s^^- .•^^^l^^. "\.^* .•^"•: %,^^ :WA% \/ o . » * .0^ \3 • .-t^^^v.^"' . o ^ V .**" ■*• o - <. "^ '^''- o"^ ^ ^^;^:^ '•/' 0-. v"^' o .0^ ^<^ \.^ :;V.^ -^Z ;^-.^ -.^^^ ,^, -.,^/ ,^-, .^^^ ^-\ ^° ■ <^ ■'>>'" » Satire in the ^ Early English Drama By Eva M. Campbell COLUMBUS, OHIO: 1914 Satire in the Early English Drama By Eva M. Campbell COLUMBUS, OHIO: THE F. J. HEER PRINTING CO. 1914 C3 F£8 18 iSili PREFACE. Though numerous references have been made to the satirical character of many of the plays of our Early English Drama be- fore 1600, no work exists which shows in detail this informal dramatic satire. It is hoped that this dissertation will be use- ful with its instances of early informal satire taken from the miracles, moralities, and interludes of the period 1450 to 1600 in showing : ( i ) the place satire holds in the early drama — a place to become exceedingly prominent in the Elizabethan Drama, especially in the plays of Ben Jonson ; (2) the relation of this satire to the subject-matter and the purpose of the plays; (3) the methods, tone, type, and the objects of attack of this satire; (4) a reflection of the manners or social traits of the period; (5) a comparison of this informal dramatic satire with the in- formal satire occurring in other literary forms of the period, and with the informal dramatic satire of Elizabethan times. The writer is indebted to the following excellent teachers: E. L. Beck, B. A. Eisenlohr, E. S. Ingraham. E. H. McNeal, W. S. Elden, A. H. Hodgman, and C. S. Duncan ; and owes special acknowledgment to S. C. Derby, Professor of Latin, J. R. Taylor, Professor of English, and J. V. Denney, Dean of the College of Arts. Professor Denney has been exceedingly kind and has read the first and last drafts of my dissertation. Pro- fessor G. H. McKnight has been helpful in proposing a subject^ in directing my efforts, and in giving encouragement — such as only those who have been in his classes can appreciate. Many thanks are due also to the Dean of Women of Ohio State University — Caroline M. Breyfogle. Columbus, Ohio, May 22, 1914. CONTENTS. PAGE Chapter I. Introductory 9 Chapter II. Satire in the Miracle Plays 16 Chapter III. Satire in the Pre-Tudor Moralities 36 Chapter IV. Satire in the Earlier Tudor Moralities 46 Chapter V. Satire in the Elizabethan Moralities 75 Chapter VI. Satire in the Interlude or Farce 103 Chapter VII. Summary and Conclusion 114 TEXTS OF PLAYS. Abra'ham and Isaac. Brome MS. "Non-Cycle' Mystery Plays." E. E. T. S. ex. ser. 104, Ed. O. Waterhouse. Abraham and Isaac. Dublin MS. Ibid. Albion Knight. Shakespeare Society Publications, 1844, vol. 1. All For Money. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, vol. XI, 1904. Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, E. E. T. S. 37, Part 4. Calisto and Meliboea. Dodsley's Old English Plays, vol. I. Castle of Perseverance, The. "Macro Plays," E. E. T. S. ex. ser. 91. Chester Plays, Ed. T. Wright. Shakespeare Soc, 1847. Christ's Burial and Resurrection. E. E. T. S. ex. ser. 91. Cobbler's Prophecy, The. W. Dibelius. Shak. Jb. 33, 1897. Conflict of Conscience, The. O. E. P., vol. VI. Contention Between Liberality and Prodigality. O. E. P., vol. VIII. Conversion of St. Paul. "Digby Plays," E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 70. Cornish Cycle, The. Ed. E. Norris. "Ancient Cornish Drama" 2 vols, Coventry Cycle, "Two Coventry Corpus Christi Plays." Ed. Hardin Craig. E. E. T. S. ex. ser. 87. Croxton Play of the Sacrament. "Non-Cycle Mystery Plays." E. E. T. S. ex. ser. 104. Cruell Debtter, The. W. Wager. Malone Society, 1911. Disobedient Child, The. O. E. P., vol. II. Dux Moraud. W. Heuser. Anglia 30 (1907) p. 180 ff. Everyman. O. E. P., vol. I. Four Elements, The. Ibid. Four P's, The. Ibid. Gammer Gurton's Needle. Ibid. III. ♦Gentleness and Nobility. J. S. Farmer. Early English Dramatists. God's Promises. O. E. P., vol. I. Godly Queen Hester. Ed. W. Bang., "Materialien zur Kunde des alteren Englischen Dramas." Hickscorner. O. E. P., vol. 1. Impatient Poverty. Ed. W. Bang., "Materialien — " Jack Juggler. O. E. P., vol. II. Jacob and Esau. O. E. P., vol. II. *John Baptist. Harleian Miscellany I, 97. Johan the Evangelist. Malone Society. John, Tyb and Sir John. Ed. A. Brandl. "Quellen und Forschungen." Killing of the Children, The. "Digby Plays," E. E. T. E., ex. ser. 70. King Darius. Bran'dl's "Quellen," p. 359. King Johan. Ed., Manly, J. M. "Pre-Shakespearean Drama," vol. I. * Not accessible. 8 Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalene. Ed. F. J. Carpenter. Like Wil to Like. O. E. P., vol. IH. Longer thou Livest more Fool thou Art. Sh. Jb. XXXVL Love. Brandl's "Quellen." Love. Feigned and Unfeigned. Malone Society, 19n. Ludus Coventriae. Sh. Soc, 184L Ed. J. O. Halliwell-Phillips. Magnificence, E. E. T. S., ex. ser. CXVIIL Mankind. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 91. Mary Magdalene. "Digby Plays." E. E. T. S. ex. ser. 70. Mind Will and Understanding. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 9L "Macro Plays." Mundus et Infans. O. E. P., vol. L Nature. Brandl's "Quellen." New-Castle-upon-Tyne. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 104. "Non-Cycle Mystery Plays." New Custom. O. E. P., vol. Norwich. E. E. T. S., ex. ser., 104. Pardoner and the Friar, The. O. E. P., vol. L Patient Grissel. John Phillip. Malone Society. *PhiIotus. Pride of Life, The. Brandl's "Quellen." Prodigal Son, The. Malone Society. 1911. Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune. O. E. P., vol. VI. Respublica. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 94. Ralph Roister Doister. O. E. P.. vol. III. *Somebody Avarice and Minister. Temperance and Humility. Malone Soc. 1911. *The Temptacyon : John Bale. Three Ladies of London, The. O. E. P., vol. VI. Three Laws, The. John Bale. Anglia, V. 137. Three Lords and Three Ladies of London. O. E. P., vol. VI. Thersites. O. E. P., vol. I. Tide Tarrieth No Man, Sh. Jb. XLIII. Tom Tyler and His Wife. Malone Soc. Reprints. 1910. Towneley Plays. Ed. George England. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 70. Triall of Treasure. O. E. P., vol. III. Youth. O. E. P., vol. 11. York Plays. Ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith. Oxford, 1885. Wealth and Health. Malone Soc. Reprints. Weather, The. Brandl's "Quellen," p. 211. Wit and Science. Sh. Soc. 1848. Witty and Witless. Percy Soc, vol. XX, 1846. MORAL TRAGEDIES. Apius and Virginia. O. E. P.. vol. IV. Cambyses, O. E. P., vol. IV. Horestes. Brandl's "Quellen." * Not accessible. CHAPTER I, I propose to discuss the informal satire occurring in that mediaeval period of the drama between 1400 and 1600. This satire is like the drama in which it is found in two respects : it is irregular and it is scarcely deserving of the type-name. We may attempt, however, to define it as a form of composition in verse or prose which is subject to no fixed form such as the decasyllabic couplet of formal satire and which is "not a con- scious literary production but rather the immediate expression of thoughts resulting either from the universal desire of men to ridicule follies in others or from the occasional desire of some to lash evils and inconsistencies with the hope of causing a re- form. If we could subtract from Juvenal's satire his interest in form, in rhetoric we should have something approximate to in- formal satire. This, however, dififers from Juvenal's efforts in that it arises spontaneously from the desire to attack evils ; it spends all its force on the substance of the attack and pays no heed to the literary form. The same satirist may write both formal and informal satire, for instance, Ben Jonson. It all depends upon the mood of the writer. If he be solely interested in holding up to the ridicule of the world, an individual, a class, a locality, a trade, or an institution, he will write informal satire. Here, then, we may expect a somewhat faithful reflection of the life of a particular period. If we contrast formal and informal satire, we find that in the main qualities they are alike. Both must have humor, must show in their authors a sense of superiority, a sense of the ludicrous, the power to exaggerate either consciously or unconsciously, and at the final analysis a reformatory purpose. The chief dis- tinction seems to be in the form, the spirit, the purpose, the quantity of humor, the type and the scope of the subject- matter. The informal satire by not being restricted to one fixed form can show greater variety of expression than the formal. It can be original in choosing forms for its expression ; formal 9 lO English satire can not since it is based upon Latin satire or upon imitations of the Classical satire. It ^differs from the formal satire in its chief purpose to attack and destroy an evil— not to achieve a literary performance by the use of satiric material. As to spirit, it is fairer than the formal for it sees along with the evil a glimpse of the good. It does not condemn all mem- bers of a class or trade as does Juvenal. Pessimistic though it may be it is yet hopeful. In type it is objective rather than sub- jective ' It is not philosophical or reflective. Its humor is often faint Its methods are direct and indirect. Its subject-matter confines itself to public evils rather than to private ; to classes and groups rather than to individuals. Informal satire is not one of the steps in the evolution of formal satire. The informal dramatic satire of the period 1400 to 1600 does not lead up to formal Elizabethan satire. Its rep- resentatives in Elizabethan satire are not the satires of Wyatt, Hall, Donne, and Lodge but the satiric plays of Ben Jonson.. Informal satire may be subordinate to the type of composi- tion in which it is found ; that of the early drama is subordinate. It came with direct didacticism which lay at the basis of me- dieaval drama. It is itself indirect didacticism since it points out inconsistencies unworthy to be imitated and deserving to be destroyed. The part it played in the drama became more and more important as the attack upon evils in the church and the state became bolder. At first this political and religious satire scarcely appeared in the drama. Instead there was the dull, generalized lament on the time moral and social satire. The specific attacks on the clergy and the government became more frequent in the moral plays in which the appeal was not so much to the eye as to the ear. What was said came to be of more importance than what was seen. A greater demand was made upon the intellect of the audience. Material dealing with contemporary problems was introduced much of which especially during the time of the Reformation was satirical comment on the follies and the im- morality of the church, on the courts, ecclesiastical and civil, and on the government. In some of the early dramas, the satire does not have the spirit of reform. Instead of the method of direct rebuke a character is represented as typical of the evil as in Heywood's II farces where we see the priest immoral, the wife unfaithful, and the husband duped. Here is burlesque both amusing and satirical. Perhaps we may say that "J^ck Juggler" is a satirical burlesque on the doctrine of transubstantiation the people believ- ing it being as foolish as the bewildered Jenkin Careaway who could not tell whether he was himself or his double. A comparison of this informal dramatic satire with the in- formal undramatic satire of the same time shows much the same material of attack, the same method, tone, type, style. A com- parison with the formal Elizabethan satire has already been made by Dr. Raymond M. Alden and need not detain us here. My purpose is first to make an intensive study of the Early English Drama — the Miracles, Moralities, and Interludes before 1600 with the intention of giving all the instances of satire that occur. These will be of course, of no literary value for the plays from which they are taken are so crude that they do not justly merit the name drama. They will, however, be interesting as showing the beginnings of satire in the drama — the literary form in which it has achieved its greatest effectiveness. They will show what the mediaeval mind satirized in politics, religion, and society, and incidentally reflect the life of the times. This early dramatic satire is like most of the undramatic satire which preceded it. informal in nature ; it is written in var- ious metres sometimes in the alliterative long line, sometimes in ballad form, or in a jingle characteristic of a particular author, for instance, Skelton's own peculiar measure. It is written not only informally but also incidentally. The authors of the Mid- dle Ages were didactic in thought. What they wrote was at first constructive in aim, not destructive ; and consequently not satir- ical. The drama until the beginning of the sixteenth century shows only snatches of satire. The first English man of letters to write satirical drama was John Skelton, a priest of the time of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Two of his contemporaries deserve to be mentioned with him — John Bale and the Scotch satirist, Sir David Lindsay; this trio of priests were writing at the period when the New Learning and the Reformation — the two factors of the Renaissance — were being felt. All three, however, though influenced by the Renaissance belong to the mediaeval school and use mediaeval forms especially allegory. 12 But before these men began to write with evident satirical intent there were authors of the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries who occasionally became satirical. Some wrote satirical songs ; some satirical visions, or dialogues, or rude dramas in which there were opportunities for satire. In the twelfth century during the reigns of Henry II, Richard I, and John, there was the poetry of the Goliards or wandering clerks in Latin; there was the sirvente of the trouvere and troubadour in Anglo-French, besides epigrams and satires in Anglo-Latin. In the thirteenth century during the reigns of Henry III and Ed- ward I the Goliards continued to write poetry. They did not, however, confine themselves to the use of Latin but wrote in Anglo-French, and English too. Ecclesiastics also wrote satire in the three languages while the gleemen sang songs in English which were the counterpart of the sirvente of the twelfth century in Anglo-French. Passing to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we find in the first named, during the reigns of Edward I, II, and III, and Richard II a few Goliardic poems, some social satire su- perior to any that had yet been written, the songs of Lawrence Minot against the French and the Scotch, and the beginnings of class satire. In the latter part of the century there was the incidental satire in Langland's "Piers Plowman" and in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." In the fifteenth century during the reigns of Henry IV, V, VI, Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII, little satire was written. There were Lydgate's attempts, the realistic "London Lickpenny", and "Ragman Roll" — beginning the conventional satire on woman. Then the Lollard poem "Jack Upland" followed by the political baMads of the Wars of the Roses completed the list. Treating these early periods in more detail, we notice listed in the twelfth century as an imitation of the French allegorical satire "Architrenius" by Jean de Hauteville. We find satire on woman in Walter Mapes' "De Coniuge non Ducenda" anticipat- ing the later English "Ragman Roll" ; and satire on the clergy in his "Apocalypsis Goliae" ; and satire on education and religion in Nigellus Wireker's "Speculum Stultorum." These satires of the time of Henry II though in Anglo-Latin serve to show us that there was plenty of material for satire and that there were a few who saw the evils of the day and dared attack them. 13 In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries we have besides the satire in Langland, Chaucer, and Gower, the invectives of the people dealing with subjects varying from the vanity of woman, the oppression of the poor and the arrogance of servants to the immoralky of the clergy. Listed by titles, they are: "On the Vanity of Women," "The Song of the Husbandman." A poem on the corruption of the clergy, 1316-17, "On the Times," "The Complaint of the Plowman," "Pierce the Plowman's Crede," "Song of Nego," "When Holy church is under Foot," "Winner and Waster," "Sir Peny," "Why I cannot be a Nun," "The Order of Fair Ease," and "The Land of Cokaygne." In the fifteenth century there was not much literature of any kind. We list the following works in satire: "Jack Upland," "Corruption of Public Manners," "Corruption of the Times," "A Satirical Ballad on the Times by John Lydgate : also his "Tale of Three score Folys and Thre." In the sixteenth century we come to Barclay's "Ship of Fools," Skelton's, "Co1\ti Cloute," "WHiy come Ye NAT to Courte," "The Bowge of Courte," "Elynor Rummyng," and Roy and Barlow's "Rede me and be not Wrothe." Not mentioned in these lists of satire is the informal satire that occurs in the miracles the manuscripts of which date from the fifteenth century to the seventeenth and that in the morali- ties and interludes. It is with these antecedents of the drama — the regular drama — that I shall deal. But first some notice of the work that has already been done upon the subject of English satire is proper. Two able mono- graphs have been written — one by Raymond M. Alden^ of the University of Pennsylvania and the other by Samuel Marion Tucker- of Columbia LTniversity. The latter author's "Verse Satire Before the Renaissance" is the first link in the history of English satire treating as it does the period from the twelfth century to the middle of the sixteenth. The second link is Dr. Alden's work which deals primarily with the rise of formal satire in English — with Elizabethan satire from 1540 to 1625. Inci- - dentally he surveys Classical and mediaeval satire and compares them in form, tone, subject-matter, type, and style. I agree with Dr. Alden that mediaeval satire is informal in nature, occurs only incidentally, is lacking in humor and irony, and is pervaded by a' great moral earnestness. I also agree with Dr. Tucker that the satire in the miracles, moralities, and inter- ludes is incidental, and chaotic, and that it is a very difficult matter sometimes, to decide whether the authors of these crude dramas were aiming to be comic or satiric. Still, I think that this so-called drama does furnish many instances of satirical touches some of which Dr. Tucker has cited in his chapter on the satiric play. What I shall write will serve as a supplement to Dr. Tuck- er's chapter and will, I hope, help to make a foundation for the further study of satire in the English drama. Since the drama of the period 1450 to 1600 is itself crude, one cannot expect to find any finished specimens of satire in it. What we shall find will be satirical snatches which sprang forth almost instinctively from men who could see corruptions in the church, in politics, and in society, and could not help decrying them with the hope of bringing about a reform. Throughout the mediaeval period, the church and the state were the main objects of attack because they had reached a point when they might be said to be in their dotage. The church was corrupt, the gov- ernment was corrupt and the people knew it and resented it. Keen witted men were tired of false pilgrimages, penances, and worship of images; tired of the hypocrisy of avaricioiis church- men who sold benefices and held plural livings; and disgusted with the ignorance and immorality of the clergy. And yet we do not find much satire especially of a religious nature in the miracle plays. And this is not strange for the texts that we have, were written probably by men of the church who were on the whole conservative and unwilling to criticise their own institution. Then, too, the fact that the plays were, in some cases at any rate, subject to the censorship of an austere cardinal or dean might account for the lack of satire. But per- haps the strongest reason for the scanty amount of satire lies in the nature of the miracle plays themselves. Their aim was first and always didactic. Somewhat different from the case of the miracle plays is that of the moralities. These plays although at first didactic, written to teach ethics rather than Biblical story, widened their field until they included pedagogical, controversial, and political moralities as well as the old Biblical type. Hence we may ex- pect to find more satire in them than in the miracles. 