As the Myfteries or Miracle-plays "frequently required the introduction of allegorical characters, fuch as Charity, Sin, Death, Hope, Faith, or the like, and as the common poetry of the times, efpecially among the French, began to deal much in allegory, at length plays were formed entirely confifting of fuch perfonifications. Thefe were called MORALITIES. The Miracle-plays or MysTERIES were totally deftitute of invention and plan; they tamely reprefented ftories, according to the letter of the fcripture, or the refpective legend. But the MORALITIES indicate dawnings of the dramatick art: they contain fome rudiments of a plot, and even attempt to delineate characters, and to paint manners. From hence the gradual tranfition to real hiftorical perfonages was natural and obvious."

Dr. Percy in his account of the English Stage has given an Analysis of two ancient Moralities, entitled Every Man, and Lufty Juventus, from which a perfect notion of this kind of drama may be obtained. Every Man was written in the reign of King Henry the Eighth, and Lufty Juventus in that of King Edward the Sixth. As Dr. Percy's curious and valuable collection of ancient English Poetry is in the hands of every fcholar, I fhall content myfelf with merely referring to it. Many other Moralities are yet extant, of fome of which I fhall give titles below. Of one, which is not now ex

Harfenet," when the nimble Vice would fkip up nimbly like a Jack-an-apes into the Devil's necke, and ride the devil a courfe, and belabour him with his wooden dagger, till he made him roar, whereat the people would laugh to fee the Devil fo Vice-haunted." Harfenet's Declaration of Popish Impostures, &c. 4to. 1603.

7 Warton's Hifury of English Poetry, Vol. I. p. 242. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Vol. I. p. 128.

8 Magnificence, written by John Skelton; Impatient Poverty,

tant, we have a curious account in a book entitled, Mount Tabor, or Private Exercifes of a Penitent Sinner, by R. W. [R. Willis] Efqr. published in the year of his age 75, Anno Domini, 1639; an extract from which will give the reader a more accurate notion of the old Moralities than a long differtation on the fubject.

"UPON A STAGE-PLAY WHICH I SAW WHEN

I WAS A CHILD.

"In the city of Gloucester the manner is, (as I think it is in other like corporations,) that when players of enterludes come to towne, they first attend the Mayor, to enforme him what noblemans fervants they are, and fo to get licence for their publike playing; and if the Mayor like the actors, or would fhew refpect to their lord and master, he appoints them to play their first play before himself, and the Alderman and CommonCounsell of the city; and that is called the Mayor's play: where every one that will, comes in without money, the Mayor giving the players a reward as hee thinks fit to fhew refpect unto them. At fuch a play, my father tooke me with him, and made me ftand between his leggs, as he fate upon one of the benches, where we faw and heard very well. The play was called The Cradle of Security," wherein

1560; The Life and Repentance of Marie Magdalene, 1567; The Trial of Treajure, 1567; The Nice Wanton, 1568; The Dibedient Child, no date; The Marriage of Wit and Science, 1570; The Interlade of Youth, no date; The longer thou liveft, the more Fool thou art, no date; The Interlude of Wealth and Health, no date; All for Money, 1578; The Conflict of Confcience, 1581; The three Ladies of London, 1584; The three Lords of London, 1590; Tom Tyler and bis Wife, &c.

9 The Cradle of Securitie is mentioned with feveral other Moralities, in a play which has not been printed, entitled Sir Thomas More. MSS. Harl. 3768.

was perfonated a king or fome great prince, with his courtiers of feveral kinds, among which three ladies were in fpecial grace with him; and they keeping him in delights and pleasures, drew him from his graver counfellors, hearing of fermons, and liftening to good councell and admonitions, that in the end they got him to lye down in a cradle upon the ftage, where these three ladies joyning in a fweet fong, rocked him afleepe, that he fnorted againe; and in the mean time clofely conveyed under the cloaths wherewithall he was covered, a vizard, like a swines fnout, upon his face, with three wire chains faftened thereunto, the other end whereof being holden feverally by thofe three ladies; who fall to finging againe, and then difcovered his face, that the fpectators might fee how they had transformed him, going on with their finging. Whilft all this was acting, there came forth of another doore at the fartheft end of the ftage, two old men; the one in blew, with a ferjeant at armes his mace on his fhoulder; the other in red, with a drawn fword in his hand, and leaning with the other hand upon the others fhoulder; and fo they went along with a foft pace round about by the fkirt of the ftage, till at last they came to the cradle, when all the court was in the greatest jollity; and then the foremost old man with his mace ftroke a fearfull blow upon the cradle; wherewith all the courtiers, with the three ladies, and the vizard, all vanished; and the defolate prince ftarting up bare-faced, and finding himself thus fent for to judgement, made a lamentable complaint of his miferable cafe, and fo was carried away by wicked fpirits. This prince did perfonate in the Morall, the wicked of the world; the three ladies, Pride, Covetoufness, and Luxury; the two old men, the end of the world,

and the laft judgement. This fight took fuch impreffion in me, that when I came towards mans eftate, it was as fresh in my memory, as if I had feen it newly acted."

