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tism, and in alienating the minds of the people from the new doctrines and reformed rites of worship. Being filenced by authority, they had recourfe to the stage: and from the pulpit removed their polemics to the play-house. Their farces became more fuccessful than their fermons.. The people flocked eagerly to the play-house, when deprived not only of their antient pageantries, but of their pastoral difcourfes, in the church. Archbishop Cranmer and the protector Somerset were the chief objects of these dramatic invectives". At length, the same authority which had checked the preachers, found it expedient to controul the players: and a new proclamation, which I think has not yet appeared in the hiftory of the British drama, was promulgated in the following terms °. The inquifitive reader will obferve, that from this inftrument plays appear to have been long before a general and familiar fpecies of entertainment, that they were acted not only in London but in the great towns, that the profeffion of a player, even in our present fense, was common and established; and that these fatirical interludes are forbidden only in the English tongue. "Forafmuch "as a great number of those that be COMMON PLAYERS of "ENTERLUDES and PLAYES, as well within the city of Lon"don as elsewhere within the realm, doe for the most part play "fuch ENTERLUDES, as contain matter tending to fedition, "and contemning of fundry good orders and laws; whereupon "are grown and daily are likely to growe and enfue much difquiet, divifion, tumults and uprores in this realm : the Kinges Majefty, by the advice and confent of his dearest

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Fuller, CH. HIST. B. vii. Cent. xvi. P. 390.

Dat. 3. Edw. vi. Aug. 8.

It should, however, be remarked, that the reformers had themfelves fhewn the way to this fort of abufe long before. Bale's comedy OF THE THREE LAWS, printed in 1538, is commonly fuppofed to be a Myftery, and merely doctrinal: but it is a fatirical play against ropery, and perhaps the first of the kind in our language. I

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“uncle Edward duke of Somerset, and the rest of his high"neffe Privie Councell, ftraightly chargeth and commandeth "all and everie his Majefties fubjects, of whatsoever ftate, "order, or degree they be, that from the ninth day of this pre"fent month of Auguft untill the feast of All-faints next comming, they nor any of them, openly or fecretly PLAY IN THE ENGLISH TONGUE, any kind of ENTERLUDE, PLAY, "DIALOGUE, or other matter fet forth in form of PLAY, in

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genfem." duod. It has these directions about the dreffes, the first I remember to have seen, which fhew the scope and fpirit of the piece. SIGNAT. G. The

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apparellynge of the fix Vyces or frutes. "of Infydelyte.-Let Idolatry be decked "lyke an olde wytche, Sodomy lyke a "monke of all fectes, Ambycyon lyke a "byshop, Covetoufnesse lyke a Pharifee or fpyrituall lawer, Falfe Doctrine lyke a popyth doctour, and Hypocrefy lyke a graye fryre. The rest of the partes are "eafye ynough to conjecture." A fcene in the fecond A&t is thus opened by INFIDELITAS," Poft cantionem, Infidelitas alta "voce dicat. OREMUS. Omnipotens fem"piterne Deus, qui ad imaginem et fimi"litudinem noftram formafti laicos, da, "quæfumus, ut ficut eorum fudoribus vi"vimus, ita eorum uxoribus, filiabus, et "domicellis perpetuo frui mereamur, per "dominum noftrum Papam." Bale, a clergyman, and at length a bishop in Ireland, ought to have known, that this profane and impious parody was more offenfive and injurious to true religion than any part of the miffal which he means to ridicule. INFIDELITY then begins in Englifh verfe a converfation with LEX MOYSIS, containing the moft low and licentious obfcenity, which I am ashamed to transcribe, concerning the words of a Latin anteme, between an old fryre, or friar, with fetacles on bys nofe, and dame Ifabel an old nun, who crows like a capon. This is the

VOL. III.

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moft tolerable part of INFIDELITY's dialogue. SIGNAT. C. iiij.

It was a good world, when we had fech wholfome ftoryes

Preached in our churche, on fondayes and other feryes".

With us was it merye
When we went to Berye",

And to our Lady of Grace:
To the Bloud of Hayles
Where no good chere fayles,

And other holye place.
When the prefts myght walke,
And with yonge wyves talke,

Then had we chyldren plentye;
Then cuckoldes myght leape
A fcore on a heape,

Now is there not one to twentye.
When the monkes were fatte, &c.

In another place, the old philofophy is ridiculed. SIGNAT. E. v. Where HYPOCRISY fays,

And I wyll rays up in the unyverfitees The feven fleepers there, to advance the pope's decrees:

As Dorbel, and Duns, Durande, and Thomas of Aquyne,

The Mastre of Sentens, with Bachon the

great devyne:

Henricus de Gandavo: and these fhall read ad Clerum

Ariftotle, and Albert de fecretis mulierum : With the commentaryes of Avicen and Averoyes, &c.

b Bury Saint Edmunds.

a Holidays.