15 A still greater freedom of subject-matter appears in the interlude. We shall restrict the meaning of this word to its specific use suggested by Mr. Childs, namely, that it was a play characterized by the free use of old materials and old methods with the object of pleasing rather than teaching the audience. CHAPTER II. SATIRE IN THE MIRACLE PLAYS. The miracle plays were by very nature inartistic in aim. Written primarily to instruct, they were concerned with attracting the attention of the rude and unlettered to the story of the Bible, or with relating to them miracles performed by saints, or episodes in the lives of martyrs from which some lesson might be drawn. Being written with the idea of instruction foremost and the idea of amusement lacking or subordinate, all miracles have to be classed as didactic and constructive in aim. We cannot expect, therefore, much satire in the miracles for satire is by nature destructive. Occasionally in some of the pageants which w^ere run together to form cycles, we find snatches of satire forced in with comic and secular material. We rarely find a pageant which contains in any great degree satiric matter. The best is the twenty-fifth pageant in the Ludus Coventriae edited by J. O. Halliwell. In connection with the reason that the didactic aim excludes satire, we should consider the authors of the cycles, their sub- ject-matter, and their audiences. First the authors of the cycles were priests and clerks who were infused with the didactic not the satiric aim, and who were either too loyal or too subservient to the church to satirize her. Then, too, the subject-matter of the miracles was limited to Scriptural narrative or to legends of saints or martyrs. The material was devotional. It did not deal with questions of government, with criticisms of church or society. It was not controversial or polemical. It was Biblical. Convention drew lines within which the avithors had to keep. If, to satisfy the cravings of the human mind for interest and variety, comic and realistic touches were added, they were added not in connection with the main characters which were conven- tional and therefore not to be changed, but with the minor char- acters in certain pageants which were largely the production of the imagination and not transcripts from Bible story. Lastly the audiences were made up of all classes of people. Occasionally 16 17 the king and the queen were present. There were lords and ladies, churchmen, citizens, and the rabble. Take them at their best the rude unlettered element predominated. They were not intellectually alert; they were not critical; they would have been incapable of appreciating delicate satire had it been presented them. And satire was not supposed to be given them. What the audience got, as the Church wished, was the story of the Bible pictured by living characters dressed in mediaeval costume. Though the cycles were apparently in the hands of the people, they were still close to the church, not only in authorship but also in presentation. They were generally given in connection with the great festival of the church known as the Corpus Christi Procession ; or they were given at Whitsuntide or occasionally on some other Feast day in the year. It is not strange, therefore, that an examination of the mir- acle cycles yields but few examples of satire. These deal most lightly with the clergy and with religious subjects. If any such rude satire as the Fescennine verses of Rome found their way into the mouth of an improvising actor, we need not expect to find it in our copies, for they are undoubtedly marked by modifi- cations and omissions of much that was presented. Our manu- scripts are late "Renvid or newly translate" and may have never been intended for playbooks. The Chester manuscripts, for in- stance, must owe their existence to the desire of literary antiqua- ries either to preserve the old plays or possibly revive them at a time when miracle plays were almost gone out of fashion.'' No miracle cycle ever breathes a word of satire against a monk. The only men of the church who are even lightly touched are priests, friars, and the Pope. In the Chester plays, which are late, the Pope who is saved at Doomsday is made to confess to negligence in fulfilling Christ's commandments while the Pope who is damned, bitterly regrets his covetousness and simony. The satire on priests and friars is very faint. We have no picture of the fat,, indolent, begging friar or the deceitful pardoner such as we find in "Jack Upland" or in the "Song on the Friars"* — no such picture as we find in Chaucer,^ Heywood,^ or Lyndsay.*" This bareness of characterization is due, I think, to the didactic nature of the plays, to the class for whom they were written and to the censorship of the plays. Chaucer wrote for a limited 2 reading public; Heywood, for an aristocratic audience seated in a small hall, and not for an immense out-of-door audience of common people. Lyndsay's play is later than the York cycle, the Towneley, and Ludus Coventriae by almost a century. It represents the progressive thought of the sixteenth century in a morality in Scotland in contrast to the conservatism of the Ches- ter miracle cycle. Lyndsay, however, could well be a little bolder than the English author or scribe for he had the king of Scot- land at his back. Taking up the Chester cycle which is thought to be one of the oldest from early accounts of its performance and from the time of its performance — Whitsun week not Corpus Christi Day, we find little religious satire. The play on Doomsday,^ however, does represent two popes — one damned, the other, saved — in the embarrassing situation of confessing their sins. Here are the words of the Papa Damnatus : "Now booties is to aske mercye, For livinge higheste in eairth was I, And cuninge chosen in cleargye, And covetousness did me care ; Also silver and symoneye That bornes me nowe full witterlye For blisse 1 am full bare," Uti, w,.7-A.'^4 The infallibility of the Pope is a thing of the past when a ?<»Ja i^iri,' I craft guild dares represent him before the masses as guilty of *^f^i,Js,trL I bribery, simony, and covetousness. But, as I have said, the cycle may have been a literary attempt. In representing one pope as damned and another as saved we have an instance of discrimina- tion so characteristic of old English writers. Their wish to be fair rendered them incapable of representing all popes as wicked. In this case, however, the Papa Salvatus is not shown as leading an exemplary life for he confesses: "Thy greate godheade, that is so good Me knewe 1 never, but ever was woode Worshippe for to wyn ; " The higheste office under thee In eirth thou putteith in Thou graunteste me, Lorde, through thy grace Petteres power and his place , Yet was I blente ! alas ! alas !"" 19 When I in eirth was at my will This worlde me blente lowde and still But thy commaundmente to fulfill I was full necligente." " There is no religious satire in the York plays ; in the Ludus Coventriae the nearest ap)proach to it is a didactic hint by Joachim on tithe-giving. After telHng how he divides his goods into three parts — one for himself, one for pilgrims, and "por" men and one for the temple, he adds : "So xulde every curat in this werde wyde Geve a part to his chauncel i wys A part to his parocheners that to povert slyde The thryd part to kepe for hym and his." '" In the remarks of the doctors in the temple, we expect sar- casm from the nature of the scene and their characters. One scornfully bids Jesus: "Goo hom, lytl babe, and sytt on thi moderes lappe And put a mokador aforn thi brest : And pray thi modyr to fede the with the pappe Of the for to lerne we desyre not to lest." '^ Again we are not surprised when the high-priest advises Pilate to bribe the soldiers to keep them from spreading the news of the Resurrection. In his philosophy he reminds us of Lang- land's Lady Meed of the fourteenth century. "For mede doth most in every quest And mede is mayster both est and west Now trewly seres, I held this best With mede men may bynde berys." " In the Crucifixion scene, the words of the executioners sug- gest realistically the mocking, jeering crowd of Jews mentioned in the Bible -.^^ "Lo, fela, here a lyth takkyd on a tre." " and I trowe thou art a worthy king!" "A good sere, tell me now what helpyth thi prophecy the?" , or any of thi fals prechyng!" "Come now down of that tre ! "Yf thu be Goddys sone, as thou dedyst teche fifrom the cros come now downe!" 20 Of all miracle plays, the Towneley contain the most satire, possibly because the author or one of the authors possessed greater literary power than did his contemporaries and was in- tellectually keener in seeing inconsistencies. He did not, how- ever, indulge in much religious satire. He evidently did not like the Lollards for he makes Titivillus in the Doomsday pageant say : "I was your chief tollare Nom am I master lollar and of sich men I mell me."" Later he boasts of having on his lists of doomed souls some men of the church : "Yet of these kyrkchaterars here ar a menee Of bargenars, okerars and lufars of symonee." " There may be a slight trace of satire when Cain unwilling to offer tithes slyly hints at the uselessness of such a practice: "My farthyng is in the preest hand Syn last tyme I offyrd." " Perhaps it may not be too far-fetched to see a touch of burlesque when one of the shepherds proposes gathering up the scraps of their supper : "Geder up, lo, lo, ye hungre begers ffrerys." " And later when Home chafifs Gyb on his Latin : "What speke ye here in myn eeres? Tell me no clerge, I hold you of freres Ye preche."' ^" The interlude of Mak in the Shepherds' Play undoubtedly has an idea of burlesque at its basis. The stolen sheep con- cealed by Mak in the cradle ; the search of the shepherds for their stolen property ; the discovery resulting from the desire of one of them to make a gift to Mak's new-born child may be a bur- lesque on what follows — the search of the shepherds for the Christ-Child and the ofifering of the customary gifts. This bur- lesque both Dean Joseph V. Denney and Dr. George H. McKnight have perceived. I think we may fairly classify this most famous 21 example of early English farce as a travesty written, however, with no idea of malice. Passing to the fragmentary cycles, we find no religious satire in them neither in the Norwich, the Newcastle, the Coventry nor in the Digby "Killing of the Children." The same thing is true of the apparently independent plays on Abraham and Isaac pre- served in the Dublin and in the Brome manuscripts. There is a similar lack of religious satire in the "Conversion of St. Paul," in "Dux Moraud." and in the "Croxton Play of the Sacrament." But in "Mary Magdalene" we do find a trace of satire and a rude burlesque of the church service. The boy twits the presbyter : "Ye have so fellyd yower belly with growell That it growitt grett as the dywll of hell ^ Onshaply thou art to see Thi body is so grett and wyde That never horse may thee byde exseptt thou breke his bakk asoundyr." "' After the religious satire conies political and social satire so closely connected that I shall consider them together. The Eng- lish have always felt that society reflected the evils of politics and even in their earliest drama have shown signs of discontent in their complaints against haughty lords and heavy taxes. In the Chester Plays, Joseph complains of the tribute: "Poor men's weale is ever in were I wan no good this seven yeaire Now comes the king's messingere To gette all that he maye." ^° The imperator confesses to gluttony, covetousness, and manslaughter ; "Wrong ever I wroughte to ech wighte For pynchynge poore in paine I pig'hte Religion I reaved against the righte""'^ The justice remembers with contrition his past life and con- fesses at the judgment seat : " falses causes took in hande And moche wooe did elles When I soughte silver or riches founde, of baron, burges or of baude His matter to further ever T would founde were it never so false 22 All mj' life I was ever bouiie To treble poore in tower and towne Payn holje churches possession And sharply them to shende To reve and robbe religion That was all my devocion.""* These instances are in a sense political, but those to follow are social dealing with classes of people, with merchants, tap- sters, brewers, and with the conventional satire on woman. For example, the merchant confesses to having purchased land falsely; having "occured and used wilfully" ; and to having staid at home from church. The mulier in the "Harrowing of Hell" also con- fesses to deception. She has sold adulterated ale and used false measures : "Some tyme 1 was a tavernere, A gentill gossipe and a tapstere Of wyne and ale a trustie brewer. Which wo hath we wroughte Of Cannes I kepte no trewe measuer, My cuppes I soulde at my pleasuer Deceavinge manye a creature, Tho my ale were naughte, And when I was a brewer longe With hoopes I made my ale stronge Ashes and erbes I blende amonge And marred so good maulte Therfore I maye my handes wringe Shake my cannes and cuppes ringe Sorowfull male I sicke and singe That ever I so dealed. Taverners, tapsters of this cittie Shal be promoted heare by me For breaking statutes of this countrey Hurtinge the commonwelth !""' Noah says of women : "Wemen be crabbed aye And non are mcke I dare well say."-"* The third shepherd expresses the same conventional idea: "For to good men this is not unknowne To husbandes that be heare aboutes That iche man must to his wife bowne. And commonlye for fear of a clowte."^ ^2> In the Cornish plays there is a hint of inconsistency in the actions of pubhc ofificials, for instance, Pilate is anxious to hush up a matter when he sees danger threatening himself. He has just bitterly reproved the soldiers for having let Jesus escape, ' but when they in turn demand of him Joseph and Nicodemus who have miraculously escaped, he becomes very pleasant. They, however, reply with a touch of irony : "Since thou art so courteous We will do as thou sayest.""*' The Ludus Coventriae has a trace of political satire, class satire on the summoner, satire on fashions, and the conventional satire on woman ; of this, Joseph is the spokesman. After stren- uously objecting to the decision of the blossoming rods, he reluc- tantly becomes a bridegroom. But hear his protest : "What xuld I wedde? God forbede I am an old man, so God me spede. And wyth a wyff now to levj'n in drede It wore neyther sport nere game "An old man may never thryff With a yonge wyff so God me save ! Xuld I now in age begynne to dote, If I here chyde she wolde clowte my cote Blere myn ey, and pyke out a mote And thus oftyn tymes it is sene.'"'° Later he advises men against marriage saying : " • alle olde men to me take tent And weddyth no wyff in kynnys wyse That is a yonge wenche be myne asent ffor doute and drede and swyche servyse Alas ! alas ! my name is shent ! Alle men may me now dyspyse And seyn, "olde cokwold thi bowe is bent Newly now after the Frenche gyse.'"" And finally he concludes with a proverb verified as he thinks : "Here may alle men this proverb trow That many a man doth bete the bow Another man hath the brvdde."" 24 The summoner is represented as abusive and corrupt. He is evidently avaricious, for after reading a list of names of the people who should appear at court, he advises them to come with money if they expect to win their case: "And loke ye rynge wele in your purs ffor ellys your cause may specie the wurs."" In summoning Mary and Joseph he makes a threat thor- oughly in character with the usual idea of the summoner : '"But yet sum mede and ye me take I wyl with drawe my gret rough toth Gold or sylvyr I wyl not forsake But evyn as all somnores doth."^" In the sixth pageant there is a contrast drawn between the rich and the poor, but I think it can hardly be called satire. "ffor ryche men do shewe oftyntymes pompe and pride on holy dayes. as oftyn is sene Whan pore men passe and go besyde .A.t wurthy festys rich men wolle bene.'"* The first shepherd in the sixteenth pageant pathetically re- veals the hardships of the poor: "Myght we se onys that bryght on bed Oure sorow it wolde unbynde We xulde shadyr for no shoure."" Joseph also shrinks and complains of his hard lot : "Lord what travayl to man is wrought Rest in this werd behovyth hym non Octavyan our emperor sadly hath besought Our trybute hym to here, fTolk must forth ichon.""' In the twenty-fifth pageant of this cycle, we find Satan dressed as a gallant, haranguing the people. In his speech occurs the strongest satire in the miracles. He advises the assembled spectators to gather a fellowship after their own "entent" : "A beggerys dowtcre to make gret purvyauns To cownterfete a gentylwoman dysguysed as she can And yf mony lakkc. this is the ncwe chevesauns 25 With her prevy plesawns to gett it of sum man Her colere splayed and furryd with ermyn calabre or satan : A seyn to sell lechery to hem that wyl buy And thei that wyl not by it, yet inow xal thei han And telle hem it is for love, she may it not deney." He is very explicit on the proper dress of a gallant: "Off fyne cordewan a goodly peyre of long pekyd schon Hosyn enclosyd of the most costyous cloth of cremseyn Thus a bey to a gentleman to make comparycion With two doseyn poyntys of chevrell, the aglottes of sylver feyn. "A shert of feyn Holond, but care for the payment A stomacher of clere reynes the best may be browth Thow poverte be chef, lete pride be ther present And all tho that repreff pride, thou sette hem at nowth. "Cadace wolle or flokkys where it may be sowth To stufife withal thi dobbelet, and make the of proporcyon Two smale legges and a gret body, thow it ryme nowth. Yet loke that thou desyre to an the newe faccion. "A gowne of thre yerdys, loke thou make comparison Uuto all degrees dayly that passe thin astat A purse withoutyn mony. a daggere for devocyon And ther repref is of synne. loke thou make debat. "With syde lokkys I schrewe thin here to thi colere hangyng downe. To herborwe queke bestys that tekele men onyth An heye smal bonet for curing of the crowne And alle beggeres and pore pepyll have hem in dyspyte. "Onto the grete othys and lecherye gyff thi delyte To maynteyn thin astate lete brybory be present And }'f the law repreve the, say thow wylt ffyth, And gadere the a felashep after thin entent. "Loke thou sett not be precept nor be comawndement Both sevyls and canon sett thow at nowth Lette no membre of God but with othys be rent."" This long tirade is really a sermon in satire. Those who give themselves up to oaths, foolish fashions, hypocrisy, and im- morality are but following the advice of the devil. The method of attack — irony — is much more effective than any direct rebuke or generalized lament and the idea of making the devil the mouth- 26 piece of the ironical advice was a happy thought on the part of the author ; his chief lesson was spoken not by some pious ab- straction but by the devil, a character v^ho never failed to attract attention. The Towneley cycle contains more satire than the other miracles, but the subject-matter is much the same, — satire on woman, on classes, on misgovemment, and on fashions. It has no satire, however, as bitterly ironical as the quotation just given from the Ludus Coventriae. The pageant which furnishes the greatest opportunity for satire is, as in the Chester Plays the "Juditium." In this play the demon, Titivillus, refers to misgovemment when he spreads out his rolls and says triumphantly of the doomed souls whom he is soon to summon before the tribunal of the Lord : "Thise rolles Ar of bakbytars And fals indytars."'"