continued until an accidental interruption occurs. From the reign of Henry VII. to that of James I. it was very customary for players to perform during private festivities, but especially at the marriages of the nobility and gentry.

Many dramatic pieces of the description of which we are now speaking were not printed until long after they were written and acted, and the date when they issued from the press is often no criterion of the time when they came from the pen of the author. Some that are known to have been published are now lost; others yet remain in MS.; and a few that appear to have been popular were, perhaps, never printed and have not survived: in the first class may be mentioned Skelton's Nigramansir,* in the second the Macro Morals, to which I have before alluded, and in the third, several of those in the preceding quotation from the play of Sir Thomas More. The extreme popularity of The Cradle of Security cannot be doubted: it is mentioned in Chettle's comedy of Patient Grissel, 1603, in the Works' of Taylor the water-poet, 1630 †, and in Willis's Mount Tabor, 1639; which Malone quotes to show the nature of such performances, and which is nearly all the information he supplies upon the subject. Of a more curious Moral-play, written

*See Warton, H. E. P., iii. 185, edit. 8vo.

P. 122, fol., in a Poem called The Thiefe.

Shakespeare by Boswell, iii. 28. Malone is inaccurate in the extract he furnishes, but which he profesess to give literatim : he also omits a curious portion of the original. I am indebted to Mr. Phelps VOL. II.

T

in defence of theatrical exhibitions, and acted about the year 1580, the following account is left by Stephen Gosson in his rare tract, Playes confuted in five Actions,

for the loan of a copy of this curious little volume, from which I shall quote the whole that relates to our subject.

UPON A STAGE-PLAY WHICH I SAW WHEN I WAS A

" CHILD.

'In the city of Gloucester the manner is (as I think it is in other 'like corporations) that when Players of Enterludes come to towne, they first attend the Mayor, to enforme him what noble-mans servants " they are, and so to get licence for their publike playing; and if the 'Mayor like the Actors, or would shew respect to their Lord and Master, 'he appoints them to play their first play before himselfe and the 'Aldermen and Common Counsell of the City; and that is called the 6 Mayor's play, where every one that will comes in without money, the 6 Mayor giving the players a reward as hee thinks fit, to shew respect 'unto them. At such a play, my father tooke me with him, and 'made mee stand betweene his leggs, as he sate upon one of the ' benches, where wee saw and heard very well. The play was called ' (the Cradle of security) wherein was personated a King or some great 'Prince, with his Courtiers of severall kinds, amongst which three "Ladies were in speciall grace with him, and they, keeping him in delights and pleasures, drew him from his graver Counsellors, hearing ' of Sermons, and listening to good counsell, and admonitions, that in 'the end they got him to lye downe in a cradle upon the stage, where ' these three Ladies joyning in a sweet song, rocked him asleepe, that he 'snorted againe, and in the meane time closely conveyed under the 'cloaths where withall he was covered, a vizard like a swines snout upon his face, with three wire chaines fastned thereunto, the other ' end whereof being holden severally by those three Ladies, who fall to 'singing againe, and then discovered his face, that the spectators might see how they had transformed him, going on with their singing: 'whilst all this was acting, there came forth of another doore at the 'farthest end of the stage, two old men, the one in blew, with a Serjeant 'at Armes his mace on his shoulder, the other in red with a drawn 'sword in his hand, and leaning with the other hand upon the other's

which appeared without date, in the year 1581 or 1582: the title of it was The Play of Plays.

'The author of The Playe of Playes, spreading out his battel to hemme me in, is driven to take so large ' a compasse, that his array is the thinner, and there'fore the easier to be broken. He tyeth Life and

