reign of King Henry the Eighth they were perhaps? performed indifcriminately; but Myfteries were

NINE WORTHIES was played, and the Mayor bore the mace before the deputy on horfeback,

Two of Bale's myfteries, God's Promises, and St. John Baptift, we have been lately told, were acted by young men at the market-crofs in Kilkenny, on a funday, in the year 1552. See Walker's Effay on the Irish Stage, 4to. 1789. and Colled. de Rebus Hiber. Vol. II. p. 388. but there is a flight error in the date. Bale has himself informed us, that he was confecrated Bishop of Offory, February 2. 1552-3. (not on the 25th of March, as the writer of Bale's Life in Biographia Britannica afferts,) and that he foon afterwards went to his palace in Kilkenny. Thefe Myfteries were exhibited there. on the 20th of Auguft, 1553. the day on which Queen Mary was proclaimed, as appears from his own account:

On the xx daye of Auguft was the ladye Marye with us at Kilkennye proclaimed Queen of England, &c. The yonge men in the forenone played a tragedye of Gods Promifes in the old Lawe, at the market-croffe, with organeplainges and fonges, very aptely. In the afternone agayne they played a comedie of Sanet Johan Baptiftes preachinges, of Chriftes baptifynge, and of his temptacion in the wilderneffe, to the fmall contentacion of the preftes and other papifles there." The Vocacyon of Johan Bate, &c. 16mo. no date, fign. C. 8.

The only theatre in Dublin in the reign of queen Elizabeth was a booth (if it may be called a theatre) erected in Hoggin Green, now College Green, where Myfteries and Moralities were occafionally performed. It is frange, that fo lately as in the year 1600. at a time when many of Shakfpeare's plays had been exhibited in England, and lord Montjoy, the intimate friend of his patrons lord Effex and lord Southampton, was Deputy of Ireland, the old play of Gorboduck, written in the infancy of the flage, (for this piece had been originally prefented in 1562. under the name of Ferrex and Porrex,) fhould have been performed at the Cafle of Dublin but fuch is the fact, if we may believe Chetwood the prompter, who mentions that old Mr. Afhbury had feen a bill dated the 7th, of September, 1601. (queen

:

probably feldom reprefented after the ftatute 34 and 35 Henry VIII. c. 1. which was made, as the preamble informs us, with a view that the kingdom fhould be purged and cleanfed of all religious plays, interludes, rhymes, ballads, and fongs, which are equally peftiferous and noyfome to the commonweal. At this time both Moralities and Myfteries were made the vehicle of religious controverfy; Bale's Comedy of the three Laws of Nature, printed in 1538. (which in fact is a Mystery,) being a difguifed fatire against popery; as the Morality of Lufty Juventus was written exprefsly with the fame view in the reign of King Edward the Sixth. S In that of his fucceffor Queen Mary,

66

Elizabeth's birth-day) for wax tapers for the play of Gorboduck done at the Castle, one and twenty fhillings and two groats." Whether any plays were reprefented in Dublin in the reign of James the First, I am unable to afcertain. Barnaby Riche, who has given a curious account of Dublin in the year 1610. makes no mention of any theatrical exhibition. In 1635. when Lord Strafford was Lord Lieutenant, a theatre, probably under his patronage, was built in Werbergh-itreet; which, under the conduct of the wellknown John Ogilby, Master of the Revels in Ireland, continued open till October 1641. when it was fhut up by order of the Lords juftices. At this theatre Shirley's Royal Mafter was originally reprefented in 1639. and Burnel's Landgartha in 1641. In 1662 Ogilby was restored to his office, and a new theatre was erected in Orange-ftreet, (fince called Smock-alley,) part of which fell down in the year 1671. Agrippa, King of Alba, a tragedy, tranflated from the French of Quinault, was acted there before the duke of Ormond, in 1675. and it continued open, I believe, till the death of King Charles the Second. The disturbances which followed in Ireland put an end for a time to all theatrical

entertainments.