* also when he speaks of the oppression of the poor "The pore pepyll must pay if oght be in honde The drede of God is away and lawe out of lande."™ "fals swerars shall hider com mo then a thowsand skore In sweryng thai grefe godys son and payn hym more and more Therfor mon thai with us won in hell for ever more I say this That rasers of the fals tax And gederars of greyn wax Diabolus est mendax Et pater eius."*" The speeches of both Pilate and Caiaphas are satire on the law. Pilate in his boastful way begins : "ffor I am he that may make or mar a man myself if I it say as men of cowrte now can Supporte a man today to morn agans hym than On both parties than I play And fenys me to ordan the ryght. But all fals indytars Quest mongers and Lurers And all thise fals out rydars Ar welcom to mj' sight."" ^7 , In pageant twenty-two, he again shows his hypocrisy : "ffor like as on both sydys the iren the hamer makith playn So do 1, that the law has here in my kepyng The right side to socoure, certys, I am full bayn If I may get therby vantege or wynyng: Then to the fals parte I turne me agayn ffor I se more vayll will to me be risyng Thus every man to drede me shal be full fayn And all faynt of thare fayth to me be obeyng."*' Caiaphas speech, terse and to the point leaves the same im- pression of double-dealing: "Whoso kepis the lawe, I gess he gettis more by purches Then bi his fre rent."" The conditions of the poor are reflected in the first and in the second Shepherds' Play. The first shepherd complains of the tax: "ffermes thyk are comyng, my purs is bot wake I have nerehand nothynge to pay nor to take."** The second shepherd, also, has a grievance. He is tired of the oppression and arrogance of upstarts — retainers of the great lords. He prays : "Both bosters and bragers god kepe us fro, That with thare long dagers dos mekyll wo ; ffrom all byll hagers with colknyfys that go Sich wryers and wragers gose to and fro ffor to crak. who says hym agane Were better be slane Both plogh and wane. Amendys will not make. He will make it as proud a lorde he were with a hede lyke a clowde ffeltered his here He spekys on lowde with a grym bere I wold not have trowde so gayly in gere As he glydys I wote not the better Nor wheder is gretter The lad or the master 28 So slowtly he strydys If he aske me oght that he wold to his pay, fful dere bese it boght if I say nay."*' In pageant XII p. 103 i. 92 the first shepherd continues the lament "Is none in this ryke a shepard farys wars." The second rejoins: "Poore men ar in the dyke and ofttyme mars The world is slyke, also helpars Is none here.'"*' In the Second Shepherds' Play there is the same complaint of oppression : "But we sely shepardes that walkyn on the moore. In fayth we are nere handys outt of the dore No wonder as it standys if we be poore ffor the tylthe of our landys ys falow as the flore As ye ken We ar so hamyd ffortaxed and hand tamyd with thyse gentlery men, "Thus thay refe us oure rest oure lady theym wary These men that ar lord fest cause thay the ploughe tary That men say is for the beste we fynde it contrary Thus ar husbandys opprest in pointe to myscary On lyfe. Thus hold thay vs hunder Thus thay bryng vs in blonder It were greatte wonder And ever shuld we thryfe. fifor may he gett a paynt slefe or a broche now on dayes wo is hym that hym grefe or onyst agane says Dar noman hym reprefe what mastry he mays And yet may noman lef oone word that he says No letter. He can make purveance With boste and bragance And all is thrugh mantenance Of men that are gretter. -9 'Ther shall com a swane as prowde as a po he must borow my wane, my ploghe also Them I am full fane to graunt or he go, Thus lyf we in payn. Anger, and wo By nyght and day ! He must have if he langyd If I shuld forgang it I were better be hangyd Then oones say hym nay. "Thise laddys thai leven as lordys riall."*' Titivillus indulges in class satire when he describes the misers : "Thar neghburs thai towchid with wordys full ill The wurst ay thai sowchid and had no skill The pennys thai powchid and held thaym still The negons thai mowchid and brad no will fFor hart fare Bot riche and ill-dedy Gederand and gredy ' Sore napand and nedy Youre godys for to spare."" The intemperate also cotne in for a share of his abuse. "Thai call and thai cry go we now, go ! I dy nere for dry and ther syt thai so All nyght With hawvell and lawvell Syngyng of lawvell Thise ar howndys of hell."** Dice players are given a bad character: "Thise dysars and thise hullars Thise cokkers and thise hollars And all purs-cuttars Bese well war of thise men."™ , The general wickedness of the world is shown by the number of souls who seek admittance into hell. The devil Titivillus in despair exclaims : "Saules cam so thyk now late unto hell As ever Oure porter at hell gate 30 Is haldyn so strate Up erly and down late he rystys never."" On dress there is the following tirade: "Gay gere and witless his hoode set on koket, As prowde as pennyles his slefe has no poket, fful redles ; With thare hemmyd shoyn All this must be done Bot syre is out at hye noyn And his barnes bredeles. "A home and a duch ax his slefe must be flekyt A syde hede and a fare fax his gowne must be spekytt."" also — "An Nell with hir nyfyls of crips and of sylke Tent well youre twyfyls youre nek abowte as mylke With your bendys and your bridyyls of Sathan — '"^ In pageant XXX, Titivillus driving the lost souls before him, sarcastically reminds them of their vanity : "Gay gyrdyls, jagged hode. prankyd gownes, whedir?"" This was aimed at the men as well as at the women. The men, however, are not satirized as a class. The women are : the Wakefield dramatist seems to find great pleasure in ridiculing their shrewishness and their vanity. Noah's wife expresses her- self on the troubles of married life and wishes for freedom. She speaks according to the shrewish character that is given her in all the miracle cycles except the Ludus Conventriae and the Cornish. "Lord, I were at ese and hertly full hoylle Might I onys have a measse of wedows coyll ; ffor thi saul, without lese shuld I dele penny doyll So wold mo, no frese, that 1 se on this sole Of wifis that ar here, ffor the life that thay leyd Wold thare husbandis were dede ffor, as ever I ate brede So wold I oure svre wer.e.'''* 3^ We get the other side of the story when Noah complains of his wife's irritabiHty: "flfor she is full tethee ffor littill oft angre If any thyng wrang be Soyne is she wroth."" And also when he advises young men on the management of their wives : "Yee men that has wifis whyls they are yong If ye luf youre lifis chastice thare tong."" Joseph, too, complains saying of Mary : "Certys I forthynk sore of hir dede Bot is long of yowth-hede All sich wanton playes ; fTor yong women wyll nedys play them" '^ Of the same nature is the proverb which Gyb quotes to his fellow-shepherds : "A man may not wyfe And also thryfe And all in a yere."^* A similar complaint against marriage follows in pageant thirteen : "These men that ar wed have not all thare wyll When they ar full hard sted thay sygh full styll God wayte thay ar led full hard and full yll, In bower nor in bed thay say noght ther tyll This tyde. Wo is hym that is bun fifor he must abyde Som men wyll iiave two wyfis and som men thre, In store Some are wo that has any, But so far can I Wo is hym that has many ffor he felys sore. 2>2 "Bot yong men of wowyng for God that you boght Be well war of wedying and thynk in youre thoght 'had I wyst'is a thyng it semys of noght Mekyll styll mowrnyng has wedyng home broght, And grefys. With many a sharp showre ffor thou may cache in an owre That shall (savour) fulle sowre As long as thou lyfifys.'"" In pageant XXXVIII, Paul is quoted as saying: "Ther is no trust in woman's saw No trast forth to belefe ffor with thare quayntyse and thare gyle Can they laghe and wepe som while And yit nothyng theym grefe. "In our bookes thus fynde we wretyn All manere of men well it wyttyn Of women on this wyse ; Till an appyl she is lyke — Withoutten faill ther is non slyke In horde ther it lyse. Bot if a man assay it witter ly It is full roten inwardly At the colke within ; Wherfor in woman is no laghe ffor she is withoutten aghe As Crist me lowse of syn Therfor trast we not trystely Bot if we sagh it witterly Than wold we trastly trow In womans saw affy we noght ffor thay ar fekill in word and thoght." '^ Even doubting Thomas takes up the wearisome subject when he says to his awe-stricken companions : "Ye ar as women rad for blood and lyghtly oft solaced It was a ghost before you stood. ""^ In pageant XXX some satirical dialogue passes between th« demons as they look over their rolls : "has thou oght writen there of the femynyn gendere?" "Yei, mo then I may here of rolles for to render Thai ar sharp as a spere if thai seme but slender 33 Thai ar ever in were if thai be tender yll fetyld She that is most meke When she semys full seke She can rase up a reke if she be well nettyld."*^ "Of femellys a quantite here fynde I parte."" On woman's vanity and deceitfulness there is the following: "If she be never so fowll a dowde with her kelles and her pynnes The shrew hir self can shrowde both hir chekys and hir chynnes She can make it full prowde with japes and with gynnes hir hede as hy as a clowde hot no shame of hir synnes Thai f ele : When she is thus paynt She makys it so quaynte She lookys like a saynte And wars then the dayle "She is hornyd like a cow — ""^ Joseph's complaint of marriage is as follows: "howsehold and husbandry fiful sore it may ban That bargan dere I by Yong men, bewar, red I Wedyng makes me all wan.'"*" Of the independent plays possibly once forming part of a Cycle, the Norwich, the Newcastle, and the two plays on Abra- ham arid Isaac are not satirical. The two Coventry plays, how- ever, show satire on woman. Here as in the complete cycles, Joseph complains at length :^^ "Wele-awey ! woman now ma}- I goo Begyld as many another vs." "For the that woll nott there wyffis plese Ofte tymes schall sufifur moche dysees ; Therefore I holde hym well at es That hathe doo with non. "So full of feyre wordis these wemen be Thatt men thereto must nedis agre." The maner of my wj^fif ys soo 3 That with hyr nedis must I goo 34 Wheddur I wyll or nyll. Now ys nott this a cumburs lyff? Loo, sirs, what yit ys to have a wyff. Yet had I leyver. nor to live in strytif Apply evyii to hir wyll." In the Digby "Killing of the Children", Watkyn the boast- ful soldier is represented as very fearful of an angry woman. His remarks can scarcely be called satire, but they do show the fondness of the mediaeval author for twitting woman : "But yitt 1 drede no thyng more than a woman with a Rokke ffor if I se ony suche, be my feith I come agen.""' "The Conversion of St. Paul" shows sarcasm in the remarks of Saul's servant to the hostler; and the "Croxton Play of the Sacrament" has a comic character Colle take off the failing of his master. Doctor Brendyche of Brabant: "He ys a man off all scyence But off thryfte — I may yow dyspence ! He syttyth with sum tapstere in the spence Hys hoode there wyll he sell He seeth as well at noone as at nyght And sumtyme by a candelleyt Can gyff a judgment aryght As he that hath no eyn In every taverne he ys detter.""" The satire in the miracle plays, cyclic and non-cyclic, is for the most part general and conventional. There is the satire on woman ; that on the clergy somewhat limited in amount and scope, it is true, but nevertheless depicting the Pope as guilty of simony and covetousness and hinting that perhaps tithe-giving was a useless practice. We have only to look to the early poems and songs in English to see how meagre and weak these dramas are in the satirical quality. For example, note the "Song against the Friars." The first stanza makes them more devout than monks, priests, or canons. The second ironically continues : "Men may se by thair contynaunce That thai are men of grete penaunce And also that thair sustynaunce Symple is and wayke. I have lyved now fourty yere And fatter men about the neres 35 Yit sawe I never then are these frers In contreys ther thai rayke Meteles so megre are thai made And penaunces puttes hem doun That ichon is an hors lade When he shall trusse of town.'"" The nearest approach to any thing like it in length or satirical power is the twenty-fifth pageant of Ludus Coventriae in which Lucifer satirizes fashions, hypocrisy, and immorality. The strongest satire is found in the Chester Plays, in the Ludus Coventriae, and in the Towneley collection. As to quantity and variety, the Towneley cycle heads the list. The subjects of miracle satire range over pope, friar, priest, Lollard ; over imperator, rex, lord, lawyer, questmonger, justice, tax-collector, summoner, merchant, and tapster. It attacks drink- ing, dicing, miserliness, women, fashions, hypocrisy, bribery, the oppression of the poor, the arrogance of lords and upstarts, and the failure of officials to execute the laws. There are, however, but few references to each of the following — Lollards, friars, priests, and popes. The men of the church were not so far as xve can determine from the plays subject to any satire other than a chance sling, such as ridicule of their Latin and of their custom of begging. Monks go scot-free perhaps because monkish au- thors considered it a violation of good taste and good sense to ridicule their own institution and its members before a demo- cratic audience — an audience whose esteem they wished to keep. The Pope is nowhere mentioned in the fifteenth century manu- scripts of miracles. It is" only in the late Chester Plays of the six- teenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth that he is shown in the Doomsday pageant. There the Dance of Death motife may have had something to do with his admission. The oppression of the poor was a favorite subject. Joseph and the shepherds complain of taxes and hardships. The Towne- ley Plays add to the taxes the insults which the poor had to suffer at the hands of swaggering upstarts and others who did much as they pleased, supported as they were by the maintenance of some great lord whose livery they wore. Here we come close to the satire found in the morality "Wisdom" which was of the same period as the Towneley Plays ; and to that of the fourteenth century poem "On the Servants of the Rich." CHAPTER III. STAIRK IN THE PRE-TUDOR MORALITIES. According- to Creizenach literary historians have given the name moraHty to all plays written during the latter part of the Middle Ages and at the time of the Reformation, the characters of which are wholly or mainly personified abstractions. For studying these plays, the classification of the Cambridge History of English Literature' seems best. This groups them under the following heads: (i) Pre-Tudor Moralities. (2) Earlier Tudor Moralities, (3) Elizabethan Moralities. Classified as l*re-Tudor Moralities are the following plays: the "Pride of Life", "The Castle of Perseverance". "Mind, Will and Untlerstanding". and "Mankind". These plays have been given the following dates by scholars:' I4[0, 1425, 1460-3. 1475. They are the earliest specimens of English Moralities extant. .As the dates show they were contemporary with the miracle cycles. "Wisdom" or "Mind Will and Un 'erstanding" ; and ''Mankind'^ have approximatelv the same date as the "'S'ork Plays", the "Ludus Coventriae", and the Towneley Plays. We have foimd some satire in the miracles ; we may expect to find a greater amount in the moralities since they ('ealt with questions of ethics, and even went so far as to discuss social, political, and religious problems; and since they were often in their early history and almost exclusively in their later productions, presented before an aristijcratic and therefore a limited audience. "Wisdom" was probably presented in an abbey before a body of monks. Its author was in all proba- bility a monk who felt called upon to satirize the growing spirit of apostasy among the monks and the practice of maintenance among the lords and the nobles. On the other hand "The Castle of Perseverance" from its unique stage-drawing must have been presented out of doors and before an immense popular audience possibly very much the, same kind of audienc^ as gathered to see the "Ludus Coventriae" which from stage- directions'' must have been presented on a fixed stage with several 37 pageants. Whether these were arranged in a circle or not, we do not know. The satire in the oldest morality, "The Pride of Life" is of the nature of a generalized lament spoken by a bishop who sees nothing but evil in the times. The world no longer reverences God ; might makes right ; the rich oppress the poor ; and the people are given up to bribery, lechery, and gluttony. Here is his criticism of the age :* "Ye world is nou, so wo lo wo in sue bal i bound yat dred of god is al ago &treut is go to ground "med is mad a demis man streyint bet it ye lau gocyl is mad a cepman &truyt is don of dau. "Wyt is nou al trecuri oyis fals &gret play is nou uileny &corteysi is let "lou is nou al lecuri cildrin bet onlerit ; halliday is glotuni : yis Ian is bot irerit. "slot men blet bleynd &lokit al amis he bicomit onkynd &yat is reut i uis "frend may no man find of fremit ne of sib ye ded bet out of mind gret soru it is to lib. "Yes ricmen bet reuthyles , ye por got to ground, &fals men bet schanles : the sot ic hau i found "paraventur men halt me a fol to sig yat fot tal ; yai farit as ficis in a pol ; ye gret eteit ye smal. 38 , "ric men spart for noying to do the por worng; yai yingit not on hen ending ne on det, yat is so strong. "noyir yai louit god, ne dredit noyir him no his lauis ; touart hel fast him draut ayeins har ending daus." The "Castle of Perseverance" which is thought to date from 1425 is largely didactic. Here and there is a hint of satire on executors ; on the pope, on abbeys ; on fashions ; on the power of money ; and on the fickleness of fortune. Adultery, sloth, deceit, extortion, false assize, and simony are also mentioned. The abstraction Avaricia speaks in character. He is a satire on the universal desire of men to make money. Superbia is a satire on the desire to look well. We find on executors the following criticism : i "he sendyth aftyr his sekkatours, ful fekyl to fynd &his eyr aftyrward comyth evere behynde, I wot not who is his name, for he hym not knowe "Man knowe not who schal be his eyr and governe his good he caryth mor for his catel thanne for his cursyd synne : to put his good in governaunce he mengyth his mod he wolde that it were scyftyd amongis his ny kynne but ther schal com a lythyr ladde with a torne hod I wot nevere who schal be his name, his clothis be ful thynne schal eryth the erytage that nevere was of hys blod whanne al his lyfe is lytyd upon a lytyl pynne at the laste."