and the last judgement. This fight took fuch impreffion in me, that when I came towards mans eftate, it was as fresh in my memory, as if I had feen it newly acted."2

The writer of this book appears to have been born in the fame year with our great poet (1564). Suppofing him to have been feven or eight years old when he saw this interlude, the exhibition must have been in 1571 or 1572.

I am unable to afcertain when the firft Morality appeared, but incline to think not fooner than the reign of King Edward the Fourth (1460). The publick pageants of the reign of King Henry the Sixth were uncommonly splendid;3 and being then firft enlivened by the introduction of speaking allegorical perfonages properly and characteristically habited, they naturally led the way to thofe perfonifications by which Moralities were distinguished from the fimpler religious dramas called Myfteries. We must not however fuppofe, that, after Moralities were introduced, Myfteries ceafed to be exhibited. We have already feen that a Mystery was reprefented before King Henry the Seventh at Winchefter in 1487. Sixteen years afterwards, on the first Sunday after the marriage of his daughter with King James of Scotland, a Morality was performed. In the early part of the

Mount Tabor, &c. 8vo. 1639, pp. 110, et seq. With this curious extract I was favoured, feveral years ago, by the Rev. Mr. Bowle of Idmifton near Salisbury.

3 See Warton's Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. II. p. 199.

4 Sir James Ware in his Annales, folio, 1664, after having given an account of the Statute, 33 Henry VIII. c. i. by which Henry was declared king of Ireland, and Ireland made a kingdom, informs us, that the new law was proclaimed in St. Patrick's church, in the presence of the Lord Deputy St. Leger, and a great number of peers, who attended in their parliament robes. It is needlefs,"

i

reign of King Henry the Eighth they were perhaps performed indifcriminately; but Mysteries

he adds, "to mention the feafts, comedies, and fports which followed." 66 Epulas, comedias, et certamina ludicra, quæ fequebantur, quid attinet dicere?" The mention of comedies might lead us to fuppofe that our fifter kingdom had gone before us in the cultivation of the drama; but I find from a MS. in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, that what are here called comedies, were nothing more than pageants. "In the parliament of 1541," fays the author of the memoir, "wherein Henry VIII. was declared king of Ireland, there were prefent the earls of Ormond and Defmond, the lord Barry, M'Gilla Phædrig, chieftaine of Offory, the fon of O'Bryan, M'Carthy More, with many Irish lords; and on Corpus Chrifti day they rode about the streets in their parliament-robes, and the NINE WORTHIES was played, and the Mayor bore the mace before the deputy on horseback.

Two of Bale's Mysteries, God's Promifes, and St. John Baptift, we have been lately told, were acted by young men at the marketcross in Kilkenny, on a funday, in the year 1552. See Walker's Efay on the Irish Stage, 4to. 1789, and Collect. de Rebus Hiber. Vol. II. p. 388: but there is a flight error in the date. Bale has himself informed us, that he was confecrated Bishop of Offory, February 2, 1552-3, (not on the 25th of March, as the writer of Bale's Life in Biographia Britannica afferts,) and that he foon afterwards went to his palace in Kilkenny. Thefe Myfteries were exhibited there on the 20th of Auguft, 1553, the day on which Queen Mary was proclaimed, as appears from his own account: "On the xx daye of Auguft was the ladye Marye with us at Kilkennye proclaimed Quene of England, &c.-The yonge men in the forenone played a tragedye of Gods Promifes in the old Lawe, at the marketcroffe, with organe-plainges and fonges, very aptely. In the afternone agayne they played a comedie of Sanct Johan Baptiftes preachinges, of Chriftes baptifynge, and of his temptacion in the wildernefle, to the fmall contentacion of the preftes and other papiftes there." The Vocacyon of Johan Bale, &c. 16mo. no date, fign. Ċ 8.

The only theatre in Dublin in the reign of queen Elizabeth was a booth (if it may be called a theatre) erected in Hoggin Green, now College Green, where Mysteries and Moralities were occafionally performed. It is ftrange, that fo lately as in the year 1600, at a time when many of Shakspeare's plays had been exhibited in England, and lord Montjoy, the intimate friend of his patrons lord Effex and lord Southampton, was Deputy of Ireland, the old play of Gorbaduck, written in the infancy of the ftage, (for this piece had been originally presented in 1562, under the name of Ferrex

were probably feldom reprefented after the statute 34 and 35 Henry VIII. c. 1. which was made, as the preamble informs us, with a view that the kingdom fhould be purged and cleansed of all religious plays, interludes, rhymes, ballads, and fongs, which are equally peftiferous and noyfome to the commonweal. At this time both Moralities and Mysteries were made the vehicle of religious controverfy; Bale's Comedy of the three Laws of Nature, printed in 1538, (which in fact is a Mystery,) being a disguised satire against popery; as the Morality of Lufty Juventus was written expressly with the fame view in the reign of King Edward the Sixth. In that of his fucceffor Queen Mary,

