all only cover comparatively few years out of the whole period.[1] And there is a great discrepancy in the proportions in which the various types are represented. The morals, which were obsolescent at Court, are far more numerous in print than the classical and romantic histories, which were already in enjoyment of their full vogue upon the boards. My definite impression is that these early printed morals, unlike the prints of later date, were in the main not drawn from the actual repertories of companies, but were literary products, written with a didactic purpose, and printed in the hope that they would be bought both by readers and by schoolmasters in search of suitable pieces for performance by their pupils. They belong, like some similar interludes, both original and translated, of earlier date, rather to the tradition of the humanist academic drama, than to that of the professional, or even quasi-professional, stage. There are many things about the prints which, although not individually decisive, tend when taken in bulk to confirm this theory. They are 'compiled', according to their title-pages; sometimes the author is declared a 'minister' or a 'learned clerke'.[2] Nothing is, as a rule, said to indicate that they have been acted.[3] They are advertised, not only as 'new', 'merry', 'pretty', 'pleasant', 'delectable', 'witty', 'full of mirth and pastime', but also as 'excellent', 'worthy', 'godly', 'pithy', 'moral', 'pityfull', 'learned', and 'fruitfull', and occasionally the precise didactic intention is more elaborately expounded either on the title-page or in a prologue.[4] They are furnished with analyses showing the number of actors necessary to take all the parts, and in one case there is a significant note that the arrangement is 'most convenient for such as be disposed, either to shew this comedie in priuate houses, or otherwise'.[5] They often conclude with a generalized*
- ↑ Love and Fortune was printed in the next period.
- ↑ Mary Magdalen; Conflict of Conscience. 'Compiled' goes back to Bale, Heywood, and Skelton. Earlier still, Everyman is not so much a play as 'a treatyse . . . in maner of a morall playe'.
- ↑ The prologue of Mary Magdalen has 'we haue vsed this feate at the uniuersitie'.
- ↑ Wynkyn de Worde calls Mundus et Infans a 'propre newe interlude', and the advertising title-page is well established from the time of Rastell's press.
- ↑ Conflict of Conscience; cf. Damon and Pythias, the prologue of which, though it had been a Court play, 'is somewhat altered for the proper use of them that hereafter shall haue occasion to plaie it, either in Priuate, or open Audience'. The castings, for four, five, or six players, occur in King Darius, Like Will to Like, Longer Thou Livest, Mary Magdalen, New Custom, Tide Tarrieth for No Man, Trial of Treasure, Conflict of Conscience. I find a later example from the public stage in Fair Maid of the Exchange,