^ Avarice's advice to Mankind reminds us of that of Lucifer to the audience in the "Ludus Coventriae" : "thou must gyfe thee to symonye extorsion and false asyse helpe no man but thou have why ; pay not thi servauntys here serwyse. thi neyborys, loke thou dystroye tythe not on no wyse ! here no begger, thou he crye, &thanne schalt thou ful sone ryse &whanne thou usyste marchaundyse loke that thou be sotel of sleytys, and also swere al be deseytys, 39 bye and sell be fals weytys for that is kynde coveytyse. "be the peny in thi purs lete them cursyn &don here beste' to pore men take none entent."^ Accidia says : "Men of relygyon I rewle in my ryth.'" Superbia advises : "Use these new Lettes loke thou blowe mekyl host with longe Cracows on thi schon Jagge thi clothis in every cost.'" Mankind is also advised to show anger :^° "be also wroth as thou were wode be redy to spylle mans blod "speke thi neybour mekyl schame pot on hem sum fals fame." Mankind invites Envy to sit with him saying: "Cum syt here softe ! For in abbeys thou dwellyst ful ofte.'"" Some satire in the form of advice to mankind on fasting follows : "Fast no day, I rede be the rode Thou chyde these fastyng cherlys." '" Mankind comments on adultery ; Spousebreche is a frend ryth fre; Men use that mo thanne inowe;" And when Accidia says : Whanne the messe-belle goth lye stylle, man, &take non hede Chyrche goynge thou forsake.'"* he replies ; 40 "Men lofe wel now to lye stylle In bedde to take a charowe swot To chyrcheward is not here wylle." Accidia like the demon in the Towneley "Juditium" re- joices in the number of people who are under his sway:" "XXXti thousende that I wel knowe, In my lyf lovely I lede. that had levere syttyn at the ale, iij mens songs to syngyn lowde thanne toward the chyrche for to crowde." Avarice dwells on the power of money :^^ "thi purs schal be thi best frende thow thou syt al day and prey no man schal com to thee nor sende ; but if thou have a peny to pey, men schul to the thanne lystyn &lende." he also says :^® "it is good whon so the wynde blowe A man to have sum-what of his owe." on the other hand, Abstinencia presents the fickleness of fortune :" "Worldis wele is lyke a iij-foted stole it faylyt a man at hys most nede." says: ^^ Be he never so ryche of worldis wone,^ hys seketowris schul makyn here mone 'Make us mery & lete hym gone ! he was a good felawe' "the ton sekatour seyth to the tothyr, 'make we mery & a ryche fest & lete hym lyn in dedis fodyr.' " Mankind, however, realizes the value of money, for he "Penyman is mekyl in mynde "Penyman best may spede he is a duke to don a dede now in every place." 41 He continues his proverbial speeches :-- " 'More & more' in many a place certys that song is oftyn songe. "Inow, Inow was nevere songe." Avarice lends Mankind money but gives him advice against lending it :-^ "Lene no man hereof for no karke, thou he schuld he hange be the throte, monke nor Frere, prest nor clerke ne helpe therwith chyrche nor cote tyl deth thi body delue. thou he schuld sterve in a caue lete no pore man ther of haue." "Wisdom" or "Mind Will and Understanding'" is for the greater part didactic. Written about 1460 and as Dr. Walter Kay Smart-* has said for the purpose of counteracting the grow- ing spirit of apostasy among the monks, it does show considerable satire on the political and social corruptions of that time. The satire occurs in the stages of the plot known as Temptation and Life-in-Sin. Lucifer dressed in his favorite costume — that of the gallant — advises the characters. Mind, Will and Understanding, who must have been costumed as monks, to leave their life of contempla- tion :-^ ''Leave your stodyes, thow (they) ben dywyn ; Yowur prayers, yowur penance, of Ipocryttis the syne And lede a comun lyff ! What synne in met, in hale, in wyn ! "Ser by Sent Powle !"" But trust not thes prechors, for they be not goode, For they flatter & lye as they were woode Ther ys a wolffe in a lambys skyn." Satire on the times appears in Wyll's speech on lechery to which he proposes to abandon himself. He refers to it — "As was sumtyme the gyse of Frawnce". His speeches and those of Mind and Understanding show the prevailing evils of the day — avarice, maintenance, and immorality. Understanding says :-^ 42 "The ryche covetyse, wo, dare blame, Off govell and symony thow he here the name To be fals, men report it game." Wyll adds in a similar tone:-^ '"And of lechery to make avawnte Men fors yt no more than drynke atawnt Thes thyngis be now so conversant We seme yt no schame." From Mynde, we have;'" "Thys ys a cause of my worschyppe I serve myghty lordeschyppe Therfor moche folke me dredis Men sew ti my frendeschyppe I supporte hem by lordeschyppe ; For to gette goode, this a grett spede ys." We learn Understanding's methods from this :^*' "And I use Jirowry Embrace questis of perjury Choppe and chonge with symonye &take large jeftis By the cause never so try I preve yt fals, I swere, I lye." In the following speeches. Wyll comments on immorality "Few placis now ther be, But onclennes we xall ther see" Lust ys now comun as the way." Mynd discusses law :^- "Law procedyth not for meyntnance" "Wo will have law must have monye." And on lordship he says :^^ "Wo Inrdschyppe xall sew, must it bye. Wyll supports this statement:^* "Ther poverty ys the male-wrye Thow rvght be, he xall nevermrenewe. 43 Mynde reminds us of Lady Meed in "Piers Plowman", and of the advice of the high-priest in "Ludus Coventriae" :^^ "Wrong ys born upe boldly Thow all the worlde know yt opynly Mayntnance ys now so myghty And all ys for mede." Understanding brings up the conventional complaint against law :^^ "The law ys so coloryde falsly By sleytes and by perjury Brybys be so gredy that to the pore, trowth ys take ryght nought a hede." Wyll says:^ "Mayntnaunce &perjury now stande Ther wer never so moche reynande Sith Gode was bore." Mynde adds :"^ "And lechery was never more usande Off lernyde and lewyde in this lande." Perjury and Wyll characterize the Holborn jury which was noted for its corruption :^^ "Thys menys consyens ys so streytt That they report as mede yewt (beyght) Here is the quest of Holborn an euyll endyrecte They daunce all the londe hydyr &thedyr." "Have they a brybe, have they no care Wo hath wronge or ryght. "^" The three Mights lay plans for their future action. Under- standing proposes to go to Westminster :*^ "At Westmynster without varyance the nex terme xall me avawnce For retoryns, for enbraces, for recordaunce." 44 Mynd will be at St. Pauls :*^ "And at the parvyse I wyll be At Powlys betwyn ij and iij With a menye folowynge me." He with Understanding will fight and arrest the husband of Cousin Janet with whom Will has an intrigue :*^ "Arest hym fyrst to pes for fyght Than in another schere hym endyght He ne xall wete by wom ne howe ' Have hym in the Marschalse anyght Than to the Amralte for they wyll byght A 'prevenire facias' than have as tyght And thou xalt hurle hym so that he xall have inow." In "Mankind" we come to a morality written about 1475, which contains more realism and rough humor than the preced- ing plays. The element of burlesque for comic effect enters in the take-off on Mankind's prayer and in the court-scene where Man- kind is initiated by New Guise, Nowadays and Nought. There are frequent references to localities and numerous sarcastic re- marks from the vices, for instance, New Guise speaking to Mercy says :** "Ey, ey ! yowur body ys full of Englysch Latin" "Now opyn yowur sachell with Laten wordis And sey me this in clerycall manere." There is possibly a sly touch of satire in the long speeches sprinkled throughout Mercy's speeches. The author at any rate seems to have loaded the dice against his good character and to have joined with the vices in making sport of him. Mercy warns Mankind against the three vices :*^ "thei harde not a masse this twelmonyth I dare well sei." Nought warrants this accusation when he introduces him- self as having been with the "comyn tapster of Bury." He boasts of his ability to "pype in a Walsyngham Wystyll." New Gyse maps out his itineracy evidently referring to well- known characters and places :*^ 45 I "FyTst 1 s.d\\ begyn at Master Huntyngton of Sanstotl Fro the-ns 1 xall go to Wylliam Thurlcy of Hanstoii And so forth to Rycharde of Trumpyngton. Nowadays has a similar purpose in mind, New Gyse knows the danger of their undertaking :*" "If we may be take, we com no more hethyr lett us con well our neke verse That we have not a cheke." Nowadays is not thoughtful of future dangers. He con- tinues planning. "A chyrche her besyde xall pay for ale, brede, &wyn" *" Later New Gyse comes running in with a halter about his neck. He explains his situation to Mankind by saying that he is wearing "Sent Awdrys holy bende", for I "I have a lytyll dyshes as yt plese god to sende Wyth a running rynge-worme."" In the burlesque court-scene. Mankind is received into the coiupaiiy of the vices by answering "I wyll, ser" to the questions put to him: (i) if he will commit adultery, (2) if he will rob, steal, and kill (3) if he will visit taverns, forbear mass, matins, hours, and prime. He is then instructed to carry a long "da pacem."^° The satire in these Pre-Tudor Moralities varies from the dull .generalized lament in the "Pride of Life" to a more specific attack on follies in the "Castle of Perseverance", "Wisdom", and "Mankind". There is comment upon the irony of life, — the use- lessness of hoarding up wealth for an unknown heir, possibly the fickle executor. There is ironical advice to yield to the Seven Deadly Sins — to practice extortion and simony, to slander one's neighbors, to ignore the poor, and to assume a swaggering air. The prevalence of slothfulness and immorality is also noted. Maintenance, perjury, and the spirit of apostasy among monks bear the brunt of the attack. Besides this last there is little satire on religion. Mankind hints that Envy's home is in abbeys; and Lucifer advises the three Mights against the flatteries of "preach- ers". CHAPTER IV. SATIRE IN THE EARLY TUDOR MORALITIES. The division of Early Tudor Moralities includes the fol- lowing plays; "Four Elements", "Mundus et Infans", "Every- man", "Hickscorner", "Magnificence", "Nature", "Wyt and Science", "Kynge Johan", "Lusty Juventus", "Respublica", "Youth", and John Bale's "Thre Lawes". In treating these plays I shall consider "Mundus et Infans" first, as it was probably written in the latter part of the fifteenth century although it was not printed until 1522. The play does not contain much satire. Manhood calls con- science "false flattering frere" and Folly gives this account of himself :^ "Over London bridge I ran And straightway to the stews I came And took lodging for a night And there I found my brother Lechery Straight to all the freres And with them I dwelled many years And they crowned Folly a king — Into abbeys and nunneries also By my faith sir into London I ran To the tavern to drink the wine. And then to the inns I took the wav And there I was not welcome to the o'^tlcr But I was welcome to the fair tapster And to all the household I was ryght l)c:'.r"' He also says that he has lived long in London, was born in Holborn and is well known at Westminster.- "To Westminster I used to wend For T am a servant of the law Covetise is mine own fellow We twain plete for the king And poor men that come from LTpland We will take their matter in hand be it right or wrong Their thrift with us shall wend." 46 47 London seems to be considered the home of folly; Manhood says :^ 'Folly will me lead to London to learn revel To London to seek Folly will I fare." There are also references to Newgate and Eastcheap.* In "Four Elements" written between 1515 and 1520 we have the first morality to change the subject of instruction from re- ligion to science. The author in the prologue given to the mes- senger, writes our earliest bit of dramtic literary satire. He satirizes both the subject-matter of the books of his day and the neglect of the English tongue :^ "What number of books in our tongue maternal Of toys and trifles be made and imprinted And few of them of matter substantial ; For though many make books, yet unneth ye shall In our English tongue find any works Of cunning, that is regarded by clerks. If clerks in their realm would take pain so, Considering that our tongue is now sufficient To expound any hard sentence evident, They might, if they would, in our English tongue Write works of gravity among. "But now so it is, that in our English tongue Many one there is, that can but read and write For his pleasure will oft presume among New books to compile and ballads to indite. Some of love or other matter not worth a mite Some to obtain favor will flatter and glose Some write curious terms nothing to purpose." The messenger's speech also includes a satire on the high es- timation of riches :^ "But he that for a commonwealth busily Studieth and laboureth, and liveth by God's law Except he wax rich, men count him but a daw. So he that is rich is ever honoured Although he have got it never so falsely." Sensual Appetite, who leads Humanity off to the tavern, re- fers to the king's servant as being the cause of the scanty fare :^ 48 ^ is for capons Ye can get none The king's taker took up each one." He finds the taverner ready to crack a joke on woman. The latter says when asked for quail because it is light of digestion from ''their continual moving", that he knows a still lighter meat — woman's tongue — "for that is ever stirring." Passing to the moral play "Everyman" (1525) we find little satire. God complains of the devotion to riches and to selfish interests i*' "In worldly riches is all their mind." "For now one would by envy another up eat; "Charity they do all clean forget." Knowledge gives a bit of religious satire :^ "Sinful priests giveth the sinners example bad i Their children sitteth by other men's fires I have heard, And some haunteth women's company With unclean life, as lusts of lechery." In "Hickscorner" we find a different kind of morality. It has none of the dignity of "Everyman". It deals with low types. Pity appears with a generalized lament on the times and is scoffed at by the libertine Hickscorner, and by his accomplices, Imagination and Freewill. First the lament :^° "I have heard many men complain piteously They say they be smitten with the swerd of poverty. Few friends poverty doth find And these rich men been unkind For their neighbours they will nought do Widows doth curse lords and gentlemen For they constrain them to marry with their men Yea whether they will or no. Men marry for good, and that is damnable Yea with old women that is fifty and beyond." Here the author agrees with "Piers Plowman" on the sub- ject of marriage. He continues :^^ "Priests lack utterance to show their cuning People have now small devotion 49 And all the while that clerks do use so great sin Among the lay people look never for no mending." Imagination, one of the vices, characterizes himself as fol- lows :^^ "I can imagine things subtle For to get money plenty In Westminster Hall every term I am To me is kin many a great gentleman I am knowen in every country And I were dead, the lawyers thrift were lost For this will I do, if men would do cost Prove right wrong, and all by reason And make men lose house and land." Peach men of treason privily I can " And when we list, to hang a true man If they will be money tell Thieves I can help out of prison And into lords favours I can get me soon And be of their privy council I can look in a man's face and pick his purse And tell new tidings that never was true iwis For my hood is all lined with lesing." Freewill interrupts with. "Yea, but went ye never to Tyburn a pilgrimage?" Imagination answers :'* "No, iwis, nor none of my linege For we be clerks all and can our neck verse And with an ointment the judges han I can grease That will heal sores that be incurable." Hickscorner represented as a boisterous sailor, reports as sunk in the sea all true religious women, true maidens, true monks, alms-deed doers, true buyers and sellers, true married people, and good rich men that helpeth folk out of prison. In his own boat came Falsehood, Favell, Jollity, thieves, whores, liars, backbiters, flatterers, brawlers, walkers by night, murderers, oppressors, swearers, false law, wanton wenches and hatred. Freewill shows some of New-gyse's humor when he speaks of the gyves as "a medicine for a pair of sore shins". An op- portunity comes later for him to have the medicine administered. He speaks of the experience -.^^ 50 "For woe then I wist not what to have done And all because I lacked money But a friend in court is worth a penny in purse." Pity again breaks forth into a tirade against the sins of the people — their use of oaths, their fondness of extreme fashions, the inefficiency of mayors, the injustice of lawyers, and the general immorality of the young r^*^ "Worse was it never We have plenty of great oaths And cloth enough in our clothes But charity men loathes. Alas now is lechery called love indeed And murder named manhood in every need Extortion is called law — Bawds be the destroyers of many young women "Mayors on sin doeth no correction W'hile gentle men beareth truth adown Avoutry is suffered in every town." Devotion is gone many days sin Courtiers go gay and take little wages "And many with harlots at the taverns haunts They be yeomen of the wreath that should be shackled in gyves." God punisheth full sore with great sickness As pox, pestilence, purple, and axes Yet was there never so great poverty Ther be som sermons made by noble doctors But truly the fiend doth stop men's ears." Here we see an instance of English discrimination. Some doctors' are noble and worthy. What he adds is an excuse for those who do not preach : "All truth is best not said -And our preachers nowadays he half-afraid." Freewill refers to localities of doubtful repute:^' "If I might make three good voyages to Shooter's Hill And have wind and weather at niv will 51 Then would I never travel the sea more ! But it is hard to keep the ship from the shore And if it hap to rise a storm Then thrown in a raft and so about borne On rocks or brachs to run Else to shake aground at T.vburn That were a murderous case. For that rock of Tyburn is so perilous a place Young gallants dare not venture into Kent But when their money is gone and spent With their long boots they row in the bay And any man-of-war lie by the way They must take a boat and throw the helm ale And full hard it is to escape that great jeopardy For at Saint Thomas of Watering and they strike a sail Then they must ride in the haven of hemp without fail. And were not these two per parlous places indeed. There is many a merchant thither would speed. But yet we have a sure channel at Westminster A thousand ships of thieves therein may ride sure; For if they may anchor-hold and great spending They may live merry as any king." We come next to "Magnificence" a play written by John Skelton, it i.s thought, in 1516. Magnificence the prince stands for Henry \' III ; the vices represent the evil qualities of his great minister, Wolsey. The forces for good probably represent the party of the Duke of Norfolk who was opposed to the ex- travagent policy of the upstart, Wolsey. The satire in the play has been thoroughly discussed by Dr. Robert Lee Ramsay in the introduction to the Early English Text Society's edition of the play ; hence I shall confine myself in giving instances which may be construed as satire. Some of these are the familiar attack on the times as ■}^ "But men nowe a dayes so unhappely be uryd That nothynge than welth may be worse enduryd" "Yet lyberte hath ben lockyd up and kept in the mew" "Yet measure hath ben so longe from us absent That all men laugh at lyberte to scorne ; Welth and wyt, I say, be so threde-bare worne Tha all is without measure, and fer beyond the mone." Fancy refers to Louis XII of France as having been a gen- erous prince : =;2 "Largesse is he that all prynces doth avaunce "I reporte me herein to King Lewes of Fraunce, Syth he dyed largesse was lytill used." "* He shows the hostility existing between England and France in his account of his experiences with the coast officers :^° "By God at the see syde Had I not opened my purse wyde 1 trowe, by our lady, I had been slayne Or elles I had lost mvne eares twavne there is such a wache That no man can scape but they hym cache They bare me in hande that I was a spe : And another bade put out myne eye Another wolde myne eye were blerde Another bade shave halfe my berde And boys to the pylery gan me plucke And wolde have made me Freer Tucke To preche out of the pylery hole." Counterfeit Countenance probably a satire on Wolsey boasts of his sway :-^ "A knave wyll counterfet nowe a knyght A lurdayne lyke a lord to fight A mynstrell lyke a man of myght A tappyster lyke a lady bryght Thus at the laste I brynge hym ryght To Tyburn where tliey hang on hyght Counterfet maters in the law of the lande, Wyth golde and grotes they grese my hande In stede of ryght that wronge may stande." Of wives, he says :^^ "To counterfet she wyll assay All the newe gyse freshe and gaye And be as praty as she may And jet it joly as a jay." He speaks too, of "counterfet prechynge and byleve the con- trary", and adds some proverbs: 53 "Ryches rideth out, at home is poverty."