Part 10 (1/2)

. . . that women ben crabbed be, And not are meek, I dare well say.

That is well seen by me to-day, In witness of yet, eiehone.

Good wife, let be all this beare, That thou mak'st in this place here, For all they wene thou art master, And soe thou art by St. John.

Further rebellion on the part of the spouse compels Noah to carry out the threat,

Bot as I have blys, I shall chastyse this.

To which she replies:-

”Yet may ye mys Nicholle Nedy.”

He stops beating her, for the reason,

”That my bak is nere in two.”

To which she adds:-

”And I am bet so blo-”

The sixth pageant was Abraham and Isaac. Of the details of this, and the seventh and eighth, no records have been found.

The ninth-the birth of Christ, with shepherds, and the three kings of Colen,-was a very common subject. The scenes were, usually:-1st, Mary, Joseph, the child, an ox and an a.s.s, and angels speaking to shepherds.-2nd, The shepherds speaking by turns, the star, an angel giving joy to the shepherds.-3rd, The three kings coming from the East, Herod asking about the child, with the son of Herod, two counsellors, and a messenger.-4th, Mary, with the child and star above, and the kings offering gifts.

In the Townley and Coventry Mysteries, the play commences with a ranting speech of King Herod, one of those which gave rise to Shakespeare's saying of ”out-heroding Herod.” In the fifth volume of the Paston Letters, J. Wheatley writes to Sir J. Paston, ”and as for Haylesdon, my lord of Suffolk was there on Wednesday; at his being there that day, there was never no man that played _Herod_ in Corpus Christi better, and more agreeable to his pageant, than he.”

Most of these pageants were founded upon scripture narrative; while of those of Coventry several are founded on legendary history.

The tenth pageant, having for its object the ”Baptism of Christ,” was exhibited by the Barbers, &c.

The eleventh pageant was the ”Resurrection,” brought forward by the Butchers, &c.

The twelfth and last pageant was the ”Holy Ghost,” and exhibited the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles.

In the well-known mystery, ent.i.tled _Corpus Christi_, or the Coventry play, the prologue is delivered by three persons, who speak alternately, and are called _vexillators_; it contains the arguments of the several _pageants_ or _acts_ that const.i.tute the piece, and they amount to no less than forty, every one of which consists of a detached subject from scripture, beginning with the Creation of the Universe, and concluding with the ”Last Judgment.” In the first pageant or act, the Deity is represented seated on a throne by himself; after a speech of some length, the angels enter, singing from the church service portions of the Te Deum. Lucifer then appears, and desires to know if the hymn was in honour of G.o.d or himself, when a difference arises among the angels, and the evil ones are with Lucifer expelled by force.

The Reformation had not the effect of annihilating these observances in many places; the Corpus Christi procession was kept up for years after, as in Norwich; and it was not until the beginning of the reign of James I. that they were finally suppressed in all the towns of the kingdom.

John Bale, of the Carmelite Monastery, of Whitefriars, Norwich, afterwards a convert to Protestantism, and made successively Bishop of Ossory, Archbishop of Dublin, also a prebend of Canterbury, was a great writer of mysteries; one of his compositions was ent.i.tled ”The Chief Promises of G.o.d to Man,” its princ.i.p.al characters being G.o.d, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, and John Baptist.

Moralities were of later date than mysteries, and differed from them, as consisting of dramatic allegories, in which the vices and virtues were personified; the province of exciting laughter descended from the devil in the _mystery_, to _vice_ or _iniquity_ in the _morality_, and was personified by _pride_ or _gluttony_, or any other evil propensity; and even when regular tragedies and comedies came upon the stage, we may trace the descendants of this line in the clowns and fools who undertook this portion of the entertainment, to the no small detriment of the more serious parts of the best tragedies. In Hamlet's direction to the players, allusion is made distinctly to this. The secular plays which existed before mysteries were invented, differed very materially from either them or moralities, and were far inferior to them in refinement and delicacy; they retained their popularity, however, notwithstanding their clerical rivals, and the efforts that were diligently made to do away with them.

