a series of hiftorical events fimply in the order of time in which they happened, without any regard to the three great unities. Thefe pieces feem to differ from Tragedy, just as much as Hiftorical poems do from Epic: as the Pharfalia does from the Æneid. What might contribute to make dramatic poetry take this turn was this; foon after the Myfteries ceased to be exhibited, there was published a large collection of poetical narratives, called The Mirs your for Magistrates (w), wherein a great number of the most eminent characters in English hiftory are drawn relating their own misfortunes. This book was popular and of a dramatic caft, and therefore, as an elegant writer (x) has well obferved, might have its influence in producing Hiftoric Plays. Thefe narratives probably furnished the fubjects, and the ancient Myfteries ggested the plan. K 4 (t) Reprinted among Dodfley's Old Plays, vol. 1. That (u) In fome of these appeared characters full as extraor linary as n any of the old Moralities. In Ben Jonson's Mafque of Christmes 1616, one of the perfonages is MINCED PY. (w) The first part of which was printed in 1559. x) Catal. of Royal and Noble authors, vol. 1. p. 16, 7. |