great expense in order to represent it publicly at Christmas." In 1390, the parish clerks of London are said to have played interludes at Skinner's Well, July 18, 19, and 20; and in 1409, they acted a play concerning the creation of the world; for eight successive days, at Clerkenwell (which took its name from the custom), at which were present most of the nobility and gentry of the kingdom. The mysteries were succeeded by the moralities; the former only represented some miraculous history of the Old or New Testament in a senseless manner; but in the moralities, something of design appeared, a fable and a moral; the virtues, vices, and affections of the mind being frequently personified; they were no doubt, however, principally employed to defend and illustrate religious tenets, as appears from an act of Henry VIII., restraining all rimours or players from singing in songs, or playing in interludes, anything that should contradict the established doctrines. Moral and religious dramas were also acted in private houses, wherein five or six actors generally represented twenty personages.

In the church books at Tewkesbury are the following entries. "A.D. 1578, payed for the players' geers, six sheep skins for Christ's garments." And in an inventory recorded in the same book, 1585, as follows: "And order eight heads of hair for the apostles; and ten heads, and a face or vizor, for the devil."

At a play acted in 1511, on the feast of St. Margaret, the following disbursements were made as the charges of the exhibition :

To musicians, for which, however, they
were bound to perform three nights (
For players, in bread and ale.

0

For decorations, dresses, and play books 1
To John Hobbard, priest, and author
of the piece

For the place in which the represen

tation was held

To furniture

For fish and bread

028

ཅམས«

0

1 0

0 1

4

0

0 4

0 6

0 4

For painting three phantoms and devils 0
And for four chickens for the hero

GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE.

To mysteries and moralities, succeeded what were called interludes, which made some approaches to wit and humour; and for these John Heywood, the epigrammatist, who was jester to Henry VIII. claims the earliest, if not the foremost place. "Gammer Gurton's Needle," which is generally called our first comedy, appeared soon after the interludes. It was written by John Still, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, and published in 1575. This comedy, though altogether of a comic cast, and not wanting n humour, affords an instance of the simplicity which must ever prevail in the early dawnings of genius. The plot of this piece, which is written in metre, and spun out into five regular acts, is nothing more than Gammer Gurton's having mislaid the needle with which she was mending her man Hodge's breeches against the ensuing Sunday, and which, by way of catastrophe to the piece, is, after much search, great

altercation, and some battles in its cause, at last found sticking in the breeches themselves. The original title runs thus: "A Rigght Pythy, Pleasant, and Merie Comedie, Intytuled Gammer Gurton's Needle; played on the Stage not longe ago in Christe's Colledge, in Cambridge, made by Mr. S. Master of Arts. Imprynted at London, in Fleete Streeate, beneth the Conduit, at the signe of St. John Evangelist, by Thomas Colwell."

HISTORICAL PLAYS.

The old mysteries which ceased to be acted after the reformation, seem to have given rise to a third species of stage exhibition, which, though now confounded with tragedy or comedy, were by our first dramatic writers considered as quite distinct from them both; these were historical plays or histories--a species of dramatic writing, which resembled the old mysteries, in representing a series of historical events, simply in the order of time in which they happened, without any regard to the three great unities. These pieces differ from tragedy, as much as historical poems do from epic, as the Pharsalia does from the Æneid. What probably contributed to make dramatic poetry take this turn, was, that soon after the mysteries ceased to be exhibited, there was published a large collection of poetical narratives, called the "Mirrour of Magistrates," wherein a great number of the most eminent characters in English history, are drawn relating their own misforThis book was popular, and of a dramatic cast, and therefore might have its influence in pro

tunes.

ducing historic plays. These narratives probably furnished the subjects, and the ancient mysteries suggested the plan.

That our old English writers considered historical plays, as somewhat distinct from tragedy and comedy, appears from numberless passages in their works. "Of late," says Stowe, "instead of those stage plays, have been used comedies, tragedies, interludes, and histories both true and fained."

Beaumont and Fletcher, in the Prologue to the Captain," say,

"This nor comedy, nor tragedy,

Nor history."

And Polonius, in Hamlet, commends the players as "the best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral," &c. And Shakespeare's friends, Condell and Heminge, in the first folio edition of his plays, have not only entitled their book, "Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies," but in their table of contents, have arranged them under these several head's.

EARLY ABUSES.

In the reign of Edward III. it was ordained by Act of Parliament, that a company of men called vagrants, who had made masquerades through the city, should be whipt out of London, because they represented scandalous things, in the little ale-houses and other places where the populace assembled. What the nature of these scandalous things was, we are not told; it is however most probable, that the

actors were of that species, called mummers; these were wont to stroll about the country, dressed in an antic manner, dancing, mimicking, and showing postures; and as they always went masked and disguised, they were guilty of many outrages. However, bad as they were, they seem to be the true original comedians of England; and their excellence altogether consisted, as that of their successors does in part still, in mimicry and humour.

In an Act of Parliament passed in the 4th of Henry IV., mention is made of certain wastors, master rimours, minstrels, and other vagabonds, who infested the land of Wales; and it is enacted, "that no master rimour, minstrel, or other vagabond, be in any-wise sustained in the land of Wales, to make commoiths or gatherings upon the people there." It is difficult to determine what these master rimours were, and what is meant by their making commoiths; the word signifies in Welsh any district, or part of a hundred or contred, containing about one half of it, that is, fifty villages; and might possibly be made use of by these master rimours, when they had fixed upon a place to act in, and gave intimation thereof for ten or twelve miles, which is a circuit that will take in about fifty villages. In support of this con. jecture, we may quote Carew, who in his Survey of Cornwall, written in Queen Elizabeth's time, speaking of the diversions of the people, says, "The guarymiracle, in English, a miracle play, is a kind of interlude, compiled in Cornish, out of some scripture history. For representing it, they raise an amphitheatre in some open field, having the diameters of its inclosed plain, some forty or fifty feet. The