'shoulder, and so they two went along in a soft pace, round about by 'the skirt of the stage, till at last they came to the Cradle, when all the Court was in greatest jollity, and then the foremost old man 'with his Mace stroke a fearfull blow upon the Cradle, whereat all 'the Courtiers, with the three Ladies and the vizard, all vanished; and the desolate Prince starting up bare faced, and finding him'selfe thus sent for to judgement, made a lamentable complaint of 'his miserable case, and so was carried away by wicked spirits. This 'Prince did personate in the morall, the wicked of the world; the 'three Ladies, Pride, Covetousnesse, and Luxury; the two old men, the ' end of the world, and the last judgement. This sight tooke such 'impression in me, that when I came towards mans estate, it was as 'fresh in my memory, as if I had seen it newly acted. From whence 'I observe out of mine owne experience, what great care should bee had ' in the education of children, to keepe them from seeing of spectacles ' of ill examples, and hearing of lascivious or scurrilous words; for that their young memories are like faire writing tables, wherein if the 'faire sentences or lessons of grace bee written, they may (by God's blessing) keepe them from many vicious blots of life, wherewithall they may otherwise be tainted: especially considering the generall 'corruption of our nature, whose very memories are apter to receive evill then good, and that the well seasoning of the Caske at the first, 6 keepes it the better and sweeter ever after: and withall wee may observe, how farre unlike the Plaies and harmlesse morals of former 'times are to those which have succeeded, many of which (by report ' of others) may bee termed schoolmasters of vice, and provocations to corruptions; which our depraved nature is too prone unto; nature ' and grace being contraries.'

i

6

Delight so fast together, that if Delight be restrained, Life presently perisheth: there Zeale perceyving Delight to be embraced of Life, puttes a snaffle in his mouth to keepe him under: Delight being bridled, Zeale leadeth Life through a wildernesse ' of lothsomenesse, where Glutte scarreth them all, 'chasing both Zeale and Delight from Life, and with the clubbe of amasednesse strikes such a pegge into ❝ the heade of Life, that he falles downe for dead upon the stage.

Life being thus fainte and overtravailed, destitute ' of his guyde, robbed of Delight, is readie to give up the ghost in the same place: then entereth Recreation, which with musicke and singing rockes Life ' asleepe to recover his strength.

By this meanes Tediousnesse is driven from Life, ' and the teinte is drawne out of his heade, which the clubbe of amasednes left behinde.

At last Recreation setteth up the gentleman upon his feete, Delight is restored to him againe, and such kinde of sportes, for cullices, are brought in to ' nourishe him, as none but Delight must applye to his 'stomache. Then time being made for the benefite of Life, and Life being allowed to follow his appetite amongst all manner of pastimes, Life chooseth Com❝ medies for his delight, partly because Commedies are 'neither chargable to the beholders purse, nor painful to his body; partly because he may sit out of the raine to viewe the same, when many other pastimes are hindred by wether. Zeale is no more admitted

6

'to Life before he be somewhat pinchte in the wast, 'to avoyde extremitie, and being not in the end simply. called Zeale, but Moderate Zeale: a few conditions

،

are prescribed to Comedies; that the matter be 'purged, deformities blazed, sinne rebuked, honest 'mirth intermingled, and fit time for the hearing of the same appointed. Moderate Zeale is contented to suffer them, who joyneth with Delight to direct 'Life againe, after which he triumphes over Death, and is crowned with eternitie.'

This quotation clearly shows the whole course and conduct of the Moral called The Play of Plays. Malone for many years believed that a tract by Thomas Lodge, in defence of theatrical amusements*, was

:

* Only a single copy of it is known, and that is without the titlepage, and in 16mo. It is at present, I believe, in the possession of Mr. Harris of Covent Garden Theatre, in whose hands Malone saw it long after he had finished his History of the Stage, so that he could not make use of it. Lodge himself tells us, in his Alarum for Usurers, 1584, that his Defence of Plays had been forbidden by the public authorities it consists of three Divisions: 1. The Defence of Poetry; 2. The Defence of Music; 3. The Defence of Plays; and in the last it speaks of Gosson, not merely as a play-maker but as a play-actor. Lodge asserts that Gosson's play of Catiline's Conspiracy was not all his own, and from what follows it should seem that Robert Wilson, who was appointed one of the Queen's Players in 1583, had written a short piece, possibly upon the same subject:- Beleve me, I should 'preferr Wilson's shorte and sweete, if I were a judge, a piece surely 'worthy of prayse, the practise of a good scholler: would the wiser 'would overlooke that, they might perhaps cull some wisdome out of a player's toye.' Lodge agrees that plays ought to be forbidden on the Sabbath, and ends thus:- Lastly, I frendly bid Gosson farewell, 'wyshinge him to temper his penn with more discretion.' This Answer to Gosson's School of Abuse must have been printed in 1580.

6