278
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. OCT. 5, 1907.
mentioned by those seeing the ghosts. The
folks who saw these heads, arms, and bodies
were too frightened to look for legs, I sup-
pose. Most of the Derbyshire women, and
some of the men, were sure to see things
when out at night, whether dark or moon-
lit ; and when they ran with the ghosts
after them, as was often the case, never in
the telling were the legs of ghosts men-
tioned. THOS. RATCLIFFE.
Worksop.
ORDINARIES or NEWGATE (10 S. vii. 408, 454 ; viii. 10). Apparently the immediate predecessor of the Rev. Paul Lorraine was a Mr. Smith, who was the Ordinary kicked out of the cart on the way to Tyburn by Tom Cox, the highwayman, in 1691 (' The Old Bailey and Newgate,' Charles Gordon, p. 340).
The successor of Purney, who followed Lorraine, was a Rev. Mr. Guthrie, the Ordinary at the time of the execution of the famous Catherine Hayes in 1726 ('Life of Catherine Hayes,' Printed and sold by John Applebee, p, 35). HORACE BLEACKLEY.
NOTES ON BOOKS, &o.
" Lost " Ttidor Plays and some Others. Edited by
John S. Farmer. (Early English Drama Society,
18, Bury Street, Bloomsbury, W.C.) THE collation and study of the works of the early English dramatists have been so far from exhaustive that the Early English Drama Society deserves the thanks of all lovers of mediaeval literature for issuing the volume now under review, and we accordingly welcome it as a sound and serious attempt to present the plays therein reprinted in a manner as acceptable to modern ideas as the exigencies of the text permit. These plays are ' Mankind,' ' Nature,' 'Wit and Science,' ' Res- publica,' ' Wealth and Health,' 'Impatient Poverty,' and ' John the Evangelist.'
The finding of the three " lost " Tudor plays, viz., 'Wealth and Health,' 'Impatient Poverty,' and ' John the Evangelist,' is in itself a romance. In June, 1906, it was announced that no fewer than seventeen of the rarest pre-Shakespearian interludes (including three "lost plays), and four apparently unknown or unrecorded editions, had been unearthed in an Irish country house ; yet the owner of this quarto volume of old plays, the auction value of which ultimately proved to be over 2,600^., thought so little, or knew so little, of its value that it was sent over to the London auctioneers without a cover. The three " lost " plays are now the property of the British Museum, whilst the others were acquired by various people, concerning whom and their purchases information is given in the preface of the present volume.
The three "lost" plays were so called on account of their existence having been known and mentioned by contemporary and succeeding dramatists of the
Elizabethan era, but until now all trace of any
edition had been sought in vain. Later authorities
Collier, Hazlitt, Fleay, &c. quote either from an
early mention or from one another ; and the authors
of all three of these plays being unknown, the
exact dates when the plays were written are-
matters of conjecture. As to their respective
merits viewed as literature, we incline in favour of
'Impatient Poverty,' which, couched in the alle-
gorical style of the period, shows considerable
literary form, pointing a moral with a clearness
which is not so apparent in the two other plays.
In ' Wealth and Health ' the theme of good and evil,
with the ultimate triumph of the former, is again
enlarged upon. The " tag," consisting of a prayer
for the welfare of Queen Elizabeth and the State,
sounds quaint to modern ears. The remaining
play, ' John the Evangelist,' is by no means of the
same calibre as those we have already mentioned.
The general trend of the text is misty and vague,
besides which it is hardly clear why the character
of St. John is introduced at all ; and we concur in
the opinion expressed by Mr. Farmer in the ' Note-
Book,' to the effect that the whole piece seems
curiously incomplete and scrappy, and at times
thin and crude, even for early dramatic effort.
In the Macro plays (which derive their name from Cox Macro, an eighteenth-century antiquary who formerly owned them), viz : ' Mankind,' and ' Respublica,' we have two moralities of varying merit. We are inclined to admire the latter, more on account of its purity of diction as compared with the coarseness and obscenity of the former. There have been three editions of ' Respublica ' previously, and the original MS. is now the property of Mr. J. H. Gurney, of Keswick Hall, Norwich. It is a work of considerable merit, by a scholarly, albeit unknown author. The character of 'Respublica' is apparently intended to represent Queen Mary, the theme of the play being the general distress or the people caused by the chaos following on the- Reformation, and the hope of relief occasioned by that sovereign's accession to the throne.
The Reformation left the country morally and materially bankrupt, and, Catholic though Mary was, much seems to have been expected of her by the nation at large. We have no hesitation in stating our opinion that ' Respublica ' stands far and away above the other plays associated with it in this volume, both as regards scholarly writing and construction. With regard to ' Mankind, however, we confess to considerable doubt as to the degree of merit it possesses, either as a play or literature. Truth to tell, the intermingling of the obscene and the spiritual which by some might be charitably called quaint, will to the majority of readers be jarring.
The two other plays included in the volume, ' Nature ' and ' Wit and Science,' are the only ones of which the authors are known. The former, by Henry Medwall, is an excellent and scholarly work, Medwall was evidently a man of culture and wide understanding, and his work admirably reflects these qualities. The same may also be said with regard to ' Wit and Science,' by John Redford.
We congratulate Mr. Farmer on this excellent collection of pre - Shakespearian plays, and on the care and erudition he has brought to bear upon the difficult task of editing and presenting them to his readers in an acceptable form. Especially to be commended is the ' Note-Book and Word List, which is admirably complete and instructive.