* A knokylbonyarde wyll counterfet a clarkc He wolde trotte gentylly but he is too starke At his cloked counterfetynge dogges dothe barke'' This may refer to Cardinal Wolsey, who was looked upon with jealousy by the lords. He continues:^* ''To counterfet this freers have learned me This nonnes now and then, and it m3-ght be Wolde take in the way of counterfet charyte The grace of God under benedicite To counterfet theyr counsell they gave me a fee Chanons can not counterfet but upon thre Monkys may not for drede that men sholde them se.' Another of the vices, Cloked Collusion, is dressed as a priest in cope and vestment. From this we may infer that he was meant to represent Wolsey. His remarks p. 20, i. 620, "Hath Magnificence any treasure?" is significant. His characteriza- tion of himself is said to fit Wolsey:-^ "Two faces in a hode covertly I bere Water in the one hande and fyre in the other" By Cloked Collusion, I say, and none other Cumberance and trouble in England fyrst I began From that lorde to that lorde I rode and I ran And flatered them with fables fayre before theyr face "And tolde all the myschyef I coude be hynde theyr backe." Courtly Abusion dressed in the latest fashion — the "new foune jet out of France" — may be a satire upon Wolsey's fond- ness for dress and show. He comments on the tendency to follow fashion :'® "A carlys sonne Brought vp of nought, Wyth me wyll wonne, Whylyst he hath ought He wyll have wrought His gowne so wyde That he may hyde "His dame and his syre Within his slyve 54 Spende all his hyre That men hym gyve; Wherfore I preue A Tyborne checke Shall breke his necke." Folly boasts that he makes fools of idle men and others. He must be speaking of Wolsey when he refers to a certain upstart who has become very powerful. These are his words :-^ "And those be they that come up of nought As .some be not ferre and yf it were well sought Such dawys, what soever they be, That be set in auctorite Anone he waxyth so hy and prowde He frownyth fyersly, brymly browde The knawe wolde make it koy and he cowde ; All that he dothe muste be alowde ; And, 'This is not well done, Syr.; take hede.' " He alludes to men who have been bearing tales to the sovereign, but their identity is unknown r^ "Ther be two lyther, rude and ranke, Smykyn Tytyuell and Pers Pykthanke ; These lythers I lerne them for to lere. What he sayth and she sayth to lay good ere, And tell to his sufferayne euery whyt ; And then he is moche made of for his wyt ; And be the mater yll more or lesse He wyll make it mykyll worse than it is : Crafty Conveyance satirizes the times :-^ "It is a wonder to se the worlde aboute To se what Foly is in vsed in euery place ; By the cjuality of Crafty Conveyance "many one is brought up of nought," for instance, Wolsey. The "full ungracious sorte" around Magnificence may refer to Wolsey's party. As has been suggested by Dr. Ramsey, the boastful speech of Magnificence when at the height of his power is a satire on Henry VHI's youthful extravagance and may also contain a trace of literary satire. Magnificence says of Courtly Abusion's language :^° 55 '•* * * with Pleasure I am supprysyd Of your langage, it is so well devysed; Pullyshyd and fresshe is your ornacy. He is not lyuynge your maners can amend Mary, your speche is as pleasant as though it were pend." Cloked Collusion comments on the recklessness of the times :^^ "For I here but fewe men that gyue ony prayse Unto Measure, I say, nowe a days" "They catche that catche may, kepe and hold fast Out pf all measure themselfe to enryche ; No force what thoughe his neyghbour dye in a dyche, With pollynge and pluckynge out of all measure." He advises Magnificence how to distribute his money :^^ "Better to make iii ryche than for to make many Gyve them more than ynoughe and let them not lacke And as for all others let them trusse and packe Pluck from an hundred and gyve it to thre Let neyther patent scape them nor fee." Lyberte is disgusted with the stinginess of nobles. He says :^^ "But nowe adayes as huksters they hucke and they stycke, And pynche at the payment of a poddynge prycke ; A laudable Largesse I tell you, for a lorde, To prate for the patchynge of a pot sharde'. Spare for the spence of a noble that his honour myght saue, And spende c. s for the pleasure of a knaue." On the other hand, he says too much liberty results in ruin :^* "And some in the worlde, theyr brayne is so ydyll That they set theyr chyldren to rynne on the brydyll, In youth to be wanton, and let them have theyr wyll And they never thryue in theyr age, it shall not gretly skyll Some fall to Foly, them selfe for to spyll And some fall prechynge at the Ton re Hyll ; nonnes wyll leve theyr holynes and ryn after me; Freers, with Foly I make them so fayre "They cast up theyr obeydyence to cache me agayne ; At Lyberte to wander and walke ouer all. That lustely they lepe somtyme theyr cloyster wall." 56 So much for Magnificence. The next play to be considered, "Nature" was written between i486 and 1500. It satirizes the conventional sins, pride and avarice. Pride struts about as a gallant reminding one of the fops of a later day, for instance, Lord Foppington in Van Brugh's play, "The Relapse". He says of his own appearance :^^ "I love yt well to haue syde here Halfe a wote byneth myne ere For ever more I stande in fere That myne nek shold take cold I knyt yt vp all the nyght And the day tyme kemb yt down right And then yt cryspeth and shyneth as bryght As any pyrled gold. "My doublet ys onlaced byfore A stomacher of satin and no more Rayn it, snow yt never so sore Me thynketh I am to bote Than have I suche a short gown Wji;h wyde sieves that hang a down They wold make some lad in thys town A doublet and a cote. Later he tells man that he should get some new clothes :^* "For now there is a new guyse It ys nowe ii. days a gon Syth that men beggan thys fassyon And every knave had yt anon, He confides in Worldy Affection his future plans concerning Man :^' "Syr our mayster shall have a gown That all the galandys in thys town Shall on the fassyon wonder It shall not be sowed but wyth a lace bytwyxt every some a space of two handfull assonder 'Than a doublet of the new make Close byfore and open on the bak No sieve vpon hys arme vnder that a shyrte as soft as sylk and as whyte as any mylk to kepe the carcas warm. 57 "Than shall hys hosen be stryped Wyth corselettys of fyne veluet slyped Down to the hard kne And fro the kne downward His hosen shalbe freshely gard Wyth colours ii or thre "And whan he is in suche aray There goth a rutter men wyll say a rutter huf a galand ye shall se these foles on hym gase and muse as yt were on a mase \ew brought into the land." Envy says of Wrath's ability to corrupt a jury:^* "Syr yt happyned in Westmynster Hall Even before the Juges all Hys handys were bound fast And never upon hym that God ever made Dager, sword nor knyfe he had And yet at the last He drave XH men into a corner And an houre after durst they not appere." He adds a touch of the conventional satire on woman :'® "Now he that wold warre or stryfe I pray god send hym a shrewd wyfe." Sensuality ascribes avarice to priests and lawyers :*" "He dwelled wyth a prest as I herd say For he loveth well men of the chyrche and they hym also And lawyars eke whan they may tend therto, Wyll follow hys counsell." In the controversial drama, "Lusty Juventus". which dates from the period 1547- 1553, the satire is chiefly anti-papal. Knowledge on the side of the Reformation informs Lusty Ju- ventus that he has not been instructed right in God's laws by the elders :*^ "Because they themselves were wrapped in ignorance Being deceived by false preachers." 58 The devil and Hypocrisy are represented as supporters of the CathoHc faith. The former laments his loss of power :*- "The old people would still believe in my laws But the younger sort lead them a contrary way, They will not believe they plainly say In old traditions and made by men But they will live as the scripture teacheth them The latter tells how he has deceived the people :*^ "Holy cardinals, holy popes, holy vestments, holy copes, holy hermits, holy friars, holy priests, holy bishops, holy monks, holy abbots, holy pardons, holy beads, holy saints, holy images, etc. with holy, holy, holy blood holy stocks, holy stones yea and holy, holy wood holy clouts, holy bones, holy skins, holy bulls, holy rochets, and holy cowls holy crouches and holy staves holy hoods, holy caps holy mitres, holy hats All good holy holy knaves, holy days, holy fastings holy visions and sights holy wax, holy lead holy water, holy bread The devil and Hypocrisy both lament the spread of the new religious teaching. The devil complains :** "God's word is so greatly sprung up in youth That he little regardeth my laws or me He telleth his parents that is very truth That they of long lime deceived have be." and Hypocrisy adds in the same strain :*^ "The world was never merry Since children were so bold Now every boy will be a teacher The father a fool, and the child a preacher," Good counsel also has a grievance against the times:*" "O where may a man find now one faithful congregation "That is not infected with dissension or discord 59 Who useth not now covetousness and deceit Who geveth unto the poor that which is due." The time were too long now to recite What whoredom, uncleannes and tilthy communication Is dispersed with youth in every congregation To speak of pride, envy, and abhominable oaths They are the common practices of youth To avaunce your flesh, you cut and jag your clothes" In "Youth" dating from 1546 (?) we have a didactic mor- ality aimed at the particular sins of youth ; Riot typifying one of these sins says when questioned about his experiences in New- gate that he has never really been there very long.**' "For I have learned a policy That will loose me lyghtly And soon let me go. Once, he continues i*** "The Mayor of London sent for me Forth of Newgate for to come For to preach at Tyburn." The rope broke, however, and he escaped punishment. We now pass to a bitter attack upon the mummery of the Roman Catholic in John Bale's "Kyng Johan". Ynglond com- plains against the clergy :'° "Alas, yowr clargy hath done very sore amys In mysusyng me ageynst all ryght and justyce." Suche lubbers as hath dysgysed heads in their hoodes Whych in idelnes do lyve by other menns goodes,— Monkes, chanons and nones in dyvers coloure and shappe Both whyght, blacke and pyed. God send their increase ill happe "I told you before the faulte was in the clergye For they take from me my cattel, howse and land My wods and pastures with other commodyteys : The Pope is referred to as "the wyld bore of Rome," and his followers are called "pigges" fed with vile "ceremonyes". They are further described :^^ "And unto the lawys of synfull men they leane Lyke as the vyle swyne the most vyle metes dessyer." 6o Sedition who appears later in the play as Stephen Langton says that he was born under the' Pope in Rome. He adds :^^ "In every relygyon and munkysh secte I rayne, Havyng you princes in scorne, hate and disdayne. Sumtyme I can be a monke in a long syd cowle Sumtyme I can be a none and loke like an owle ; Sumtyme a chanon in a syrples fayer and whyght; A chapter howse monke sumtyme I apere in ryght I am ower Syr John sumtyme, with a new shaven crowne Sumtyme the person and swepe the stretes with a syd gowne Sumtyme the bysshop with a myter and a cope ; Agraye fryer sumtyme with cutt shoes and a rope ; Sumtyme I can playe the whyght monke, sumtyme the fryer, The purgatory prist, and every man's wyflfe desyer sumtyme lam a cardynall." ^ sumtyme a pope." ^ There is a satirical reference to the supervision of abbeys:" "In abbeyes they have so many suttyl spyes For ones in the yere they have secret vysytacyons And yf ony prynce reforme ther ungodly facyons, Than ii of the monkes must forthe to Rome by-and-by With secret letters to avenge ther injury." and one on lawyers when Sedition claims them as his friends. King John, we expect to be violent in his denunciation of the clergy. He says:^^ "Yt was never well syns the clargy wrought by practyce And left the Scripture for mens ymagynacyons Dyvydyng themselvys in so many congrygacyons Of monkes, chanons and fryers, of dyvers colors and facyons With your Latyne howrs, sermonyes, and popetly playes." Rekyn fyrst your tythis, yowr devocyons and yowr oflferynges Mortuaryes, pardons, bequests and other thynges Besydes that ye cache for halowed belles and purgatorye For juelles, for relyckes, confessyon and cowrts of baudrye For legacyes, trentalls, with scalacely messys You prists are the cawse that chronycles doth defame So many prynces and men of notable fame." °* Dissimulation is strongly opposed to the methods of ap- pointing church officials :^^ 6i "Thougli we playe the kiiavys. We must sliewe good pretence." "To win the peple I appoynt eyche man his place ; Sum to synge Latyn, and sum to ducke at grace Sum to go mummyng, and sum to beare the crosse Sum to stowpe downeward as ther heades wore stopt with mosse, Sum to rede the epystle and gospell at hygh masse Sum syng at the lectorne with long eares lyke an asse. The pawment of the chyrche the aunchent faders tredes Sumtyme with a portas, sumtyme with a payre of bedes. Speaking of the power of the Pope, he says :^* He shall make prelates, both byshopp and cardynall Doctours and prebendes with furdewhodes and syde gownes "He wyll also create the orders monastycall Monkes, chanons, and fryers with graye coates and shaven crown«6 And buyld them places to corrupt cyties and townes : The dead sayntes shall shewe both vysyons and myracles With ymages and rellyckes he shall worke sterracles He wyll make mattens, houres, masse and evensonge To drown the Scriptures for doubte of heresye Latyne devocyons with the holy rosarye. "The Popys power shall be above the powers all, And eare confessyon a matere necessary^' The gospell prechyng wyll be an heresy." The Pope is made to say in person :*'*' "I will all-so reyse up the fower begging orders That they may preche lyes in all the christen borders.' Cyvyle Order tells Clargy:"^ "For yf they decay, ower welth ys not alyve" I never knew lawer which had ony crafty lernyng That ever escapte you withowt a plentyous levyng" The king remonstrates against their power :'- "Our prists are rysyn throwgh lyberte of kyngs by ryches to pryde and other unlawfull doynges. See ye not how lyghte the lawyers sett the poure" 62 Commonalty, too, accuses the clergy in his answer to the king's question where his money has gone.''^ "By pristes, channons, and monkes which do but fyll ther bely With my swett and labour for ther popysh purgatory." Ynglond warns King John : "But, yf ye permytt contynuaunce of ypocresye In monkes, and pristes, and mynysters of the clergyp Your realme shall never be without much traytery." and to Pandulph she says :*'* "I smarte all-redy throw yowr most suttell practyse And am clene ondone by yowr false merchandyce. Yowr pardons, yowr bulles, yowr purgatory-pykepurse Yowr Lent — fasten, yoowr schryftes, that I pray God geve yow his cursse ! After John consents to give up the crown, Sedition gives vent to his joy i*'^ "Now may we realmes confounde Oure Holye Father maye now lyve at hys pleasure And have habundance of wenches, wynes and treasure. Now shalle we rufifle it in velvetts, gold, and sylke With shaven crownes, syde gownes, and rochettes whyte as mylke." Treason confesses:*'^ "I have so convayed that neyther priest nor lawer wyll obeye Gods wurde nor yet the gospell faver." and calls paganistic the various ceremonies of the church : "All your ceremonyes. your copes and sensers doubtlesse Your fyers, your waters, your oyles, your aulters, your ashes Your candlestyckes, your cruettes, your salte with such lyke washes Of the paganes ye have your gylded ymages al With crowchynges, with kyssynges and settynge up of lyghts Bearynge them in processyon and fastynges upon their nyghtes Soom for tothe-ake, some for the pestylence and poxe ; with ymages of waxe to brynge moneye to the boxe." 63 To Yrjglond's question, "What have they of Christ in the church ?" Treason replies f "Mary, nothynge at all, l)ut the cpystle and the gospel! And that is in Latyne that no man shoulde it know." King John's final opinion of the power of the clergy and their vindictiveness is given in the following line:^'* "Ther is no maylce to the malyce of the clergye." Sedition remains hopeful of the Pope's power:®" "The popes ceremonyes shall drowne the gospel styll Some of the byshoppes at your injunctyons slepe. Some laugh and go bye, and some playe boo-peep Some of them do noug-ht but searche for heretykes, Whyls their priestes abroade do playe the scysmatykes. Tell me in London how manye their othes discharge Of the curates there : vet it is much wurse at large. Get they false wytnesses they force not of whens they be. Be they of Newgate, or be they of Marshallsee. the prelates do not preche. But persecute those that the holy Scriptures teache. This play is the most outspoken of all the controversial dramas. In the selection of details and in the enormities with which the clergy is charged, it is surpassed only by the same author's "Three Lawes". In this play Infidelitas who has as accomplices. Sodomismus dressed as a monk and Idololatria as a necromancer, begins by characterizing the latter. The Christmas and Easter Festivals according to him smack of Idolatry. Sodomismus agrees with this and adds to the characterization of Idololatria:^" "Mennys fortvmes she can tell She can by sayenge Ave Marye "And by other charmcs of sorcerye, Ease men of toth ake by and by. Yea and fatche the deuyll from hell." Idololatria is made to relate her numerous accomplish- ments :^^ "With holye oyle and watter i can so clovne and clatter 64 That I can at the latter Many suttj'ltees contryve I never mysse but paulter" Our blessed ladyes psaulter Before saynt Sauers aulter With my bedes ones a daye And thys is my common cast To heare masse first or last And the holy frydaye fast In good tyme mowt I it saye "With blessynges of Saynt Germayne I wyll me so determyne That neyther foxe nor vermyne Shall do my chickens harme For your gese seke saynt Legearde And for your duckes saynt Lenarde For horse take Mosyes yearde Thre is no better charme. "Take me a napkyn folte Wyth the byas of a bolte For the healynge of a colte No better thyng can be "For the cough take Judas eare, With the parynge of a peare And drynke them without feare If ye wyll have remedy Three syppes are for the hyckock, etc. "If ye cannot slepe but slumber Geve otes unto saynt Uncumber And beanes in a serten number Unto saynt Blase and saynt Blythe Geve onyons to saynt Cyryake If ve wvll shunne the head ake." Sodomismus boasts :" 'And now the popysh hypocrytes Embrace me every where I am now become all spyrytuall For the clergye at Rome and over all For want of wyves to me doth fall, To God thev have no feare." 