C c

any

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any place publick or private within this realm, upon pain, that "whofoever shall PLAY in ENGLISH any fuch PLAY, ENTER"LUDE, DIALOGUE, or other MATTER, fhall fuffer impri"fonment, or other punishment at the pleasure of his Majef"tie." But when the short date of this proclamation expired, the reformers, availing themselves of the ftratagems of an enemy, attacked the papifts with their own weapons. One the comedies on the fide of reformation ftill remains. But the writer, while his own religion from its fimple and impalpable form was much less exposed to the ridicule of scenic exhibition, has not taken advantage of that opportunity which the papistic ceremonies so obviously afforded to burlesque and drollery, from their visible pomp, their number, and their abfurdities: nor did he perceive an effect which he might have turned to his own use, fuggefted by the practice of his catholic antagonists in the drama, who, by way of recommending their own fuperftitious folemnities, often made them contemptible by theatrical representation.

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This piece is entitled, An Enterlude called LUSTY JUVENTUS: lively defcribing the Frailtie of youth: of Nature prone to Vyce: by Grace and Good Councell traynable to vertue'. The author, of whom nothing more is known, was one R. Wever, as appears from the colophon. "Finis, quod R. Wever. Imprinted at "London in Paules churche yarde by Abraham Vele at the figne of the Lambe." Hypocrify is its best character: who laments the lofs of her superstitions to the devil, and recites a long catalogue of the trumpery of the popish worship in the metre and manner of Skelton'. The chapter and verse of Scripture are often announced: and in one scene, a personage, called GOD'S MERCYFULL PROMISES, cites Ezekiel as from the pulpit.

Fuller, ibid. p. 391. See alfo STAT. 2, 3. Edw. vi. A. D. 1548. Gibf. Cod. i, P 261. edit. 1761.

See fupr. vol. i. 241. ii. 378. 397. And Gibf. CoD. i. p. 191. edit. 1761.

See Hawkins's OLD PLAYS, i. p. 135.

• From Bale's THREE LAWES abovementioned, SIGN. B. v.

Here have I pratye gynnes,
Both brouches, beades, and pynnes,
With foch as the people wynnes

Unto idolatrye, &c.

The

The Lord by his prophet Ezekiel sayeth in this wise playnlye, As in the xxiii chapter it doth appere:

Be converted, O ye children, &c '.

From this interlude we learn, that the young men, which was natural, were eager to embrace the new religion, and that the old were unwilling to give up thofe doctrines and modes of worship, to which they had been habitually attached, and had paid the most implicit and reverential obedience, from their childhood. To this circumstance the devil, who is made to represent the Scripture as a novelty, attributes the destruction of his spiritual kingdom.

The old people would beleve stil in my lawes,
But the yonger fort lead them a contrary way;
They wyll not beleve, they playnly fay,

In old traditions as made by men,

But they wyll 'leve as the Scripture teacheth them".

The devil then, in order to recover his intereft, applies to his fon Hypocrify, who attempts to convert a young man to the antient faith, and fays that the Scripture can teach no more, than that God is a good man", a phrase which Shakespeare with great humour has put into the mouth of Dogberry *. But he adds an argument in jest, which the papists sometimes seriously ufed against the proteftants, and which, if we confider the poet's ultimate intention, had better been fuppreffed...

The world was never fo mery,
Since children were fo bolde:
Now every boy will be a teacher,

The father a foole, the chylde a preacher'.

Ibid. p. 159.

Ibid. p. 133.

• Ibid. 141.

Cc 2

* MUCH ADO. iii. 8.

y Ibid. p. 143.

It

It was among the reproaches of proteftantism, that the inexperienced and the unlearned thought themselves at liberty to explain the Scriptures, and to debate the most abstruse and metaphyfical topics of theological fpeculation. The two fongs in the character of YOUTH, at the opening and clofe of this interlude, are flowery and not inelegant ".

The proteftants continued their plays in Mary's reign: for Strype has exhibited a remonstrance from the Privy-council to the lord Prefident of the North, reprefenting, that "certain "lewd [ignorant] perfons, to the number of fix or seven in a

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company, naming themselves to be fervants of fir Francis Lake, and wearing his livery or badge on their fleeves, have "wandred about those north parts, and representing certain

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Plays and Enterludes," reflecting on her majefty and king Philip, and the formalities of the mass. These were familyminstrels or players, who were constantly distinguished by their mafter's livery or badge.

When the English liturgy was reftored at the acceffion of Elifabeth, after its fuppreffion under Mary, the papists renewed their hoftilities from the ftage; and again tried the intelligible mode of attack by ballads, farces, and interludes. A new injunction was then neceffary, and it was again enacted in 1559, that no perfon, but under heavy forfeitures, should abuse the Common Prayer in "any Enterludes, Plays, fongs or rimes "." But under Henry the eighth, fo early as the year 1542, before the reformation was fixed or even intended on its present liberal establishment, yet when men had begun to discern and to repro

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