Part 56 (1/2)

[804] ”Towneley Mysteries.”--Processus Talentorum.

[805] ”Digby Mysteries.”--Candlemas Day, p. 3.

[806] ”Digby Mysteries.”--Mary Magdalen, p. 55.

[807] _Ibid._, p. 90.

[808] ”Chester Plays.”--Salutation and Nativity.

[809] ”Digby Mysteries,” p. 56.

[810] ”Digby Mysteries,” pp. 74, 75. After living wickedly Mary Magdalen repents, comes to Ma.r.s.eilles, converts the local king and performs miracles. This legend was extremely popular; it was told several times in French verse during the thirteenth century; see A. Schmidt, ”Guillaume, le Clerc de Normandie, insbesondere seine Magdalenenlegende,” in ”Romanische Studien” vol. iv. p. 493; Doncieux, ”Fragment d'un Miracle de Sainte Madeleine, texte rest.i.tue,” in ”Romania,” 1893, p. 265. There was also a drama in French based on the same story: ”La Vie de Marie Magdaleine ... Est a xxii. personages,”

Lyon, 1605, 12mo (belongs to the fifteenth century).

[811] ”York Plays,” viii., ix. See also, _e.g._, as specimens of comical scenes, the discussions between the quack and his man in the ”Play of the Sacrament”: ”Ye play of ye conversyon of ser Jonathas ye Jewe by myracle of ye blyssed sacrament.” Master Brundyche addresses the audience as if he were in front of his booth at a fair. He will cure the diseases of all present. Be sure of that, his man Colle observes,

What dysease or syknesse yt ever ye have, He wyll never leve yow tylle ye be in your grave.

Ed. Whitley Stokes, Philological Society, Berlin, 1860-61, p. 127 (fifteenth century).

[812] ”Chester Plays.”--Salutation and Nativity.

[813] ”Towneley Mysteries.”--Secunda Pastorum.

[814] See, for instance, ”Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages,” ed.

G. Paris and U. Robert, Societe des Anciens Textes, 1876-91, 6 vols.

8vo.

[815] In Meon's edition, Paris, 1813, vol. ii. pp. 326 ff.

[816] Plays of this kind were written (without speaking of many anonyms) by Medwall: ”A goodly Enterlude of Nature,” 1538, fol.; by Skelton, ”Magnyfycence,” 1531, fol.; by Ingelend, ”A pretie Enterlude called the Disobedient Child,” printed about 1550: by John Bale, ”A comedye concernynge thie Lawes,” London, 1538, 8vo (against the Catholics); all of them lived under Henry VIII., &c. The two earliest English moralities extant are ”The Pride of Life” (in the ”Account Roll of the priory of the Holy Trinity,” Dublin, ed. J. Mills, Dublin, 1891, 8vo), and the ”Castle of Perseverance” (an edition is being prepared, 1894, by Mr.

Pollard for the Early English Text Society), both of the fifteenth century; a rough sketch showing the arrangement of the representation of the ”Castle” has been published by Sharp, ”A Dissertation on the Pageants at Coventry,” plate 2.

[817] ”Interlude of the four Elements,” London, 1510(?), 8vo.

[818] See, for example, the mournful pa.s.sages in the ”Disobedient Child,” the ”Triall of Treasure,” London, 1567, 4to, and especially in ”Everyman,” ed. Goedeke, Hanover, 1865, 8vo, written at the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII.

[819] Song of the Clown in ”Twelfth Night,” iv. 3.

[820] ”Pantagruel,” iii. 37.

[821] Furnivall, ”Digby Mysteries,” p. xxvii.

[822] ”York Plays,” p. xvi.

[823] Pet.i.t de Julleville, ”Les Mysteres,” 1880, vol. i. pp. 423 ff.