The writer of this book appears to have been born in the fame year with our great poet (1564). Suppofing him to have been feven or eight years old when he faw this interlude, the exhibition must have been in 1571 or 1572.

I am unable to ascertain when the first Morality appeared, but incline to think not fooner than the reign of King Edward the Fourth (1460). The publick pageants of the reign of King Henry the Sixth were uncommonly fplendid; and being then firft enlivened by the introduction of fpeaking allegorical perfonages properly and characteristically habited, they naturally led the way to those perfonifications by which Moralities were distinguished from the fimpler religious dramas called Myfteries. We must not however suppose, that, after Moralities were introduced, Myfteries ceafed to be exhibited. We have already feen that a Mystery was reprefented before King Henry the Seventh at Winchester in 1487. Sixteen years afterwards, on the first Sunday after the marriage of his daughter with King James of Scotland, a Morality was performed. In the early part of the

2 Mount Tabor, &c. 8vo. 1639, pp. 110, et seq. With this curious extract I was favoured, feveral years ago, by the Rev. Mr. Bowle of Idmifton near Salisbury.

3 See Warton's Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. II. p. 199.

4 Sir James Ware in his Annales, folio, 1664, after having given an account of the Statute, 33 Henry VIII. c. i. by which Henry was declared king of Ireland, and Ireland made a kingdom, informs us, that the new law was proclaimed in St. Patrick's church, in the prefence of the Lord Deputy St. Leger, and a great number of peers, who attended in their parliament robes." It is needlefs,"

reign of King Henry the Eighth they were perhaps performed indifcriminately; but Myfteries

he adds, "to mention the feafts, comedies, and fports which followed." "Epulas, comoedias, et certamina ludicra, quæ fequebantur, quid attinet dicere?" The mention of comedies might lead us to fuppofe that our fifter kingdom had gone before us in the cultivation of the drama; but I find from a MS. in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, that what are here called comedies, were nothing more than pageants. "In the parliament of 1541," fays the author of the memoir, "wherein Henry VIII. was declared king of Ireland, there were prefent the earls of Ormond and Defmond, the lord Barry, M'Gilla Phædrig, chieftaine of Offory, the fon of O'Bryan, M'Carthy More, with many Irish lords; and on Corpus Chrifti day they rode about the ftreets in their parliament-robes, and the NINE WORTHIES was played, and the Mayor bore the mace before the deputy on horfeback.

Two of Bale's Myfteries, God's Promifes, and St. John Baptift, we have been lately told, were acted by young men at the marketcrofs in Kilkenny, on a funday, in the year 1552. See Walker's Efay on the Irish Stage, 4to. 1789, and Collect. de Rebus Hiber. Vol. II. p. 388: but there is a flight error in the date. Bale has himself informed us, that he was confecrated Bishop of Offory, February 2, 1552-3, (not on the 25th of March, as the writer cf Bale's Life in Biographia Britannica afferts,) and that he foon afterwards went to his palace in Kilkenny. Thefe Myfteries were exhibited there on the 20th of Auguft, 1553, the day on which Queen Mary was proclaimed, as appears from his own account: "On the xx daye of Auguft was the ladye Marye with us at Kilkennye proclaimed Quene of England, &c.-The yonge men in the forenone played a tragedye of Gods Promifes in the old Lawe, at the marketcroffe, with organe-plainges and fonges, very aptely. In the afternone agayne they played a comedie of Sanct Johan Baptiftes preachinges, of Chriftes baptifynge, and of his temptacion in the wildernelle, to the fmall contentacion of the preftes and other papiftes there." The Vocacyon of Johan Bale, &c. 16mo. no date, fign. Ĉ 8.

The only theatre in Dublin in the reign of queen Elizabeth was a booth (if it may be called a theatre) erected in Hoggin Green, now College Green, where Myfteries and Moralities were occafionally performed. It is ftrange, that fo lately as in the year 1600, at a time when many of Shakspeare's plays had been exhibited in England, and lord Montjoy, the intimate friend of his patrons lord Eflex and lord Southampton, was Deputy of Ireland, the old play of Gorbaduck, written in the infancy of the ftage, (for this piece had been originally prefented in 1562, under the name of Ferrex