they ought to be, but are allowed to sleep, because they touch the Lords spiritual and temporal; so that, although passed to benefit merchants and the commonalty, they are declared by the great only 'fit to wipe a pan.' Albion is alarmed by these apparent truths, and it is easy to perceive how objectionable what follows might be to the court—

6

'Albion. Alas, if this may not reformed bee,

'I shall never be sure of prosperitie.

Injuri. Ye, and what foloweth hereof, maister Albion?

'To your person universall derysion.

'Albion. Why to me derision?

Injuri. For all other straunge nacions

They will raile on you with open proclamacions,

Saienge, whosoever do as he dose

'Is halfe a man and halfe a wyld goose.'

Justice is also alarmed, and both he and Albion quit the stage in great haste to treat with Principality, and to endeavour to pacify Commonalty, who appears to have been enraged at the existence of such gross abuses. After they are gone, Injury speaks a long soliloquy, in which he expresses his determination, with the aid of his olde mate, called Dyvysion,' to counteract the proceedings of Justice and Albion, and to drive peace from the latter. We subsequently meet with the following stage-direction : Here Injury goeth out, and then Division commeth in with a byll, a sword, a buckler, and a dagger.' He sings a song expressive of his disposition, of no merit, until Injury returns

Divisyon. What, myne old freinde, Injury! 'How were other hanged, and thou let go by? 'Injury. By god, because I tooke delaye For lacke of thee to be myne atturneye.

6

Divisyon. What, horson, woldest thou have mee
Be trussed up in stede of thee?

Injury. Ye, by god, but even for a saye

That I might lerne of you to know the playe.'

When they have grown serious, Injury informs Division that he is on good terms with Justice and Albion, and that he has turned the wrong side of his hood,' in order to bring all to confusion. Division expresses his willingness to aid in the undertaking, and Injury asks how he will proceed? Division replies— 'I have two spyes of great exercyse;

• The one is called Double Devyce.
'Hym wyll I sende, I may tell thee,
• Unto the court to Pryncypalytye,

'And hym wyll I charge, that wyth his provysion Principalytye and the Comons to set at dyvysyon. The second spye is called Olde Debate,

A synguler fellow with a ballyd pate.

Hym wyll I send to the lordes spirituall,

To cause them to wrangle with the lords temporall.

Injuri. What shall they use in their devise?

'Division. The one to Principalytie shall surmyse,

That the comons hartes do aryse

Against him, when that he doth aske,

In tyme of neede, our money for taske,

His harte to move with such unkyndnes. 'Then the same spye shall use lyke doublenes, 'And go to the comons, and to them tell 'That Principalytie with equitie doth rebell, 'More to hys lucre in everie deale

' Applying his affection, then to the comenweale.

And how that he of neglygence

'Doth not apply for theyr defence,

Neither by sea nor by londe,

'Neither by hye wayes, neither by stronde, 'But theves and raveners and murders eke, 'Dayly true men they pursue and seke: And that his lawes indifferently

'Be not used, but maintenaunce and brybary Is suffred alone without reformacion, That the poore Comons is in altercation 'Of this matter, and wote not what to say, 'Bringing them in opinion that they ought not to pay 'To Pryncypalytie theyr duety of very desarte, Except lyke duetie be mynistred on hys parte.'

All this was speaking very home, and although it was put into the mouth of an evil character, it would be very easily liable to misinterpretation, independent of its disposing the minds of the people to consider whether there was not some truth in the complaints of Division. He proceeds to inform Injury that Old Debate is to be employed to sow dissension between the Lords spiritual and the Lords temporal, on the ground that the former were low-born upstarts, who ought not to be allowed to interfere in matters of government, and yet assumed to themselves the chief authority of the state. Injury on his part undertakes to stay a marriage projected between Albion and Plenty, the daughter of Peace, which union is promoted by Justice. For this purpose the Vice desires Division to take the name of Policy, and to hasten to Albion in order to teche him a wrong cross row,' and in order, as he loveth fair flesh of

all meats,' to advise him to recreate himself with Mirth and Prodigality,

And take his owne good, while he maye,

• Lest all at last be brybid awaye;'

which are the last lines of the fragment. It is not difficult to conjecture, according to the usual course of pieces of this class, that the author made his political moral terminate in the defeat of the scheme of Injury and Division, and in the happy union of Albion and Plenty. From what is left of it I am well warranted in terming it a most remarkable production, without any parallel in English, and in rejoicing in having been the means of rescuing it, even in its imperfect state, from total oblivion.

This division of the subject cannot be better illustrated than by the examination of a production, in which the separate natures of a moral and a romantic play appear to be mixed and united.

The 'pleasant comedy called Common Conditions' is a singular performance, and only one copy of it, and that imperfect, is known: it was sold to Steevens at Dr. Wright's sale in 1787, and Malone had a transcript made from it, which is now in the Bodleian Library. As it has neither beginning nor end it is not possible to ascertain when, and by whom, it was printed, but it may be conjectured that it was published about 1570. It comes very much within the general description given by Stubbes of certain pieces in his time, consisting of the adventures of amorous knights

'passing from country to country for the love of their ' ladies *."

There are two pairs of lovers in the performance, who journey from Arabia to Phrygia, from thence to Thrace, to the isle of Marofus, and back again to Phrygia; and the chief connexion between them is the character called Common Conditions, who is the Vice of the performance, and at one time endeavours to promote, and at another to defeat, the happiness of all parties. He is at first the servant of Sedmond and his sister Clarisia (the offspring of Galiarbus, a banished nobleman), and afterwards of Lamphedon, son to the Duke of Phrygia, who is enamoured of Clarisia; but the Vice ultimately turns pirate. The names of the other pair of lovers are Nomides, an Arabian knight, and Sabia, the daughter of a French physician; but the varied history of neither couple is concluded at the end of the fragment, though it is pretty clear that the author designed his piece to end happily.

The whole is, of course, in rhyme, generally in lines of fourteen syllables, but occasionally much shorter; or rather perhaps with two words rhyming together, inserted in the middle of a long line, as in the following example:

:

'Lo heare deare dame, judge of the same as lightly as you

maie.

'I shall, sir knight, unto my might and simple skill here

saie...'

The piece commences, as we have it in its imper

* Plays confuted in Five Actions,—Sig. C 6.