of the best authors into French; especially the Bible.
1426. The earliest mention of the performance of mysteries at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is in the ordinary of the coopers for this year. They were celebrated with similar exhibitions as those at York, and other towns, on Corpus Christi day. In 1437,the barbers played the baptizing of Christ. In 1668, the offering of Abraham and Isaac was exhibited by the slaters. By the ordinary of the goldsmiths, plumbers, glaziers, pewterers, and painters, dated 1636, they were commanded to play at their feast " the three kings of Coleyn." In the books of the fullers and dyers, one of the charges for the play of 1561, is, " Item for 3 yard and ad, lyn cloth for God's coat, 3s. 2d. ob." Be- tween the first and last mentioned periods, there are many minutes in the trades' books of the act- ing in different years, which may be seen in Brand's History of Newcastle, together with the only vestige that remains of the Newcastle Mysteries, entitled Noah's Ark, or the Shipwright's ancient play, or dirge, wherein God, an Angel, Noah, and his wife, and the Devil, are the characters. In this, as in the Chester Mystery of the same subject, the wife of Noah is a vixen : the last words she says to him are.
To ship when thou shalt go.
In Cornwall they had interludes in the Cornish language from scripture history. They were called the Guary Miracle plays, and were some- times performed in the open fields, at the bottom of any earthem amphitheatre, the people standing around on tlic inclined plane, which was usually forty or fifty feet in diameter. The players did not learn their parts, but were followed by a prompter, called the ordinary, with the book in his hand. Long after the mysteries had ceased elsewhere, and the regular stage been established, they were exhibited m Cornwall to the country people, who flocked from all sides to hear and see the devils and devices that were provided to delight the eye, aa well as the ear. Two manu- scripts in the Bodleian library contain theComish plays of the Deluge, the Passion, and the Resur- rection. — Borlase's Antig. of Cornwall.
Concerning the Coventry Mysteries, Dugdale relates, in his History of Warwickshire, that " before the suppression of the monasteries this city was veir famous for the pageants that were play'd therem, upon Corpus Christi day (one of their ancient faires) which occasioning very great confluence of people thither from far and near, was of no small benefit thereto : which pageants being acted with mighty state and reverence by the Grey Friars, had theatres for several scenes, very large and high, placed upon wheels, and drawn to all the eminent parts of the city, for the better advantage of spectators, and coutaiu'd the story of the Old and New Testament, composed in the old Englishe ritlime, as appeareth by an manuscript intituled Ludxis Corporis Christi or Ludus Coventria."
It is remarkable, that in its entire series of forty mysteries in the Coventry manuscript men-
tioned by Dugdale, there is not one, says Hone, from the Apocrypha to the Old Testament, whilst there are paraphrases of the New Testament Apocrypha.
It may be supposed that the Chester pla^ written in an early and dark age, would contain a great mass of apocryphaJ interpolations, and that the Coventry plays, written much later, would contain less; yet the contrary is the fad. The Chester mystery-maker of 1328, found the tcriptwalsubjects so numerous as to render le- course to the New Testament Apocrypha unne- cessary. But the Coventry mystery-maker of 1416, was under circumstances that would sae- gest powerful motives to the cunning of a moni- bh mind for apocryphal adoption.
"The Pageant of the Company of Shereman and Taylors in Coventry, as performed by them on the Festival of Corpus Christi," is a manu- script belonging to the corporation of Coventry, bearing the following inscription : " Thys matter newly ccrrecte be Robart Croo, the xiiijU". day of Marche, fenysschid in theyere of owre lord god Mcccc & xxxiiijth. The celebrity of the performances may be inferred from the rank of the audiences; for, at the festival of Corpus Christi. 1483, Richard III. visited this city to see the plays, and at the same season in 1492, they were attended by Henry VII. and his queen, by whom they were highly commended.
It may l>e observed, and there can be no doubt that in the Mysteries of the Creation, Ike. per- formed at Chester, Coventry, and other places, that Adam and Eve appeared on the stage naked. In the second Pageant of the Coventry manu- script, in the British museum. Eve on being seduced by the serpent, induces Adam to taste the forbidden fruit. He immediately perceives their nakedness, and says to her,
8e <u nakyd be for & be hjrnde.
- • • *
Woman Iky this leff on tM pzyvyte And with this leff 1 shall hyde me'
Warton observes, that this extraordinary spec- tacle » as beheld by a numerous company of both sexes with great composure : they had the autho- rity of scripture for such representation, and they gave matters just as they found them in the third chapter of Genesis.
The present age rejects as gross and indelicate those free compositions which our ancestors not only countenanced but admired. Yet, in fact, tho morals of our forefathers were as strict and | haps purer and sounder than our own; have been taught to look up to them as {_ models of the honest, incorruptible obaiacttf i Englishmen. They were strangers indeed ith] delicacy of taste; they beheld the broad and Uli^. pruned delineations of nature, and thought W harm : while we, on the most distant approach t» freedom of thought and expression, turn amy in disgust, and vehemently express our displet* sure. Human nature is ever the same, but socieiy is always progressive, and at every stage of refinfr- ment the passions require stricter control; not becatise they are} more violent, but because the
