[1] Warton's "Hist. of Eng. Poetry," iii. 195, 8vo edition; but it
has been suggested that, as Saint Gregory composed more poetically,
this earliest sacred drama was the production of a later writer,
another Gregory, bishop of Antioch, A.D. 572. The dramatist, however,
was an ecclesiastic, and that point only is important on the present
occasion.
[2] TERTULLIAN, CHRYSOSTOM, LACTANTIUS, CYPRIAN, and others, have
vehemently declaimed against theatres and actors. It is doubtless the
invectives of the Fathers which have been the true origin of the
puritanic denouncement against "stage-plays" and "play-goers." The
Fathers furnished ample quotations for PRYNNE in his "Histriomastix."
It is, however, curious to observe that at a later day, in the
thirteenth century, the great schoolman, Thomas Aquinas, greatly
relaxed the prohibitions; confessing that amusement is necessary to
the happiness of man, he allows the decent exercise of the histrionic
art. See a curious tract, "The Stage Condemned," which contains a
collection of the opinions of the Fathers, 1698. Riccoboni, "Sur les
Theatres," does not fail to appeal to the great schoolman.
[3] "Tiraboschi," iv.
[4] These dramas subsequently formed no uncommon spectacle in the
streets of Italy, whence some Italian critics have fancied that the
Gothic poem of Dante--his Hell, his Purgatory, and his Paradise--was
an idea caught from the threefold stage of a mystery which often
fixed his musings in the streets of his own Florence. As late as in
the year 1739, a mystery of _The Damned Soul_, acted by living
personages, was still exhibited by a company of strollers in Turin;
we have the amusing particulars in a letter by Spence.--Spence's
"Anecdotes," 397. They have sunk to the humble state of puppet-shows,
and are still exhibited at Carnival time at Venice and elsewhere.
[5] See the note and this extraordinary blunder in _Fabliaux_, ii.
152.
[6] Mr. Wright has published a curious collection of Latin mysteries
of the twelfth century. [For a detailed notice of other printed
collections see note to "Curiosities of Literature," vol. i. p.
352.--ED.]
[7] Perhaps the very last remains of such rude dramatic exhibitions
are yet to be traced in our counties--about Christmas-tide, or rather
old Christmas, whose decrepit age is personified. In Lancashire and
Yorkshire, and also in Dorsetshire, families are visited by "the
great Emperor of the Turks" and St. George of England, or by the
lion-hearted Richard. After a fierce onset, ringing their tin swords,
the Saracens groan and drop. The Leech appears holding his phial;
from some drops the dead survive their fate, and rise for the
hospitable supper. The dialogue, however, has not been so traditional
as the exhibition. The curious portion of these ancient exhibitions
is, therefore, totally lost in the substitutions of the rude rustics.
The Wassail Songs, or the Christmas Carols, have come down with fewer
losses than these ancient "Tales of the Crusaders;" for the language
of emotion, and the notice of old picturesque customs, cling to the
memory, and endure with their localities. But for these we must
travel far from the land of the Cockneys.
[8] Bouterwek.
[9] The clergy long continued to assist at these exhibitions, if they
did not always act in them. In 1417, an _English Mystery_ was
exhibited before the Emperor Sigismund, at the Council of Constance,
on the usual subject of the Nativity. The _English Bishops_ had it
rehearsed several days, that the actors might be perfect before their
imperial audience. We are not told in what language their _English
Mystery_ was recited; but we are furnished with a curious fact, that
"the Germans consider this play as the first introduction of that
sort of dramatic performance in their country."--"Henry of Monmouth,"
by the Rev. J. E. Tyler, ii. 61.
[10] The Spanish nation, unchangeable in their customs, have retained
the last remains of the ancient Mysteries in the divisions of their
dramas, called "Jornadas."
[11] "A sheep-skin for Jews, wigs for the Apostles, and vizards for
Devils," appear in the churchwardens' accounts at Tewkesbury, 1578,
"for the players' geers."--"Hist. of Dramatic Poetry," ii. 140. The
same diligent inquirer has also discovered the theatrical term
"properties," in allusion to the furniture of the stage, and which is
so used by Shakspeare, employed in its present sense in an ancient
morality.--Ib. ii. 129.
[12] "Reliques of Ancient Poetry," i. 129.
[13] "Dictionnaire de l'Academie Francaise."--The proverbial phrase
is accompanied by a very superfluous remark--"Ce mot a passe d'usage
avec les moeurs de ces temps anciens." See also "Dict. de Trevoux,"
art. _Mystere_.