_Interludes_ were a variety of these secular plays, and probably gave birth to the _farce_ of later times; they were facetious or satirical dialogues, calculated to promote mirth. A representation of this character before Henry the Eighth, at Greenwich, is thus related by Hall:-”Two persons played a dialogue, the effect whereof was to declare whether riches were better than love; and when they could not agree upon a conclusion, each knight called in three knights well armed; three of them would have entered the gate of the arch in the middle of the chamber, and the other three resisted; and suddenly between the six knights, out of the arch fell down a bar all gilt, for the which bar the six knights did battle, and then they departed; then came in an old man with a silver beard, and he concluded that love and riches both be necessary for princes; that is to say, by love to be obeyed and served, and with riches to reward his lovers and friends.”

Another is described by the same author as performed at Windsor, when ”the Emperor Maximilian and King Henry, being present, there was a disguising or play; the effect of it was, that there was a proud horse, which would not be tamed or bridled; but _Amity_ sent _Prudence_ and _Policy_, which tamed him, and _Force_ and _Puissance_ bridled him. The horse was the French king, Amity the king of England, and the emperor and other persons were their counsel and power.”

When regular plays became established, these motley exhibitions lost their charm for all, save the vulgar; the law set its face against them, performers were stigmatised as rogues and vagabonds, and it is highly probable that necessity suggested to the _tragitour_ or juggler, who was reduced to one solitary companion, the jester or jackpudding, to make up his ”company,” the idea of subst.i.tuting puppets to supply the place of other living characters. The drama was in much the same state of progress throughout the civilized portions of Europe; and to the Italians and Spaniards the ingenuity of ”Punchinello” has been attributed. In England these wooden performers were called _motions_; and Mr. Punch took among them the rank of _mirth-maker_. If there yet lives a being who has not at some moment of his life felt a thrill of delight at the prospect of a half-hour's exhibition of this gentleman's performance in his miniature theatre, we pity him most heartily.

The oratorio is a mystery or morality in music. The Oratorio commenced with the priests of the Oratory, a brotherhood founded at Rome, 1540, by St. Philip Neri, who, in order to attract the youthful and pleasure-loving to church, had hymns, psalms, or spiritual songs, or cantatas sung either in chorus or by a single favourite voice. These pieces were divided into two parts, one sung before the other, after the sermon. Sacred stories or events from Scripture, written in verse, and, by way of dialogue, were set to music, and the first part being performed, the sermon succeeded, which people were inclined to remain to hear, that they might also hear the conclusion of the musical performance. This ingenious device precluded the necessity, we presume, of locking the doors to prevent the egress of the congregation after prayers, and before the sermon, that has in some places since been resorted to.

The inst.i.tutions of the Oratory required that corporal punishments should be mingled with their religious harmony; and the custom would seem to have been, that at certain seasons, of frequent occurrence, the brethren went through severe castigation from their own hands, upon their own bodies, with whips of small cords, delivered to them by officers appointed for the purpose. This ceremony was performed in the dark, while a priest recited the Miserere and De Profundis with several prayers; after which, in silence and gloom, they were permitted to resume their attire, and refrain from their self-inflictions.

Mysteries and moralities ceased altogether about the year 1758 in this country; a comedy by Lupton, bearing that date, being about the last trace of the old school of dramatic writing. The same year is memorable in this city for the gorgeous pageantries that marked the progress of England's famous queen through its streets, on the occasion of her visit to this then thriving metropolis of wealth and commerce; and a sketch of the amus.e.m.e.nts provided for her entertainment, and the talents put into requisition to do honour to her august presence, may not be out of place here, containing, as they do, perhaps some of the latest specimens of the allegorical dramatic writing that exist. They bear strong evidence of the encouragement given to literature by Elizabeth, which had created the fas.h.i.+on for cla.s.sical allusion upon every possible occasion; and her admiration of the compliment so conveyed, caused the mythology of ancient learning to be introduced into the various shows and spectacles set forth in her honour, until almost every pageant became a pantheon.