As this reading hath occasioned our saying something of the barbarities of theatrical representations amongst us before the time of Shakespeare, it may not be improper, for a better apprehension of this matter, to give the reader some general account of the rise and progress of the modern stage.

The first form in which the drama appeared in the west of Europe, after the destruction of learned Greece and Rome, and that a calm of dulness had finished upon letters what the rage of barbarism had begun, was that of the Mysteries. These were the fashionable and favourite diversions of all ranks of people both in France, Spain, and England. In which last place, as we learn by Stowe, they were in use about the time of Richard the second and Henry the fourth. As to Italy, by what I can find, the first rudiments of their stage, with regard to the matter, were profane subjects, and with regard to the form, a corruption of the ancient mimes and attellanes: by which means they got sooner into the right road than their neighbours; having had regular plays amongst them wrote as early as the 15th century.

As to these Mysteries, they were as their names speaks them a representation of some scripture-story, to the life as may be seen from the following passage in an old French history, intitled, La Chronique de Metz composee par le curé de St. Euchaire; which will give the reader no bad idea of the surprising absurdity of these strange representations: "L'an 1437 le 3 Juilet (says the honest Chronicler) fut fait le Jeu de la passion de N. S. en la plaine de Veximiel. Et fut Dieu un sire appelé Seigneur Nicole Dom Neufchastel lequel étoit Curé de St. Victor de Metz, lequel fut presque mort en la Croix, s'il ne fut été secouru; & convient qu'un autre Prêtre fut mis en la Croix pour parfaire le Personnage du Crucifiment pour ce jour; & le lendermain le dit Curé de St. Victor parsit la Résurrection, et fit très hautement son personage; & dura le dit Jeu-----Et autre Prêtre qui s' appelloit Mre Jean de Nicey, qui estoit Chapelain de Metrange, fut Judas: lequel fut presque mort en pendant car le tuer il faillit, et fut bien hativement dépendu & porté en Voye. Et étoit la bouche d'Enfer très bien faite; car elle ouvroit & clooit, quand les Diables y vouloient entrer et isser; & avoit deux gross Culs d' Acier," &c. Alluding to this kind of representations archbishop Harsnet, in his Declaration of Popish Impostures, p. 71, says "The little children were never so afraid of Hell-mouth in the old plays, painted with great gang teeth, staring eyes, and foul bottle nose." Garew in his survey of Cornwall gives a fuller description of them in these words, "The Cuary Miracle, in English a Miracle Play, is a kind of interlude compiled in Cornish out of some scripture history. or representing it, they raise an earthen amphitheatre, in some open field, having the diameter of an inclosed playne, some forty or fifty foot. The country people flock from all sides many miles off, to hear and see it. For they have therein devils and devices, to delight as well the eye as the ear. The players conne not their parts without book, but are prompted by one called the ordinary, who followeth at their back with the book in his hand." &c. &c. There was always a droll or buffoon in these Mysteries, to make the people myrth with his sufferings or absurdities: and they could think of no better personage than the devil himself. Even in the Mystery of the Passion mentioned above, it was contrived to make him ridiculous. Which circumstance is hinted at by Shakespeare (who had frequent allusions to these things) in The Taming of the Shrew, where one of the players asks for " a little vinegar (as a property) to make the devil roar." For after the sponge with gall and vinegar had been employed in the representation, they used to clap it to the nose of the devit, which making him roar, as if it had been holy-water, afforded infinite diversion to the people. So that vinegar in the old farces, was always afterwards in use to torment their devil. We have divers old English proverbs, in which the devil is represented as acting or suffering ridiculously and absurdly, which all arose from the part he bore in these Mysteries, as in that for instance of Great cry and little wool as the devil said when he shared his hogs. For the sheep-shearing of Nabal being represented in the mystery of David and Abigail, and the devil always attending Nabal, was made to imitate it by shearing a hog. This kind of absurdity, as it is the properest to create laughter, was the subject of the ridiculous in the ancient mimes, as we learn from these words of St. Austin: Ne faciamus ut mimi solent, et optemus a libero aquam, a lymphis vinum.