[14] That the translation of the "Chester Plays" was made from the
_French_, and not from the _Latin_, as Warton supposed, is
ingeniously elucidated by Mr. Collier. In the English translation,
some of the original French passages have been preserved.--"Annals of
the Stage," ii. 129.
When Warton found that these plays were translated into English, he
concluded that they were from the Latin. He totally forgot that the
French was long the prevalent language of England. And this important
circumstance, too often overlooked by preceding inquirers, has thrown
much confusion in our literary history.
The best account we have of Ralph Higden may be found in the _first_
volume of Lardner's Cyclopaedia on "The Early History of the English
Stage," a work of some original research, at page 193.
[15] The earliest and rudest known miracle-play in English has been
published by Mr. Halliwell--_The Harrowing of Hell_. It was written
in the reign of Edward the Second, and is a curious instance of the
childhood of the drama.
[16] The reign of Henry the Sixth may he fixed upon as the epoch of a
new species of dramatic representation, known by the name of a
moral.--_Collier_, i. 23.
[17] The reader may gratify his curiosity, and derive considerable
amusement, from the skilful analysis of primitive dramas, both
manuscript and printed, which Mr. COLLIER has drawn up with true
dramatic taste. There are also copious specimens in a curious article
on Heywood in the volume on "The English Drama" of Lardner's
Cyclopaedia,--the labour of a learned antiquary. [One of Heywood's
Interludes was printed by the Percy Society from his MS. in the
British Museum, under the editorial care of Mr. Fairholt; who
prefixed an analysis with copious extracts from his other
Interludes.] The progress of the drama was similar both in France and
England, yet our vivacious neighbours seem to have invented a
peculiar burlesque piece of their own, under the title of _Sotties_,
and whose chief personage takes the quality of _Prince des Sots_; and
_La Mere Sotte_, who is represented with her infant _Sots_. These
pieces still retained their devout character, with an intermixture of
profane and burlesque scenes, highly relished by the populace. "Ils
le nommerent par un quolibet vulgaire, _Jeux de Pois pilez_, et ce
fut selon toutes les apparences a cause de melange du sacre et du
profane qui regnait dans ces sortes de jeux." The cant phrase which
the people coined for this odd mixture of sacred and farcical
subjects, of _Mashed Peas_, may lose its humour with us, but we find
by Bayle, art. "D'Assoucy," that they were collected and printed
under this title, and fetched high prices among collectors. These
_Sotties_ were acted by a brotherhood calling themselves _Enfans sans
Soucy_.--Parfait, "Hist. du Theatre Francais," i. 52. One of their
chief composers was PIERRE GRINGOIRE, of whose rare _Sotties_ I have
several reprints by the learned Abbe Caron. Gringoire invented and
performed his _Sotties_, in ridicule of the Pope, on a scaffold or
stage, to charm his royal master, Louis the Twelfth, in 1511; for an
ample list of his gay satires see "Biog. Universelle," art.
"Gringoire."
[18] Strype's "Mem. of Eccles. Hist.," iii. 379.
[19] "Annals of the Stage," i. 107.
[20] Warton's "Hist. of Eng. Poetry," iii. 428, 8vo.
[21] Rastell's "Collection of Statutes," fo. 32--d.
[22] Both these ancient dramas are reprinted in Hawkins' "Origin of
the English Drama." Many such dramas remain in manuscript.
[23] "Bibliotheque du Theatre Francais," iii. 263, ascribed to the
Duke de la Valliere. He has preserved many passages exquisitely
humorous. He felt awkwardly in performing his duty to his readers,
after what his predecessors, Messieurs Parfait, had declared;--and,
to calm the terrors of _les personnes scrupuleuses_, it is amusing to
observe his plea, or his apology, for noticing these admirable
antipapistic satires:--"They are outrageous and abound with
impieties; but they are extremely well written for their time, and
truly comic. I considered that I could not avoid giving these
extracts, were it only to show to what lengths the first pretended
reformers carried their unreasonable violence against the holy
Father, and the court of Rome." The apology for their transcription,
if not more ingenuous, is at least more ingenious than the apology
for their suppression.
THE REFORMER BISHOP BALE; AND THE ROMANIST JOHN HEYWOOD, THE COURT
JESTER.
BALE, Bishop of Ossory, and JOHN HEYWOOD, the court jester, were
contemporaries, and both equally shared in the mutable fortunes of the
satiric dramas of their times; but they themselves were the antipodes of
each other: the earnest Protestant BALE, the gravest reformer, and the
inflexible Catholic HEYWOOD, noted for "his mad merry wit," form one of
those remarkable disparities which the history of literature sometimes
offers.