and Porrex,) fhould have been performed at the Caftle of Dublin: but fuch is the fact, if we may believe Chetwood the prompter, who mentions that old Mr. Ashbury had feen a bill dated the 7th of September, 1601, (queen Elizabeth's birth-day) "for wax tapers for the play of Gorboduck done at the Caftle, one and twenty shillings and two groats." Whether any plays were reprefented in Dublin in the reign of James the First, I am unable to ascertain. Barnaby Riche, who has given a curious account of Dublin in the year 1610, makes no mention of any theatrical exhibition. In 1635, when Lord Strafford was Lord Lieutenant, a theatre, probably under his patronage, was built in Werbergh-ftreet; which, under the conduct of the well-known John Ogilby, Master of the Revels in Ireland, continued open till October 1641, when it was shut up by order of the Lords Juftices. At this theatre Shirley's Royal Mafter was originally reprefented in 1639, and Burnel's Landgartha in 1641. In 1662 Ogilby was restored to his office, and a new theatre was erected in Orange-street, (fince called Smock-alley,} part of which fell down in the year 1671. Agrippa, King of Alba, a tragedy tranflated from the French of Quinault, was acted there before the duke of Ormond, in 1675; and it continued open, I believe, till the death of king Charles the Second. The difturbances which followed in Ireland put an end for a time to all theatrical entertainments.

5 This mode of attack" (as Mr. Warton has obferved)" was feldom returned by the oppofite party: the catholick worship founded on fenfible reprefentations afforded a much better hold for ridicule, than the religion of fome of the fects of the reformers, which was

Mysteries were again revived, as appendages to the papistical worship. "In the year 1556," fays Mr. Warton, "a goodly flage-play of the Paffion of Christ was prefented at the Grey-friars in London, on Corpus-Chrifti day, before the Lord-Mayor, the Privy-council, and many great estates of the realm. Strype alfo mentions, under the year 1577, a ftage-play at the Grey-friers, of the Paffion of Chrift, on the day that war was proclaimed in London against France, and in honour of that occafion. On Saint Olave's day in the fame year, the holiday of the church in Silver-ftreet which is dedicated to that faint, was kept with great folemnity. At eight of the clock at night, began a ftage-play of goodly matter, being the miraculous hiftory of the life of that faint, which continued four hours, and concluded with many religious fongs." No Myfteries, I believe, were reprefented during the reign of Elizabeth, except fuch as were occafionally performed by thofe who were favourers of the popith religion," and those already

of a more fimple and spiritual nature." Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. II. p. 378, n. The interlude, however, called Every Man, which was written in defence of the church of Rome, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, is an exception. It appears alfo from a proclamation promulgated early in the reign of his fon, of which mention will be made hereafter, that the favourers of popery about that time had levelled feveral dramatick invectives against Archbishop Cranmer, and the doctrines of the reformers.

6 Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. III. p. 326.

7 That Myfteries were occafionally reprefented in the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign appears from the affertions of the controverfial writers. "They play" fays one of them, "and counterfeite the whole Paffion fo trimly, with all the feven forrowes of our lady, as though it had been nothing elfe but a fimple and plain. enterlude, to make boys laugh at, and a little to recreate forowful harts." Beehive of the Romishe Churche, 1580, p. 207. See also supra,

P. 134, n. 4.

mentioned, known by the name of the Chester Myfteries, which had been originally compofed in 1328, were revived in the time of King Henry the Eighth, (1533,) and again performed at Chefter in the year 1600. The laft Mystery, I believe, ever reprefented in England, was that of Christ's Paffion, in the reign of King James the First, which Prynne tells us was "performed at Elie-House in Holborne, when Gundomar lay there, on Goodfriday at night, at which there were thoufands prefent."

In France the representation of Mysteries was forbid in the year 1548, when the fraternity affociated under the name of The Actors of our Saviour's Paffion, who had received letters patent from King Charles the Sixth, in 1402, and had for near 150 years exhibited religious plays, built their new theatre on the fite of the Duke of Burgundy's house; and were authorised by an arret of parlia ment to act, on condition that "they fhould meddle with none but profane fubjects, fuch as are lawful and honeft, and not reprefent any facred Myfteries." Reprefentations founded on holy writ continued to be exhibited in Italy till the year 1660, and the Mystery of Christ's Paffion was reprefented at Vienna fo lately as the early part of the prefent century.

Having thus occafionally mentioned foreign theatres, I take this opportunity to obferve, that the stages of France fo lately as in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign were entirely unfurnished with scenery or any kind of decoration, and that the performers at that time remained on the

8 Hiftriomaflix, quarto, 1633, p. 117, n.

Riccoboni's Account of the Theatres of Europe, 8vo. 1741,

P. 124.