65 "If monkysh sectes renue'* And popysh prestes contynue, Whych are of my retynue, To lyve I shall be sure, "Cleane marryage they forbyd, Yet can not their wayes be hyd Men knowe what hath betyd, Whan they have been in parell Oft have they buryed quycke, Such as were never sycke Full many a propre trycke They to helpe their quarrel! "In Rome to me they fall Both Byshopp and Cardynall Monke, fryre, prest and all More ranke they are than antes Example in Pope Julye Whych sought to have in hys furye Two laddes, and to use them beastlye From the Cardynall of Nantes." Infidelitas sends Idolatry and Sodomy forth to pervert man- kind with rings, brooches, beads, and the hke. Here are the instructions -J^ "Take thu part of them here Beades, rynges, and other geare And shortlye the bestere To deceyve man properlye "Take thys same staffe and scryppe With a God here of a chyppe And good beldame forewarde hyppe To set fourth pylgrymage Set thu fourth sacramentals Say dyrge and synge for trentals Stodye the popes Decretals Ajid mixt them with briggerage ^ "Here is a stoole for the A ghostlye father to be To heare Benedicite "A boxe of creame and oyle Here is a purse of rellyckes Ragges, rotten bones and styckes • •-' A taper with other tryckes." 66 Infidelitas, burlesque prayer is a terrible satire on the pope i^" "Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui ad imaginem et siinilitudinem nostram formasti laicos, da quaesumus lit sicut eorum sudoribus vivimus, ita eorum uxoribus, filiabs. et domicellis perpeto frui mereamur. Per dominum nostrum Papam. He follows the prayer with general satire on the times :^^ "Now underneth her wynges Idolatry hath kynges. With their nobylyte , Both dukes, lordes, knyghtes and earles Fayre ladyes with their pearles And the whole commenalte "Within the bowne^ of Sodomye Doth dwell the spirytuall clergye, Pope, cardinal! and pryst. Nonne, chanon, monke and fryre, With so many els as do desyre To reigne undre Antichrist "Detestynge matrymonye They lyve abhomynablye And burn in carnall lust Shall I tell ye farther newes? At Rome for prelates are stewes Of both kyndes, Thys is just. Naturae Lex deplores the iniquities of the day :'^' "I abhorre to tell the abusyons bestyall That they dayly use, whych boast their chastyte 'Some at the aulter to incontynency fall. In confessyon some full beastly occupyed be Amonge the close nonnes reyneth thys enormyte Soch chyldren slee they, as they chaunce for to have, And in their prevyes, prouyde them of their grave. "Ye Christen rulers, se you for thys a waye. Be not illuded by false hypocresye. By the stroke of God, the worlde wyll els decaye. Permyt prestes rather, God's lawful! remedye Than they shuld incurre, most bestyall Sodomye Regarde not the pope, not yet hys whorysli kyngedom For he is the master of Gomor and Sodome." 67 Infidelitas sees the influence of the spirit of the Reforma- tion and fears the passing away of unheard of iniquities. After dwelHng upon the vices of priests, monks, and bishops, he dis- cusses the new reHgious spirit :'^ "Now are the knaves bolde With Scriptures to holde And teache them every where The carter, the sowter, The bodger, the clowter That all wyll awaye I fere "As us so they pulle Our lyvynges are dulle We are now lyke to fall If we do not fyght For the churches ryght By the messe we shall lose all. InfideHty next tries to destroy Moses' law. His two ac- complices are Avaritia dressed as a jurisconsultus and Ambitio as a prelate. He tells what they stand for:*° "Somtyme for lucre, somtyme for the hygher place Yet for advantage, in thys we all agre. To blynde the rulers, and deceyve the commynalte." Avaritia shows his character in a long speech from which I take the following excerpt.^^ "To labour with a spade Our colour wolde it fade We may not with that trade We love so moch our ease We must lyve by their sweate And have good drynke and meate Whan they have not to eate The substaunce of a pease "Our lowsye latyne howres In borowes and in bowres The poore people devowres And treade them undre fete. Ambitio as his name suggests gapes for "empyre and wor- shypp." He says :^- "I loke up aloft And loue to lye soft Not carynge for my flocke Hygh thynges I attempt "And wyll me exempt From prynces iurysdyccyon." He tells how he deceives the people :*^ "Wyth fylthy gloses and dyrty exposycyons, Of God's lawe wyll I hyde the pure dysposycyons The keye of knowledge, I wyll also take awaye By wrastynge the text to the scriptures sore decaye "We must poyson them, with wyll workes and good intentes Where as God doth saye, no straunge goddes thu shalt have With sayntes worshyppynge, that clause we wyll deprave And though he commaunde, to make no carved ymage For a good intent yet wyll we have pylgrymage "No Sabboth wyl we, with Gods worde sanctyfye But with lyppe labour and ydle ceremonye To father and mother, we maye owe non obedyence Our relygyon is of so great excellence Though we do not slee, yet maye we heretykes burne If they wyll not sone from holye scripture turne What though it be sayd, thu shalt do no fornycacyon Yet wyll we mayntene, moch greatter abhomynacyon Though theft be forbyd, yet wyll we contynuallye Robbe the poore people, through prayer and purgatorye God hath inhybyted to geve false testymonye Yet we wyll condempe, the Gospell for heresye. "We shuld not covet our neybers horse nor wyfe Hys servaunt nor beast, yet are we therein most ryfe Of men make we swyne by the draffe of our tradycyons, "And cause them nothinge to regard but superstycyons In his turn the avaricious Juris consultus says:^* "Both howse and medowe From the poor wydowe I spare not for to take Ryght heyres I rob And as bare as Job The fatherles I make For sylver and golde 69 With falsehed I holde Supportynge every evyl I have it in awe for to choke the lawe And brynge all to the devyl." "With superstycyons the Jewes ceremonyall lawes** I wyll so handle they shall not be" worth two strawes The laws Judycyall through cawtels and delayes I wyll also drowne to all ryghteouse mennys decayes, To set thys forwarde, we must have sophystrye Phylosophye and Logick, as Scyence necessarye The byshoppes must holde, their prestes in ignoraunce with longe latyne houres, least knowledge to them chaunce Lete them have longe mattens, long evensonges, and longe masses And that wyll make them, as dull as ever were asses That they shall never be able to prophecye Or yet to preach the truth to our great injurye "Lete the cloysterers be brought up ever in sylence Without the scriptures in payne of dysobedyence In the lave people, praye never but in latyne "Lete them have their crede and servyce all in latyne That a latyne beleve maye make a latyne sowle Lete them nothynge knowe of Christ nor get of powle "If they have Englysh, lete, it be for advauntage For pardons, for Dyrges, for offerynges and pylgrymages I recken to make them a new Crede in a whyle And all in Englysh. their conscyence to begyle. The proposed creed is as follows :^® "First they shall beleve in our holy father. Pope Next in hys decrees, and holy decretals Then in holy church, with sencer, crosse and cope In the ceremonyes and blessed sacramentals In purgatory then, in pardons and in trentals In praynge to sayntes and in Saynt Frances whoode In our lady of Grace and in the blessed roode They shall beleve also in rellyckes and relygyon In our ladyes psalter, in fre wyll and good wirkes In the ember dayes, and in the popes remyssyon In bedes and in belles not used of the turkes In the golden masses agaynst soch spretes as lurkes With charmes and blessynges, thys crede will bring in moneyc In Englysh therfor, we wyll it clarkely conveye 70 Ambitio suggests :®^ "Then I holde it best that we alwayes condempne The Byble readers, least they our actes contempne." Infidelitas after comparing Ambitio's mitre to a wolf's mouth adds :^^ "But thy wolvyshnesse, by thre crownes wyll I hyde Makynge the a pope, and a captayne of all pryde That whan thou dost slee soche as thy lawes contempne Thou mayst say, not I, but the powers ded them condempne And thu covetousnesse, lete no bell rynge in steple Without a profyght, tush, take moneye every whear So nygh clyppe and shave that thu leave never a heare." Avaritia boasts :^^ "I caused the pope to take but now of late Of the Graye fryres, to have canonyzate Franciscus de Pola, thre duckates and more And as moch besyde, he had not longe afore For a Cardynall hatte, of the same holy order Thus drawe to us, great goodes from every border Pope Clement the 'seventh payed ones for hys papacye Thre hondred thousand, good duckates of lawful moneye The methods by which he got so much money are explained by Avarice :^° " by pollage, and by shedynge Christen blood Crosers and mytars in Rome are good merchandyce And all to lyttle to maynteyne their pompe and vyce, Infidehtas says :"^ "Now byshopryckes are solde and the holy ghost for gold The pope doth bye and sell The people prestes do famysh And their goodes from them ravysh Yea, and all the worlde they blynde All prynces do they mock And robbe the syllye flocke Nothynge they leave behynde." 71 To destroy Christ's law, Infidelitas sends out Hypocrisis and Pseudo-Doctrina. The former indulges in some unquotable re- marks, and the latter is not far behind him. If true, they show great corruption among high church officials and extreme bold- ness on the part of the author in making accusations by name instead of skulking behind abstractions. For instance, we have Pseudo — doctrina accusing two cardinals by name:®^ "In kynge ferdynands tyme in Spayne was a Cardynall Petrus menoza, was the very man that I meane, Of lemans he had, great nombre besydes the quene. One of his bastardes was earle, an other was duke Whom also he abused, and thought it no rebuke, "Joannes Cremona an other good Cardynall, For reformacyon of the clergye spyrituall Came over into Englande, to dampne prestes matrymonye And the next nyght after was taken doynge bytcherye "Doctor Eckius also, whych fearcely came to dyspute In lipsia with Luther, myndynge there hym to confute For maryage of prestys, thre chyldren had that yeare." Infidelitas fears the new sect, He tells Pseudo-doctrina :^' "They saye, thu teachest, nothynge but lowsy tradycions And lyes for lucre with damnable superstycyons. And thus they conclude that the draffe of popysh prystes Is good ynough for swyne, by whom they meane the papystes And all thys knowledge they have now of the Gospell, Pseudo-doctrina plans a campaign with Hypocrisis against Christ's law.«* "Four knyghtes wyll we byre, whom we shall streyghtly charge To kepe hym downe hardes. The first are ambycyouse prelates Then covetouse lawers, that God's words spyghtfully hates Lordes without lernynge and justyces unryghtfull These wyll kepe hym down and rappe hym on the scull Then someners and ther scribes, I warande ye shall stere With balyves and catch polles to holde hym downe every where" Hypocrisis offers to — ®^ " rayse up in the unyversytees The seven sleepers there, to advance the popes decrees As Dorbel and Duns. Durande and Thomas of Aquyne. 72 The stage directions as to the "aparellynge of the six vyces or frutes of Infydelyte" are interesting:^*^ "Lete Idolatry be decked lyke an old wytche, Sodomy lyke a monke of all sects, Ambycyon lyke a byshop. Covetousness lyke a pharyse or spirituall lawer, false doctryne lyke a popysh doctour and hypocrisy lyke a graye fryre, the rest of the partes are easye ynough to conjecture." John Bale's play "God's Promises" may contain satire in the speech of Pater Coelestis, but it is, I think, merely a con- ventional complaint r''^ "O frowarcl people, given all to superstitions : Unnatural children, expert in blasphemies Provoketh me to hate by their idolatries I abhor your fasts and your solemnity: For your traditions my ways ye set apart Your works are in vain, I hate them from the heart." In "Respublica" dating from 1553, we have another con- troversial drama which, in contrast to the two just considered, is opposed to Protestantism. It represents England as almost ruined by the policy of Edward VI and his ministers. These appear in the play under the abstract names of Avarice, Op- pression, Insolence, and xA.dulation. They plot to rob Respublica and divide lands, plate, lordships, "manour places," castles, towns, pastures, and woods among themselves. People complains :®* "vor we ignoram people wer ner so ipolde zo wrong and zo I — torment Lord Jhese Christe whan he was I — pounst & I — pilate Was ner so i — trounst as we have been of yeares late. We passeive ther falleth of corne and cattail wull, shepe, woode, leade, tynne, Iron & other metall and of all thinges, enoughe vor goode and badde,"* and yet the price of every, thing is so dere .^s thoughe the grounde dyd brynge forth no such no where." After the four vices have fleeced Respublica, they report to one another their winnings : Oppression begins :^*'^ 73 "I maie were myters fower or fyve I have so many haulfe bisshoprikes at the leaste" We left the best of them a thredebare bishop.""" Avarice says his bags are full of "old aungelots and Ed- wardes."^°- He names over his bags. In them he has leases encroached and i^esold, interest, usury, bribes, sales of livings, clerks' fees, sectourships, church goods, customs filching, forged wares, exports wrongful, smuggled goods. He rebukes Oppres- sion for not being able to understand Latin : "Loe, here a fyne f elowe to have a bishopricke !. A verse of Latynne he cannot understande. Yet dareth he presume boldely to take in hande Into a deanerie or archdeaconrye to choppe And to have the livelihood awaie from a bisshop." "" He turns to his own policy r^*** "I have a good benefyce of an hundred markes Yt is smale policie to give suche to greate clerkes — They will take no benefice, but thei must have all ! A bare clerke canne bee content with a lyvinge smale Therefore Sir John iLacke Latten my friend shall have myne And of hym maie I ferme yt for eyght powndes or nyne The rest maie I reserve to myself for myne owne share For wee are good feeders of the poore, so we are," Respublica, however, does not agree with him. She laments the fate of priests and bishops :^"^ "(Whan) they had theire lyvinges, men were both fedde and cladde." People complains of the heavy taxes :^°^ "Whan chadwith zwette of browes got up a fewe smale crummes Att paiing my debtes ich coulde not make my sommes Thei have all the woodes throughout the realme destroyed. Which might have served long yeares, beeing well emploied & than the great cobbes have zo take the rest to hire that poore volke cannot gett a sticke to make a fire." '"^ We have now considered all the Pre-Tudor Moralities and the Early Tudor Moralities. The latter are similar to their predecessors in subject-inatter. They still use the old gen- 74 eralized lament over the corruption of the times. They deal with avarice, uncharitableness, immoral clergy, oppression of the poor, bribery in the law courts, inefficiency of public officials, and the sway of fashion. They are, however, bolder and more specific in their charges of corruption against the clergy. Where in the Pre-Tudor Moralities we have the suggestion from Mankind that Envy dwells in abbeys ; and the assertion of Lucifer that preachers are false, we have in the Early Tudor Moralities, in comparison with these two sly, and unemphasized thrusts, whole plays prac- tically given up to accusations of the church, for instance, "Kynge Johan," "Three Lawes," and "Lusty Inventus. " Even the staid play "Everyman" is not free from such satire. The specific attack is upon priests. "Mundus et Infans" does not hesitate in representing Folly as crowned king of the "freres" and a wel- come lodger in abbeys. Practically the same thing happens in "Piers Plowman" and in the Scottish play "Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis." "Hickscorner emphasizes the bad example set by the clergy for the people, complains of the ignorance of priests, and the fear of the few honest preachers to speak the truth. "Magnificence" attacks the hypocrisy of canons, priests, monks, nuns, and friars. The object of satire here, however, is principally some arrogant upstart who has wormed his way into high ecclesiastical and high public positions. This satire, thought to be directed at Wolsey, shows an advance upon the preceding morality plays in its combination of personal, reli.<^ious, and political satire. A still further advance is shown in the controversial plays written by John" Bale. Hating Rome and the Pope, he did not hesitate to be specific in his attacks ; he often descended to the coarsest kind of invective and abuse. The only play which retaliates is the anonymous "Respublica," It does not answer the gross charges brought against the Catholics but represents the Protestant advisers of Edward VI as having brought the country to the \*erge of ruin, when fortunately for England Queen Mary ascends the throne. CHAPTER V. SATIRE IN THE ELIZABETAAN MORALITIES. As Elizabethan Moralities we list according to the "Cam- bridge History of English Literature" the following plays : "Wealth and Health," "Nice Wanton," "Impatient Poverty," "Godly Queen Hester," "King Darius," "Albyon Knyght," "The Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalene," "The Triall of Trea- sure," "Like Wil to Like," "Marriage of Wit and Scyence," "Longer thou Livest More Fool Thou Art," "New Custome," "Tide tarrieth No Man," "All For Money," "The Conflict of Conscience," "The Three Ladies of london," "The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London," "Contention between Liberalite and Prodigalite," and the Scottish play, "Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis." This last play though presented as early as 1540 is Elizabethan in spirit. These twenty plays dating from 1540 to 1600 have for their main object the presentation of a moral lesson by means of abstract personified characters together with real, individual characters. They are merely a late development of the morality with a stronger effort in most of them toward indirect didac- ticism — satire. This satire like that which preceded it still spends its main force on the clergy, reiterating, though not so coarsely, the attacks of John Bale on the mummery of the Roman Cath- olic Church. Besfinning: with "Wealth and Health", we find a touch of satire on the Flemish war. The Flemings are looked upon as intruders. Their representative is the drunken Hance of whom Will says : "Such dronken flemminges your company wil mar.'" and adds :- "by war in flaunders ther is welth store." Lawyers and merchants are given their usual characteristics :^ "Men of the lawe, and joly rych merchauntes These be welthy both of goodes and lands." 