BALE was originally educated in a monastery; he found an early patron,
and professed the principles of the Reformation; and, like Luther,
sealed his emancipation from Catholic celibacy by a wife, whom he
tenderly describes as "his faithful Dorothea." It was a great thing for
a monk to be mated with such constancy at a time when women were usually
to be described as shrews, or worse. From the day of marriage the malice
of persecution haunted the hapless heretic; such personal hatreds could
not fail of being mutual. He seems to have too hastily anticipated the
Reformation under Henry the Eighth, for though that monarch had freed
himself from "the bishop of Rome," he had by no means put aside the
doctrines, and Bale, who had already begun a series of two-and-twenty
reforming interludes in his "maternal idiom," found it advisable to
leave a kingdom but half reformed. He paused not, however, till he had
written a whole library against "the Papelins," the last production
always seemed the most envenomed. On the death of Henry he unexpectedly
appeared before Edward the Sixth, who imagined that he had died. Bale
had the misfortune to be promoted to the Irish bishopric of Ossory--to
plant Protestantism in a land of Papistry! Frustrated in his unceasing
fervour, Bale escaped from martyrdom by hiding himself in Dublin. The
death of Edward relieved our Protestant bishop from this sad dilemma;
for on the accession of Mary he flew into Switzerland. There he
indulged his anti-papistical vein; the press sent forth a brood, among
which might have been some of better growth, for he laboured on our
British biography and literature; but as there were yet but few
Protestants to record, it flowed, and sometimes overflowed, against all
the friends of the Papacy; Pits, who subsequently resumed the task, a
sullen and fierce Papist, in revenge omitted in the line of our
illustrious Britons, Wickliffe and every Wickliffite. Such were the
beginnings of our literary history. On the accession of Elizabeth, his
country received back its exile; but Bale refused to be reinstated in
his Irish see, and sunk into a quiet prebendary of Canterbury. Fuller
has called our good bishop "Bilious Bale." Some conceive that this
bishop has suffered ill-treatment merely for having thrown out some
remarkable, or abominable, invectives. Proselytes, however sincere in
their new convictions and their old hatreds, both operating at once,
colour their style as some do their faces, till by long use the
heightened tint seems faint, and they go on deepening it, and thus at
last the natural countenance is lost in the artificial mass.
If Bale were no poet, in the singular dramas we have, he at least
displays a fluent invention; he tells plainly what is meant, which we
like to learn; and I do not know whether it be owing to his generally
indifferent verse that we sometimes are struck by an idiomatic phrase,
and a richness of rhymes peculiar to himself, which sustain our
attention.[1]
Of JOHN HEYWOOD, the favourite jester of Henry the Eighth and his
daughter Mary, and the intimate of Sir Thomas More, whose congenial
humour may have mingled with his own, more table-talk and promptness at
reply have been handed down to us than of any writer of the times. His
quips, and quirks, and quibbles are of his age, but his copious
pleasantry still enlivens; these smoothed the brow of Henry, and relaxed
the rigid muscles of the melancholy Mary. He had the _entree_ at all
times to the privy-chamber, and often to administer a strong dose of
himself, which her majesty's physicians would prescribe. He is
distinguished as Heywood the epigrammatist; a title fairly won by the
man who has left six centuries of epigrams, collected and adjusted as
many English proverbs in his verse, besides the quaint conceits of
"crossing of proverbs."[2] Of these six hundred epigrams it is possible
not a single one is epigrammatic: we have never had a Martial. Even when
it became a fashion, to write books of epigrams half a century
subsequently, they usually closed in a miserable quibble, a dull
apophthegm, or at the best, like those of Sir John Harrington, in a
plain story rhymed. Wit, in our sense of the term, was long unpractised,
and the modern epigram was not yet discovered.
Heywood, who had flourished under Henry, on the change in the reign of
Edward, clung to the ancient customs. He was a Romanist, but had he not
recovered in some degree from the cecity of superstition, he had not so
keenly exposed, as he has done, some vulgar impostures. It happened,
however, that some unlucky jest, trenching on treason, flew from the
lips of the unguarded jester; it would have hanged some--but pleasant
verses promptly addressed to the young sovereign saved him at the
pinch,--however, he gathered from "the council" that this was no
jesting-time, and he left the country in the day that Bale was returning
from his emigration under King Henry. On Mary's accession, Bale again
retired, and Heywood suddenly appeared at court. Asked by the queen
"What wind blew him there?" "Two specially; the one to see your
majesty!" he replied. "We thank you for that," said the queen, "but I
pray you what is the other?" "That your grace might see me!" There was
shrewdness in this pleasantry, to bespeak the favour of his royal
patroness. Four short years did not elapse ere Elizabeth opened her long
reign, and then the merry Romanist for ever bid farewell to his native
land, while Bale finally sat beside his English hearth. These were very
moveable and removeable times, and no one was certain how long he should
remain in his now locality.
