Towneley MS. (about 1475), ff. 76 ff.
The Towneley Miracles, so called because the manuscript belonged in
recent times to the library of Towneley Hall in Lancashire, are edited
by England and Pollard, E.E.T.S., 1897. The cycle is a composite
one—for instance it includes a later form of the York play _Harrowing
of Hell_ (No. XVI, above)—but it is distinguished by a group of plays
and interpolated scenes which seem to have been specially composed for
representation at Wakefield. Formally this group is marked by the use of
a peculiar nine-lined stanza, riming a a a a b c c c b, with central
rimes in the first four lines. The rough vigour of the comic scenes is
still more distinctive, and there can be little doubt that all are the
work of one man. The specimen of his style most often reprinted is _The
Second Shepherd's Play_, which has an original and purely secular comic
plot. The _Play of Noah_ is more typical of the English Miracle in its
later development. This subject was always popular with early
playwrights, for the Ark made a spectacle, and the traditional quarrels
of Noah and his wife gave scope for contests in fisticuffs and rough
raillery—the stuff of primitive comedy.