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"This mode of attack" (as Mr. Warton has obferved) was seldom returned by the oppofite party: the catholick

1

Myfteries were again revived, as appendages to the papistical worship. In the year 1556." fays Mr. Warton, "a goodly stage-play of the Paffion of Chrift was prefented at the Grey-friars in London, on Corpus-Chrifti day, before the Lord-Mayor, the Privy-council, and many great eftates of the realm. Strype alfo mentions, under the year 1577a flage-play at the Grey-friers, of the Paffion of Chrift, on the day that war was proclaimed in London against France, and in honour of that occafion. On Saint Olave's day in the fame year, the holiday of the church in Silver-ftreet which is dedicated to that faint, was kept with great solemnity. At eight of the clock at night, began a ftage-play of goodly matter, being the miraculous hiftory of the life of that faint, which continued four hours, and concluded with many religious fongs." No Myfteries, I believe, were reprefented during the reign of Elizabeth, except fuch as were occafionally performed by those who were favourers of the popith religion, and thofe already

worfhip founded on fenfible reprefentations afforded a much better hold for ridicule, than the religion of fome of the 'fects of the reformers, which was of a more fimple and fpiritual nature." Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. II. p. 378. n. The interlude, however, called Every Man, which was written in defence of the church of Rome, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, is an exception. It appears alfo from a proclamation promulgated early in the reign of his fon, of which mention will be made hereafter, that the favourers of popery about that time had levelled feveral dramatick invectives againfl Archbishop Cranmer, and the doctrines of the reformers.

Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. III. p. 326.

7 That Myfteries were occafionally reprefented in the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign appears from the affertions

mentioned, known by the name of the Chester Myfteries, which had been originally compofed in 1328, were revived in the time of King Henry the Eighth, (1533.) and again performed at Chefter in the year 1600. The laft Myftery, I believe, ever reprefented in England, was that of Chrift's Paffion, in the reign of King James the Firft, which Prynne tells us was performed at Elie-House in Holborne, when Gundomar lay there, on Goodfriday at night, at which there were thousands prefent."

In France the reprefentation of Myfteries was forbid in the year 1548. when the fraternity afsociated under the name of The Actors of our Saviour's Paffion, who had received letters patent from King Charles the Sixth, in 1402. and had for near 150 years exhibited religious plays, built their new theatre on the fite of the Duke of Burgundy's house; and were authorised by an arret of parliament to act, on condition that " they fhould meddle with none but profane fubjects, fuch as are lawful and honeft, and not represent any facred Myfteries." Representations founded on holy writ continued to be exhibited in Italy till the year 1660. and the Mystery of Chrift's Paffion was repre

9

of the controverfial writers. "They play" fays one of them," and counterfeite the whole Paffion fo trimly, with all the feven forrowes of our lady, as though it had been nothing else but a fimple and plain enterlude, to make boys laugh at, and a little to recreate forowful harts." Beehive of the Romishe Churche, 1580. p. 207. See alfo fupra, p. 24. n. 4. Hiftriomaftix, quarto, 1633. p. 117. n.

9 Riccoboni's Account of the Theatres of Europe, 8vo. 1741. P. 124.

VOL. III.

D

fented a Vienna fo lately as the early part of the prefent century.

Having thus occafionally mentioned foreign. theatres, I take this opportunity to observe, that the stages of France fo lately as in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign were entirely unfurnished with scenery or any kind of decoration, and that the performers at that time remained on the ftage the whole time of the exhibition; in which mode perhaps our Mysteries in England were represented. For this information we are indebted to the elder Scaliger, in whofe Poeticks is the following curious paffage: "Nunc in Gallia ita agunt fabulas, ut omnia in confpectu fint; UNIVERSUS APPARATUS difpofitis fublimibus fedibus. Perfonæ ipfe nunquam difcedunt: qui filent pro abfentibus habentur.. enimvero perridiculum, ibi spectatorem videre te audire, & te videre teipfum non audire quæ alius coram te de te loquatur; quafi ibi non fis, ubi es: cum tamen maxima poetæ vis fit, fufpendere animos, atque eos facere femper expectantes. hic tibi novum fit nihil; ut prius fatietas fubrepat, quam obrepat fames. Itaque recte objecit Æfchylo Euripides apud Ariftophanem in Ranis, quod Niobem & Achillem in fcenam introduxiffet capite co-operto; neque nunquam ullum verbum qui fint loquuti." That is, "At prefent in France [about

2

At

At

2 Jul. Cæf. Scaligeri Poetices Libri Septem. Folio, 1561. Lib. I. c. xxi. Julius Cæfar Scaliger died at Agen, in the province of Guienne in France, on the 21ft of October, 1558. in the 75th year of his age. He wrote his Poeticks in that town a few years before his death.

Riccoboni gives us the fame account in his History of the French Theatre. "In the reprefentations of the Mystè.