75 76 Helth says of the rich :* "When a man is lyttle hit and welthy And hath in his cheste treasures plentye Then wyl he wrangle and do shrewdly By his power and might With his neighboures he wyll go to lawe And a wreke his malyce for valew of strawe The next play "Nice Wanton" has the "prodigal motive" at its basis. There are two bad children and one "goody-goody." The former arouse the ire of Eulalia a neighbor to them. Her comment is upon the rearing of children :^ '"Lord what folly is in youth How unhappy be children now-a-days And the more pity to say the truth Their parents maintain them in evil ways." Further the baily is represented as trying to bribe the judge to let the criminal Ismael go :^ "The man is come of good kin If your lordship would be so good to me As for my sake to set him free I could have twenty pounds in a purse Yea and your lordship a rightt fair horse Well worth ten pound." The judge, however, proves incorruptible. In "Impacyent Poverty" the typical usurer appears in Ha- boundance. He explains his methods of making money :^ "I sell my ware so dear I make XL of XX in halfe a yeare." Envy boasts :^ "Sometynie beloved T was wyth the spj'ritualitye But now coveteouse and symony doeth them so avauce That good instytutyon is turned to other ordynaunce." To Conscience's remark :^ "In holy church svmonv can not abvde." ' 77 Envy retorts -y^ "He goeth in a clocke, he can not be espyde And covetouse so crabtely doth prouyde That bonus pastor ovium is blynd and wyl not see !" Mysrule comments on the rapid rise of upstart foreigners: "Colehasarde came late from beyond the see Ragged and torne in a garded cote And in his purse never a grote And now he goeth lyke a lorde." . To Prosperity's question, "Is he a gentleman bore?" Envy answers :^^ "Tushe take no thought therefore For be he gentleman knave or boye If he come hether with tryfle or a toye He can no money lacke." In "Godly Queen Hester" we have a drama which may have been written by John Skelton. Like "Magnificence" it satirizes some upstart who has become exceedingly powerful. If Skelton wrote the play, Cardinal Wolsey must have been the prototype of Aman. Of him Pride says :^- "I tell you at a worde, Aman that newe lorde Hathe bought up all good clothe And hath as many gownes as would serve ten townes Be ye never so lothe ! And any manne in the towne doe bye him a good gowne He is very wrothe And wyll hym strayte to tell the statute of apparell Wherefore by this daye, I dare not goe gaye Threde bare is my hoode." 'For all law est and west & adulation in his chest Aman hath locked faste. And by his crafti patience hath law into flattering So that fyrst and laste The client must pay or the lawyer assaye The lawe for to clatter And whe ye wene he saide right, I assure you by this light. He doth not els but flatter "For yf Aman wynkes, the lawyer shrynkes And not dare say yea nor naye 78 And yf he speaks the law the other calles him daw No more then dare he say, So that was law yisterday, is no lawe thys daye But flatterynge lasteth alway, ye may me beleve." "Dyvines yt do preache, me thynkes they should teache And flatteryng reprove." Adulation replies :^^ 'Syr they have lefte prechyng & take them to flatterynge moste part of them all When they preached, and the truthe teached Sume of them caughte a knocke And they yt should assisted, I wote not how they were brysted 'But they did nothing but mocke, And that sawe they, and gate them away As fast as myght be They sold theyr woll and purchased a bull Wyth a pluralyte And lefte predication, and toke adulation They gat the nomynation of every good benefyce So better by flatterynge then by preachynge "For yf yt be a good fee, Annn sayeth that longeth to me Be it benefyce or parke." A general criticism of the times follows :^^ "Sum tyme where was plenty now ye barnes be empti And m;iny men lackes bread. And wlier som tyme was meat ther now is none to get But all lie gone and dead. Begg"rs now do banne and crye out of Aman, That ever he was borne. They swere by the roode, he eatyth up all their foode So that they get no goode, neyther even nor morne .And nowe the dores standes shet and no man can we ge; To worcke neither to fyghte. "Aman Handelles all thynge so That every office and fee, what soever it bee That may be sene and founde By his wit he wyl it featche and or it fal he wul it catche. That never commeth to the grounde."^^ 79 There are two other references and then we leave this play. The first speaks of lying friars and the second, "Carnifex Aman"^® may mean Wolsey whose father is said to have been a butcher. That incoherent play "King Darius" has little satire. It contains, however, a few allusions to the Pope. Equity's prayer, for instance, — ^^ "And plucke from theyr malycyousness Theyr papystry and all theyr coveytousness." and Iniquity's reference to his father:^® "In Rome he dwelleth, that is his common place Where all other bowe before hys face All nations to hym do obaye And never agayne hym a prowde word dare say I warrant you hys landes are very greate, He doth poule poore men and lyveth by theyr sweat He hath as much landes I warrant you As lyeth between thys and Southhampton Every house that standeth between thys and that Are his, by my trouth I say. I care not what." There is also a trace of the conventional satire on woman :^^ "Many one in earth there is That loveth his wyfe wonderous well ywisse Out of theyr wyts also they do run And bond slaves for their wives sake are become, Peryshed also many have And are become Sathans bond slave Many also are fallen into syn And all through the cause of women." The next play to be considered is a political morality. It is the only one of the kind extant and is a mere fragment. This "Albyon Knyght" pictures the government as torn by factions which prevent the passage of good laws and the execution of those which already exist. I quote:-" "Where Justice is treited with due equitie And where no fauour nor mede shuld bee And when reason hath tried there everie deale That such an acte were good for the comen weale If therein anie losse may bee To the disaduantage of Principalitie Such an acte leseth all hys sute With a lytle indoysing of reason astute And if it touche the Lordes Sprytuall Or be (disadvantage) to the Lordes temporall Fare well go bett, this bill may slepe As well as through the parlyament crepe And if that Marchauntes be moouid with all Or any multitude of the comen hall This not for us say they than This bill is naught but to wype a pan And this is all your new equitie." Injury, a vice, masking as Manhood says to Albion:-'^ "For with hie reason they saie ye can dispute And trie out perils with laborous sute And eke the treasure for the comen vaile As far as wit or reason can assaile But when all is done and your statute made Then forth ye go in a wise trade To brynge it all to good conclusion And put it never in execucyon Then speke they further in steede of a mocke "They have made a statute lyke a woodkoke That hath but one eye and the other blynde And it wyll turne with every wynde." Injury's solioquy contains some satire on the law:'* "&than of mee croaketh every man How lyke a Lorde this fellow stere can Tbe law to defend without a fall For all theyr pledying in Westminster hall Or say what they wyll and bable there Yet mayntenaunce and I wyll kepe the chere Division an accompHce of Injury plots to stir up strife:-^ "Fyrst I myselfe wyll enterpryse That peace shall have no exersyse Betweene the comons and Pryncypalitie Nor betweene lords spiritual & lords of the temporalite He will send Double Devyce "Pryncypalyte and the comons to set at dyvysyon ; and as to Old Debate, he says :-* "Hym wyll I send to the lordes spirituall To cause them to wrangle wt the lords temporall The one to principalytie shall surmyse That '.be comons hartes do arvse Against him when that he doth aske In tyme of neede, our money for to taske His harte to mooue with such vnkyndness Then the same spye shall vse lyke doublenes And go the comons and to them tell That Principalytie with equitie doth rebell More to hys lucre in euerie deale Applyeng his affection then to the comen weale "And how that he of neglygence Doth not apply for theyr defence Neither by Sea nor by lande Neither by hye wayes. neither by stronde But theves and raveners and murders eke Dayly true men they pursue and seke And that his laws indifferently Be not used but maintenance and brybary Is suffred alone without reformacion That the poore comons is in altercation Of this matter and wnte not what to say Brynging them in opinion yt they ought not to pay To pryncypalytie theyr duety of very desarte Except lyke duetie be mynistred on hys parte." Old Debate:-^ "Shall enfourme the lordes temporall That the spyrytuall men wolde rule all." In "The Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalene" the sa- tire is scattering. It consists of a few trite remarks on immoral priests, dress and women. "Infidelitie the Vice boasts :-® " with the chief princes now I do dwell : The bishops, priests and pbarisees do me so retayne That tlie true sense of the lawe they do disdayne." After dressing up to tempt Mary, he comments on his per- sonal appearance :-^ "Lyke obstinate Friers I temper my looke Which had one eie on a wench, an another on a boke." On women he says :-^ "This is a true proverb and no famed fable "Few women's words be honest, constant, and stable." 82 and — -'' "The beddc wherin lieth an\- married wife Is never without chidyng. brawling, and strife." The advice given to Mary by Pride, Cnpiditie. Infidelitie. and the mahcious judge is satirical. Pride says :^" "Take yow none but gentlemen with velvet coates : It is to be thought that they are not without groates." Cupidite adds : "In any wise see that your lovers be young and gry And suche fellowes as be well alile to pay." The malicious judge remarks :'^^ "Women's heartes turne oft as doth the wynde, And agayne of the law they know not the sense." His opinion of the value of hypocrisy- is shown by the follow- ing remark :^- "Tushe, hyde self in a Pharisees gowne Such a one as is bordered with the commaundments And then thou must dwell both in citie and in towne Being well accepted in all men's judgments." The next play "The Triall of Treasure'' is not satirical. Just replies sarcastically to the vice. Lust, who has ridiculed her somber garments v'^ "Mine apparel is not like unto thine Disguised and jagged of sundry fashion Howbeit it is not gold always that doth shine But corrupting copper of small valuation." and Lust refers to Smithfield as his favorite locality.^"* In "Like Wil to Like" (1568) Nichol Newfangle the Vice asserts that he has been under the instruction of Lucifer. From him he says :^^ "I learn'd to make ruffs like calves chitterlings Caps, hats, coats, with all kind of apparels And especially breeches as big as good barrels Shoes, boots, buskins with many pretty toys." ^3 To Lucifer's request that he bring people under the sway of fashion, he says :^*^ "Tush, Tush, that is already brought to pass For a very skipjack is prouder I swear by the mass And seeketh to go more gayer and more brave Than doth a lorde though himself be a knave." Tom the Colher boasts of his ability to cheat :^^ "To every bushel cha zold but three peck Lo, here be the empty zacks on my neck cha beguild the whoresons that of me ha' bought But to beguile was their whole thought. It is a common trade nowadays this is plain To cut one another's throat for lucre and gain. Tom Tosspot, another boisterous character, as his name implies, says :^^ "I am acquainted with many a woman That with me will sit in every house and place But then their husbands had need fend their face For when they come home, they will not be areard To shake the goodman and sometimes shave his beard. And as for Flemish servants I have such a train That will quass and carouse and therein spend their gain In a likestrain Ralph Roister says r^" "And I may say to you 1 have such a train That sometime I pitch a Held on Salisbury plain." There are references to places of execution,'*'- such as, Tyburn, and Thomas-a-waterings. Newfangle in his description of the gallows to Cutpurse and Pickpurse uses figurative lan- guage i*^ "This piece of land whereto you inheritors are Is called the land of the two-legged mare In which piece of ground there is a mare indeed Which is the quickest mare in England for speed." In "Longer thou Livest more Fool thou Art" the generalized lament voiced by Exercitation appears :*- "Certaine persons I coulde rehearse b\- name Have pretended a great perfection 84 And why? to avoyde punishment and shame Due for their vicious infection: As sum have entred into religion Wherefore? because they will not pay their det." Discipline shakes his head and agrees that the times are degenerate :*^ "Two thinges destroye youth at this day Indulgentia parentum, the fondness of parents Which will not correct their nought ways But rather embolden them in there entents : Idlenesse, alas, Idlenesse is another who so passeth through England To se the vouth he would wonder God preserve London, that noble citie." People adds his complaint :** "Good Lord how are we now molested ! The devil! hath sent one into our covmtrie A monstre whom God and man hath detested By honest men he setteth not an oynion — " Discipline gives some advice which ends in satire on the Pope :*^ "Companie not with any Heretike. An Heretike him holy Doctors do call, ■ Which erreth in God's most sacred Scripture, Which is blinde and seeth not his owne fall. But maliciously doth in errour endure. The greatest Heresie that ever was Hath the pope and his adherents published. Yea, the Heresie of Arius it doth passe For Christe and his benefits it hath extinguished Example by the wicked masse satisfactorie Which to Christes death they make equivalent. For they call it a sacrifice propiciatorie. Which is an Heresie most pestilent. Agayne, praier to Sainctes that be dead. Which is a poynte of infidelitie." In "New Custom" (1573) we have a controversial drama. Perverse Doctrine begins :**' " tlie world was never in so evil astate Do you not see how these naw-fangled prattling elves Prink up so pertly of late in every place And go about us ancients flatlv to deface." 85 Against conceited preachers, he says :*^ 'For how should they have learning that were born but even now As tit sight it were to see a goose shod or a saddled cow As to hear the prattling of an}' such Jack Straw For when he hath all done I count him but a daw As in London not long since, you wot well where They sang to a sermon and we chanced to be there Up stert the preacher, I think not past twenty years old With a sounding voice and audacity bold And began to revile at the holy sacraments and transubstantiation. What young men to be meddlers in divinity? it is a goodly sight t Yet therein now almost is every boy's delight No book now in their hands but all scriptures, scriptures Either the whole Bible or the New Testament you may be sure. They have revoked divers old heresies out of hell As against transubstantiation, purgatory, and mass And say that by Scripture they cannot be brought to pass." They have brought in one, a young upstart lad, as it appears I am sure he hath not been in the realme very many yeares With a gathered frock, a polled head and a broad hat An unshaved beard, a pale face ; and he teaceth that All our doings are nought, and hath been many a day He disallowed our ceremonies and rites, and teaceth another way To serve God, than that which we do use'"* It is a pestilent knave, he will have priests no corner caps to wear Surplices are superstition ; beads, paxes and such other gear Crosses, bells, candles, oil, bran, salt, spittle, and incense. With censing and singing, he accounts not worth three half-pence And cries out on them all Such holy things wherein our religion doth consist But he commands the service in Englysh to be read." New Custom praises the good old times i*** "If neighbours were at variaunce ; they ran not straight to law Daysmen took up the matter and cost them not a straw Adultery no vice, it is a thing so rife^" A stale jest to be with another man's wife! Covetousness they call Good husbandry when one would fain have all. Whoso will be so drunken that he scarcely knoweth his way O, he is a good fellow, so now-a-days they say 86 Gluttony is hospitality, while they meat and drink spill Which would relieve disease whom famine doth kill Theft is but policy, perjury but a face." Referring to the Catholic Church, he says :^^ "Brought they in their monsters, their masses, their lights Their torches at noon to darken our sight Their popes and ther pardons, their purgatories for souls Their smoking of the church and flinging of coals; Hypocrisy urges Perverse Doctrine to continue his religious pretences :^- "Still pretend religion, whatsoever you say And that shall get thee good credit alway Pleasing the multitude with such kind of gear Square caps, long gowns with tippets of silk Brave copes in the church, surplices as white as milk Beads and such like." Perverse Doctrine tells of his difficulties :^'^ "For since these new heretics, the devil take them all, In all corners began to bark and bawl At the Catholic faith and the old religion Hypocrisy hath so helped at every need, In "Tyde Tarrieth No Man" we are reminded of the "Ship of Fools" when Corage the Vice invites all to his barge :^* "There are usurers great who with their braynes do beat In devising of guyles. False dealers also A thousand and mo which know store of wyles "Crafty cutpurses, maydens mylchnurses Wives of the stampe who love mo then one. "Husbands as good as wigges made of wood We have there also, with servauntes so sure As packthred most pure which men away throw. "And some by Corage now and then at Tiborne make their will."" 87 Greediness tells of the preacher who scored evil citizens and Helpe of methods which were worthy of condemnation i^** we love best with straungers to deale To sell a lease dear, whoever that will At the french or dutch church let him set up his bill And he shall have chapmen I warrant you good store Looke what an English man bids, they will give as much more. Furtheraunce uses similar methods :^^ "I will worke so on both the sydes. That of both parties I will obtayne brybes The Courtier next tells how he has been duped :^^ "Each man then a porcion would have The marchaunt for loue, the Broker for his payne And the scrybe for wrytyng, ech man had a gayne." At the close of the play, Corage is dragged off for punish- ment by Correction. As he is led off, he asks the spectators :^^" "Is there no man here that hath a curst wife If he will in my stead, he shall end his life." In "All for Money" (1578) the satire is as the name of the play implies, chiefly on money, Theologie says:*'" '"So many would not study me but for money And thereby to live and in wealth The bishop, the priest, and the doctour of divinitee Would give over their studie not regarding their soul's health And use some other things, for as it appeareth The artificer doth leave his arte and occupyng And becomes a minister for monev and easie living'' For the wicked riche man and the lover of money Regarde but for gayne neither you nor me So they have money they care not for us a gnate""' "Many marchant man that is ryght simple borne With unsociable games encreaseth more and more He will not abate his price for helpyng the poore. Money boasts :®- "The doctor, the draper, the plowman, the carter In me have their joy and pleasure 88 Money is my name, all over is my fame I dwell with every degree. The smith and the shoemaker, the minstrell, the daunser With me will drink and be mearie Yea manie loves me better then God. For servants and prentises will privily robbe their masters To me they have such a minde." Learning without Money scores the learned rich :^^ "Of manie learned riche I craud but could get nought, But the poore sorte unlearned haue given me to feede ; Many that be learned and riches haue with all Are more out of frame then some who nothing haue at all Their learning makes them think with their riches to be so strong That they will oppresse their neighbour be it never so wrong" Money without Learning taunts him :''* "Who will esteeme thee onlesse thou haue liuing?" Learning without Money then discusses the inconsistencies of the rich r"^ "For it is the nature of the churlish rich man To be friend to such as of him standes no neede But if his riches fayle farewell friendship than He will not then bid him with hime once to feede." Money without Learning rejoices that though he has no learning to defend his. yet he has in his bags "a friend will pleade — in Westminster Hall.""