The genius of HEYWOOD created "The Merrie Interlude;" unlike BALE, as in
all things, he never opened the Bible for a stage-play, but approaching
Comedy, he became the painter of manners, and the chronicler of domestic
life. Warton certainly has hastily and contradictorily censured Heywood,
without a right comprehension of his peculiar subjects; yet he admired
at least one of Heywood's writings, in which, being anonymous, he did
not recognise the victim of his vague statements. Warton and his
followers have obscured a true genius for exuberant humour, keen irony,
and exquisite ridicule, such as Rabelais and Swift would not have
disdained, and have not always surpassed. One of his interludes is
accessible for those who can revel in a novel scene of comic invention.
This interlude is "The Four P's; the Palmer, the Pardoner, the Poticary,
and the Pedler." Each flouts the other, and thus display their
professional knaveries.[3]
The ludicrous strokes of this piece could never have come from a bigot
to the ancient superstition, however attached to the ancient creed. We
cannot tell how far the jester may have been influenced by a
proclamation of 28th of Henry the Eighth, to protect "the poor innocent
people from those light persons called pardoners by colour of their
indulgences," &c. He has curiously exhibited to us all the trumpery
regalia of papistry; as he also exposed "The Friery" in another
interlude which has all the appearance of a merry tale from Boccaccio.
So plays the jocund spirit of Heywood the Jester, in his minstrel-verse
and pristine idiom; but we have now to tell another tale. Heywood is the
author of a ponderous volume, and an interminable "parable" of "The
Spider and the Fly." It is said to have occupied the thoughts of the
writer during twenty years. This unlucky "heir of his invention" is
dressed out with a profusion of a hundred woodcuts--then rare and
precious things--among which starts up the full-length of the author
more than once. Warton impatiently never reached the conclusion, where
the author has confided to us the secret of his incomprehensible
intention. There Warton would have found that "we must understand that
the spiders represent the Protestants, and the flies the Catholics; that
the maid with the broom sweeping away the cobwebs (to the annoyance of
their weavers) is Mary armed with the civil power, executing the
commands of her Master (Christ), and her mistress (Mother Church)." We
see at once all the embarrassments and barrenness of this wearying and
perplexed fancy. Warton contents himself with what he calls "a sensible
criticism," taken from Harrison, a Protestant minister, and one of the
partners of Holinshed's Chronicle; it is as mordacious as a periodical
criticism. "Neither he who made this book, nor any who reads it, can
reach unto the meaning." Warton, to confirm "the sensible criticism,"
alleges as a proof of its unpopularity, that it was never reprinted; but
it was published in 1556, and Mary died in 1558. A vindication of "the
maid with the broom" might be equally unwelcome to "spiders and flies."
How it happened that the court jester who has sent forth such volumes of
mirth could have kept for years hammering at a dull and dense poem, is a
literary problem which perhaps admits of a solution. We may ascribe this
aberration of genius to the author's position in society. Heywood was a
Romanist from principle; that he was no bigot, his free satires on
vulgar superstitions attest. But the jester at times was a thoughtful
philosopher. One of his interludes is _The Play of the Weather_, where
the ways of Providence are vindicated in the distribution of the
seasons. But "mad, merry Heywood" was the companion of many
friends--Papists and Protestants--at court and in all the world over.
His creed was almost whole in broken times, perhaps agreeing a little
with the Protestant, and then reverting to the Romanist. In this
unbalanced condition, mingling the burlesque with the solemn, unwilling
to excommunicate his friend the Protestant "spider," and intent to
vindicate the Romanist "fly;" often he laid aside, and often resumed,
his confused emotions. It might require dates to settle the precise
allusions; what he wrote under Henry and Edward would be of another
colour than under the Marian rule. His gaiety and his gravity offuscate
one another; and the readers of his longsome fiction, or his dark
parallel, were puzzled, even among his contemporaries, to know in what
sense to receive them. Sympathising with "the fly," and not uncourteous
to "the spider," our author has shown the danger of combining the
burlesque with the serious; and thus it happened that the most facetious
genius could occupy twenty years in compounding, by fits and starts, a
dull poem which neither party pretended rightly to understand.