These Mysteries, we see, were given in France at first, as well as in England, sub dio, and only in the provinces. Afterwards we find them got into Paris, ard a company established in the Hotel de Bourgogne to represent them. But good letters and religion beginning to make their way in the latter end of the reign of Francis the first, the stupidity and prophaneness of the mysteries made the courtiers and clergy join their interest for their suppression. Accordingly, in the year 1541, the procurer-general, in the name of the king, presented a request against the company to the parliament. The three principal branches of his charge against them were, that the representation of the Old Testament stories inclined the people to Judaism; that the New Testament stories encouraged libertinism and infidelity; and that both of them lessened the charities to the poor: it seems that this prosecution succeeded: for, in 1548, the parliament of Paris confirmed the company in the possession of the Hotel de Bourgogne, but interdicted the representation of the Mysteries. But in Spain, we find by Cervantes, that they continued much longer; and held their own, even after good comedy came in amongst them. To return:

Upon this prohibition, the French poets turned themselves from religious to moral farces. And in this we soon followed them: the public taste not suffering any great alteration at first, though the Italians at this time afforded many just compositions for better models. These farces they called Moralities. To this sad serious subject they added, though in a separate representation, a merry kind of farce called Sottie, in which there was un Paysan (the Clown) under the name of Sot Commun (or Fool. But we, who borrowed all these delicacies from the French, blended the Moralitie and Sottie together: So that the Payson or Sot Commun, the Clown or Fool, got a place in our serious Moralities: Whose business we may understand in the frequent allusions our Shakespeare makes to them: as in these lines of Love's Labour's Lost, Act v. sc. 2:

"So Portent-like I would o'er-rule his state,
That he should be my Fool, and I his Fate."

But the French, as we say, keeping these two sorts of farces distinct, they became, in time, the parents of tragedy and comedy; while we, by jumbling them together, begot in an evil hour, that mungrel species, unknown to nature and antiquity, called tragi-comedy. WARBURTON.

I have nothing to add to these observations, but that some traces of this antiquated exhibition are still retained in the rustic puppet-plays, in which I have seen the Devil very lustily belaboured by Punch, whom I hold to be the legitimate successor of the old Vice. JOHNSON.

HENRY VIII.

OBSERVATIONS.

KING HENRY VIII.] We are unacquainted with any dramatick piece on the subject of Henry VIII. that preceded this of Shakespeare; and yet on the books of the Stationers' Company appears the following entry: "Nathaniel Butter] (who was one of our author's printers) Feb. 12, 1604. That he get good allowance for the enterlude of King Henry Vill. before he begin to print it; and with the wardens hand to yt, he is to have the same for his copy." Dr. Farmer observes, from Stowe, that Robert Greene had written somewhat on the same story. STEEVENS.

This historical drama comprizes a period of twelve years, commencing in the twelfth year of King Henry's reign, (1521,) and ending with the christening of Elizabeth in 1533. Shakespeare has deviated from history in placing the death of Queen Katharine before the birth of Elizabeth, for in fact Katharine did not die till 1536.

King Henry VIII. was written, I believe, in 1601. See An Attempt to ascertain the Order of Shakespeare's Plays, Vol. II.

Dr. Farmer observes, from Stowe, that " Robert Greene had written something on this story;” but this, I apprehend, was not a play, but some historical account of Henry's reign, written not by Robert Greene, the dramatick poet, but by some other person. In the list of "authors out of whom Stowe's Annals were compiled," prefixed to the last edition printed in his life time, quarto, 1605, Robert Greene is enumerated with Robert de Brun, Robert Fabian, &c. and he is often qucted as an authority for facts in the margin of the history of that reign.

MALONE.

I

PROLOGUE.

COME no more to make you laugh; things now,
That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,
Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow,
We now present. Those, that can pity, here
May, if they think it well, let fall a tear;
The subject will deserve it. Such, as give
Their money out of hope they may believe,
May here find truth too. Those, that come to see
Only a show or two, and so agree,
The play may pass; if they be still, and willing,
I'll undertake, may see away their shilling
Richly in two short hours. Only they,
That come to hear a merry, bawdy play,
A noise of targets; or to see a fellow
In a long motley coat, guarded with yellow,
Will be deceiv'd: for, gentle hearers, know,
To rank our chosen truth with such a show
As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting
Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring,
(To make that only true we now intend,)
Will leave us never an understanding friend.
Therefore, for goodness' sake, and as you are known
The first and happiest hearers of the town,
Be sad, as we would make ye: Think, ye see
The very persons of our noble story,
As they were living; think, you see them great,
And follow'd with the general throng, and sweat,
Of thousand friends; then, in a moment, see
How soon this mightiness meets misery !
And, if you can be merry then, I'll say,
A man may weep upon his wedding day.

[1] Alluding to the fools and buffoons, introduced in the plays a little before our author's time: and of whom he has left us a small taste in his own.

THEOBALD

[2] This is not the only passage in which Shakespeare has discovered his conviction of the impropriety of battles represented on the stage. He knew that five or six men with swords, gave a very unsatisfactory idea of an army, and therefore, without much care to excuse his former practice, he allows that a theatrical fight would destroy all opinion of truth, and leave him never an understanding friend. Magnis ingeniis et multa nihil ominus habituris simplex convedit erroris confessio. Yet I know not whether the coronation shown in this play may not be liable to all that can be objected against a battle. JOHNSON.

8

VOL. VII.