This homely realism is best illustrated in the Second Shepherd's Play. Mak the shepherd is suspected of stealing a sheep, and the band of shepherds go to his cottage to find it. Mak meanwhile has bidden his wife get into bed with it and pretend she is nursing a child. But the shepherds discover the ruse and after they have tossed Mak in a sheet they hear the angels singing "Gloria in Excelsis." They at once leave Mak, to bear gifts to the infant Saviour.

What made the Miracle plays an impressive form of literature was the sincerity of purpose with which the monks wrote them and the simple devotion with which the multitude came to be instructed about the mysteries of the sacred teachings. As they gathered about the church door or stood in the street to listen to this dramatic presentation of scenes from the Creation or the Flood or the life of their Saviour, they bowed reverently in adoration. Even after the guilds had taken over the plays, the audience, often rough and with a pronounced liking for comic horseplay, never thought of scoffing at the story as it was unfolded before them. And often the Messenger or Doctor appeared at the end to drive home the moral or the lesson which the audience should carry away.

Sir Gilbert Murray, in tracing out the origin in religious ceremony which characterized both the Greek and the medieval drama, and their difference in this respect from the Elizabethan, says of the medieval drama as a mere species of entertainment: "To a playwright of the twelfth century, who worked out in the church or in front of it his presentation of the Gospel, such an attitude would have seemed debased and cynical. However poor the monkish players or playwrights might be, surely that which they were presenting was in itself enough to fill

the mind of a spectator. To them, as the great medievalist, Gaston Paris, puts it, 'the universe was a vast stage, on which was played an eternal drama, full of tears and joy, its actors divided between heaven, earth, and hell; a drama whose end is foreseen, whose changes of fortune are directed by the hand of God, yet whose every scene is rich and thrilling.' The spectator was admitted to the councils of the Trinity; he saw the legions of darkness mingling themselves with the lives of humanity, tempting and troubling, and the saints and angels at their work of protection or intercession; he saw with his own eyes the kiss of Judas, the scourging and crucifixion, the descent into Hell, the resurrection and ascension; and, lastly, the dragging down to red and bloody torment of the infinite multitudes of the unorthodox or the wicked. Imagine what passed in the minds of those who witnessed in full faith such a spectacle!"

The Morality

The Morality was a later and also anonymous development of the Miracle play. It reached its height near the end of the fifteenth century, not long before the dawn of the drama containing real characters, which in turn was to grow into the supreme drama of the days of Elizabeth. An outgrowth of the medieval love of allegory, it substituted for the characters of sacred history abstract qualities, the Virtues and the Vices, contending for man's soul. Avarice, Conscience, Sloth, Pity, Good Counsel, Knowledge, played their parts with the definite purpose of giving instruction. In The Castle of Perseverance, for example, man is called Humanum Genus, who falls into the hands of Luxuria but is persuaded by Pene

tentia to give himself unto Confessio. By him he is guided to the Castle of Perseverance, where he is guarded by the Virtues from the insidious attacks of the Vices.

Each

Out of this moral preaching it might be thought that little of artistic value could arise, and yet the best of the Moralities, Everyman, possesses genuine power and impressiveness as the story is unfolded of man brought before the judgment of God. As Death comes with his fateful message, Everyman turns to his boon companions, Jollity, Fellowship, Beauty, Riches, and Five Wits, and begs them to accompany him on his last journey. in turn falls away, only Good Deeds supporting him to the end. After he has received the instructions and the last rites of the Church, he presents himself before his Maker and is received into Heaven. This brief outline cannot give any hint of the real pathos of the situation of Everyman as he faces his last summons and does what he can for his salvation in the next world. One or two situations in the play touch a note of tragic beauty that is not easily surpassed.

The Devil of the Miracle plays was retained in these later plays and the Vice, a new character, created for the occasion, with dagger of lath belabors the back of the Evil One to the delight of the audience. This comic type, which persists all through the early drama, developed into✓ the clown of the age of Elizabeth and was employed by Shakespeare in characters like Touchstone, Autolycus, or the Grave Diggers for high artistic purposes. It also gave him the cue for his rich low comedy creations like Dogberry or Bottom the Weaver.

One play, King Johan, by John Bale, may be called the first English historical play. King Johan and his counsellors discuss public matters with Sedition, Private

Wealth, Usurped Power, and the like, with the result that the King lectures them upon the error of their ways.

The Interlude

The Interlude was a further step away from the drama of abstractions and links up the older English drama with the wonderful creative epoch that was to follow. It dispenses with the previous allegorical machinery and didactic aims, rather occupying itself with realistic representations of contemporary citizen types. A slight bit of dialogue, little conversations, and often coarse or boisterous comedy make up the kind of play these "new and very merry interludes" became. The interlude often comprised part of an evening's entertainment before the court or in the nobleman's hall. In its later stages of development it included such elaborate affairs as the Mouse Trap scene in Hamlet and the rustic play in A Midsummer Night's Dream, both of which plays were staged for the entertainment of royalty.

JOHN HEYWOOD, living in the early part of the sixteenth century, was a principal writer of these little plays. Bits of good-humored wrangling on such subjects as whether it is better to be a fool than a wise man created sufficient amusement for his audience. His merry play called The Four P's tells of a Pardoner, a Palmer, a Poticary, and a Peddler who engage in a contest of lying. The Palmer is voted the winner when he declares that women are not shrews since in his experience of five hundred thousand of them he has never known "one woman out of patiens."

The Middle Ages, which we have just traversed in our journey through the centuries, represent a distinct phase

in the life of man. They were formed out of the dying civilizations of the Ancient World fused with the youthful vigor of the barbarians who crushed out the life of paganism. During the thousand years of its growth and decay, the Medieval spirit was chiefly submissive to the authority of the Church of Rome, which ruled the lives of men through the mystic power of dogma. The dominant social structure was feudalism, which at last yielded to the formation of powerful monarchical systems destined to endure for another three or four centuries. Life during this period, from the point of view of intellectual growth, because of the great fact of authority and the incomplete knowledge of itself which the world possessed, was static. The dynamic force which was to destroy the medieval spirit we shall study in our next chapter.