*^ Money maintains that he is very influential :* .67 "I have made many a crooked matter straight The theefe that was all night robbing and stealing If I beare him witness was all night in his bed sleeping A man's wife taken in bed with another Coulde have no harme when I did excuse her When I spoke she was taken to be of good behaviour. There was a man killed and twenty witnesses by But I said he killed himself with his owne dagger And when I had spoken everie one held his peace And then the officers the murtherer did release." : 89 Synne comments on the priest Sir Lawrence Livingless :®® "I promise you he is very well learned if you wish to oppose him But it must not be in Greek, Ebrewe, nor Latin A cure he is able sufficiently to discharge He can reade very well upon a paire of cardes." Sir Lawrence, however, proves unable to tell Synne how many epistles Paul write after his conversion. He answers :^^ "By the masse he writ to manie I would they were all burned For had they not bene and the newe Testament in English I had not lacked living at this time I wisse Before the people knew so much of the Scripture Then they did obey us and loved us out of measure And nowe we can not go in the streets without a mocke." "The Conflict of Conscience" is a satire on the Catholic church and its ceremonies, Satan is made to say :'° "So hath my boy devised very well Many pretty toys to keep men's souls from hell Live they never so evil here and wickedly As masses, trentals, pardons and scala coeli." Avarice and Tyranny tell of their influence with the clergy. The former says :'^ "Well may the clergy on our side hold For they by us no small gain did reap But all the temporalty I dare be bold To venture in wager of gold a good heap At our preferments will mourn, wail, and weep." Tyranny replies :'- "In the clergy I know no friends we shall want Which for hope of gain the truth will recant And give themselves wholly to set hypocrisy Being egged on by Avarice and defended by Tyranny." Hypocrisy tells of the plans made by him and the pope:^^ "The Pope and I together have devised Firstly to inveigle the people religious For greediness of gain who will be soon pressed And for fear lest hereafter they should be despised Of their own free will maintain Hypocrisy So that Avarice alone shall conquer the clergy." 90 Caconos the priest is a satire on the ignorance of church offi- cials and their consequent inefficiency. He rejoices over the per- secution of heretics and the restoration of Catholic ceremonies J* ■" new agen within awer land installed is the Pope Whese legate with authority tharaward awr country goth Far to spay awt, gif that he mea, these new-sprang arataics Whilk de disturb awr hally kirk laik a sect of saysmatics Awr gilden Gods ar brought agen intea awr kirks ilkwhare That unte tham awr parishioner ma offer thar gude-will For holly mass in ilk place new thea autars de prepare Hally water, pax, cross, banner, censer, and candell Cream, crismatory, holly bread, the rest omit ay will Whilt hally fathers did invent fre awd antiquity Be new received inte awr kirks with great solemnity Bay these though lemen been apprest, the clargy all but gean Far te awr sents theis affer yifts all whilk we sail receive Awr hally mass, thaw thea bay dere, thea de it but in vain Far thaw ther frends frer Purgatory te help thea dea believe Yet of ther hopes, gif need rewhayre. it wawd theam all deceive Sea wawd awr pilgrimage, reliques, trentals and pardons Whilk for awr geyn wite awr Kirk ar brought in far the nonce. Far well a nere what war awr tenths and taythes that gro in tild What gif we han of glebed land ene plawark bay the year Awr offring dear de vara laytell ar nething te us yield Awr beadrool geanes, awr chrisom clethes de laytle mend awr fare Gif awt of this we pea far vale, we laytle more can spare. Sawlmasses. diriges, moneth mayndes and buryings Alsowlnday, kirkings, banasking and weddings The sacraments, if we mowt sell, war better than thea alle Far gif the Jews gave thratty pence te hang Chraist on a tree Gude Christian folk thrayse thratty pence wawd count a price but small Sea that te eat him with their teeth delaivered he mawglit be New of this thing delaiverance ne man can make but we Se that the market in this punt we priests sawd han at will And with the money we sowd get awr poodies we sowd fill." When Tyranny informs him that he has a commission to search his house for seditious books, he exclaims in great sur- prise -J^ "Whe ay ? wel a near, ay swear bay the sacrament Ay had rather han a cup of nale than a Testament." and he replies to Hypocrisy's question. How he can discharge his office without it by saying: 91 "It is the least thing ay car far, bay my charge Far se lang as thea han images wharon te luke What need thea be distructed awt af a buik?" "For in my portace the tongue ay de nat know Yet when ay see the great gilded letter Ay ken it sea well, as nea man den better As far example: on the day of Chraist's nativity Ay see a bab in a manger and two beasts standing by The service whilk to New Year's day is assignd Bay the paicture of the circumcision ay faynd The service whilk on Twalfth day mun be done Ay seeke bay the mark of the three kings of Cologne Bay the devil tenting Chraist ay find whadragesima. Bay Chraist on the cross ay serch out gude-fraiday. Ayenst Hall-Thursday is pented Christ's Ascension Thus in mayn own buke ay is a gude clerk : But gif the sents war gone, the cat had eat my mark Se the sandry mairacles, whilk ilk sent have done, Bay the pictures on the walls sal appear to them soon Bay the whilk thes ar learned in every distress What sent thei mun prea te for succour, doubtless Sea that all lepers to Sylvester must prea That he wawd frae tham ther disease take away Besides this ignorant type of priests there is another church official higher up who is represented as unworthy. The Car- dinal thinks of his own comfort first when he says :'"^ "I will not lose one meal of my diet Though therein did hang an hundred men's fait." The "Three Ladies of London" deals with the same satirical matter as the preceding plays. By love we have the importance of Lucre presented. ^^ "Tis Lucre now that rules the roost ; 'tis she is all in all 'Tis she that holds her head so stout, in fine, 'tis she that works our fall. "For lucre men come from Italy, Barbary, Turkey From Jewry; nay Pagan himself Endangers his body to gape for pelf They forsake mother, prince, country, religion, kiff, and kin Nay men care not what they forsake so Lady Lucre they win." Simplicity says that he has known Fraud before at Ware and Gravesend.^^ On Simony he says :^^ 92 "And Simony-a-per-se-a- Simony, too, he is a knave for the nonce. He loves to have twenty livings at once And if he let an honest as I am to have one He'll let it so dear that he shall be undone And he seeks to get persons living into his hand And puts in some old dunce that to his payment will stand So if the parsonage be worth 40 or 50 £ a year He will give one 20 nobles to mumble service once a month there Lucre asks Usury f" "Why camest thou into England Seeing Venice is a city Where usury by Lucre may live in great glory? and Usury answers : "I have often heard your good grandmother tell that England was such a place for Lucre As was not in Europe and the whole word beside."' Simony gives the following account of himself :^^ "My birth, nursery, and bringing up hitherto hath been in Rome that ancient city At a banquet some said Rome's religious wealth Came from the princes and by stealth But the friars and monks with all the ancient company Said that it first came in and is now upholden by me Simony "And sirrah when I was at Rome and dwelt in the Friary *- They would talk how England yearly sent over a great mass of money And that this little island was more worth to the Pope Than 3 byger realms which had a great deal more scope For here were smoke-pence, Peter pence, and Paul-pence to be paid The merchant as usual, is representd as greedy :^^ "Me will tie and forswear myself for a quarter so much as my hat." Lucre wants him to smuggle goods into England. He is, however, afraid of the consequence. He says :^* "I tink some skall knave will put a bill in Parliament For dat such a tings shall not be brought here." 93 But Lucre insists that he knows tricks by which he can out- wit the customs officials :^^ " by stealth bring over a great store And say it was in the reahn long tyme before And do but give the searcher an odd bribe in his hand I warrant you he will let you scape roundly with such things in and out the land," We have another instance of class satire when the lawyer ex- claims :*" "Tush, sir I can make black white and white black again Tut he that will be a lawyer must have a thousand ways to feign Why, sir what shall let us to wrest and turn the law as we list Seeing we have them printed in the palms of our tist : Sincerity after trying to get a benefice without success, re- grets having studied divinity :" " Divines that preach the word of God sincerely and truly, Are in these days little or nothing set by. There never was more preaching and less following, the people live so amiss But what is he that may not on the Sabbath day attend God's word to hear But he will rather run to bowls, set at the ale-house than one hour afford. Telling a tale of Robin Hood, sitting at cards, playing at skittles or some other vai'n thing." He tells Dissimulation :®® "Thou art akin to the lawyer, thou wilt do nothing without a fee." and continues i'*^ "Flatterers now-a-days live gentleman-like And with prating get praise." There is a reference which shows that rents were high and consequently the houses, especially an .foreign districts, were overcrowded : The merchant says strangers are content i^" "To dwell in a little room and pay much rent For you know da Frenchmans and Flemings in dis country be many So dat they make shift to dwell ten houses in one very gladly. 94 Conscience bewails the hypocisy seen in the inns, breweries, tanneries, bakeries, chandler-shops etc."^ Fraud walks about the streets in a citizen's gown. Usury lurks at the exchange. Simony walks in Paul's and confers on intimate terms with the clergy.**- The sequel of this play "The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London" contains little satire. Dissimulation appears again and tells us how he shifts about in three sundry shapes;"^ some- times as a friar, for they can dissemble; sometimes as a woman, for they do little else ; and sometimes as a saint and a devil — and so is a woman. Sometimes he steals into Leaderhall and sometimes into Westminster Hall. His accomplice, Fraud, has been entertained by artificers and ill-conscienced lawyers.*** Simplicity announces that there '11 be no more fraud; and consequently he'll be much missed in the trades. The tailors will miss him in cutting out garments, the tanners in making leather, the tapsters in filling pots, and the very oyster man in mingling their oysters at Billingsgate.**^ In great fear of arrest Fraud proposes to Usury and Simony that they go to sea to join with the Spaniards :*'*' "We may either go with them and live in Spain where we and such good fellows are tolerated and used or come slyly again hither." Simony says that he is hated in Scotland and the Low Countries. He gives the nationality of the different vices to- gether with his own. "I Simony am a Roman ; Dissimulation, a mongrel, half an Italian, half a Dutchman; Fraud is too — half French and half Scotch and thy parents were both Jews though thou wert born in London and here. Usury thou art cried out against by the preachers. Join with us to better thy slate, for in Spain preaching toucheth us not.""*' The Spaniard in the play is made to say :^^ "What's England to the power of Spain .A. molehill to be placed where it pleaseth them." In the "Contention between Liberality and Prodigality" there is a satire on high prices and poor food at times,*"' on the vanity of women^°° and the generalized lament on the times. Liberality savs :^^'^ "So wonts the world to pamper those that nought deserve Where such as merit best, without relief do starve." 95 Virtue concludes with :^"- *You see but very few that make of virtue any price You see all sorts with hungry wills run headlong into vice. These EHzabethan Moralities still retain the dull, generalized lament so common in their predecessors, such as the common- place assertion that children were ill-reared ; good men scarce ; and all minkind deaf to advice. But it is not nearly so prominent as in the early days. The reader gets the idea — the moral lesson — without being told in so many words that "worse was it never" or if he is told, he forgets the statement in the specific action which follows. "Nice Wanton," for instance, has the grumbling neighbor Eulalia complain of the poor training that children receive from their parents. This complaint, hofwever, is sub- ordinate and auxiliary to the main action : we are likely to for- get it in following the main action — the characters Dalila and Is- mael through the various steps in their downfall. Again in this play of the sixteenth century we have a specific character, a baily so eager to accept a bribe that he ventures to approach the judge though without success. Contrast this action with the statement in the fifteenth century Morality, ''Wisdom": "Wo will have law must have monye." This comes from the mouth of an abstraction, "Mynde". And yet we cannot say that "Wisdom" is entirely general. "Perjury" takes a specific jury that of Hol- born whicli seems to have been notorious for injustice and holds it up to scorn. Even in the old miracle cycles, for instance, the Ludus Coventriae, the high priest is represented as advising the l)ribery of the soldiers to prevent their spreading the news of the Resurrection. The point of difiference Seems to me to lie in the purpose of the authors. The authors of Elizabethan moralities were growing away from the old didactic purpose. At any rate they did not so directly set forth their didacticism. They gave their crude au- diences materials ; from which one could draw the moral for him- self with perhaps just a suggestion of a moral as a preparation for the action. Or if more moralizing was present than I have indi- cated, it simply serves to show the tendency of authors to follow old forms and old methods rathen than to attempt new ones. The Scotch play "Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis" by Sir David Lyndsay. thotigh classified with Elizabethan Moralities 96 should be considered by itself. It reflects conditions very similar to those in England. It is unsparing in its criticism of classes and the clergy. The play is started with a bit of woman satire when Diligence as prologue requsts silence :^ "Let everie man keip weill ane toung And everie woman tway." The ecclesiastical satire begins with a speech by Wanton- ness :^ "First, at the Romane Kirk will ye begin, — Quwhilk is the lemand lamp of lechery Quhair Cardinals and Bischops generally To luif Ladies thay think ane pleasant sport And out of Rome hes baneist Chastity, Quha with our Prelats can get na resort. Solace supports his statement :^ "For all the Prelats of this nation For the maist part Thay think na schame to haue ane huir And sum hes thrie vnder thair cuir. Speir at the Monks of Bamirrinoch, Gif lecherie be sin."* The prioress is also impilcated ; and even the court of Rome is said to be given up to Sensuality, for the latter boasts :^ "That few or nane refuses me, at all Paipis, patriarks, or Prelats venerabill, Common pepill, and Princes temporall Ar subiect, all, to me, Dame Sensuall Gude Counsall critizes the times :** "For I have maid my residence With hie Princes of greit puissance In England, Italie, and France, And monie other land Bot out of Scotland — wa ! alace ! I haif bene fleimit lang tyme space: There is class satire when the character Dissait gives his dwelling place as "Amang the merchands" ; when Flatterie pro- poses to disguise himself as a clerk "new cum out of France."^ 97 He incidentally voices satire on the friars when he discusses the possibility of using the dress of a friar :^ "Perchance He cum (till) that honour To be the Kings confessour Pure Freirs are free at any feast, And marchellit, ay, amang the best, Als, God to them hes lent sic graces, That Bischops puts them in thair places, Outthrow their Dioceis to preiche : Bot ferlie nocht, howbeit thaj' fleich ; For, schaw thay all the veritie, Thaill want the Bischops charitie, And thocht the corne war never sa skant, The gudewyfis will not let Freirs want : For quhy thay ar thair confessours, Thair heauinlie prudent counsalours." Flatterie is versed in palmistry, an art which he learned in Italy.® He is later much alarmed at the appearance of Veritie in the land and advises Spiritualitie against her :^^ "Dame Veritie hes lychtit, now of lait And in hir hand beirand the Newtestament. Be scho ressauit, but doubt wee are bot schent : Let hir nocht ludge thairfoir, into this Land. The abbott agrees with him :^^ "For with the King gif Veritie be knawin, Of our greit gloir wee will degradit be. And all our secreits to the commons schawin." and the parson urges :^- " go distroy all thir Lutherians, In special], yon ladie Veritie. They go, therefore, to Vertitie, and Flattrie acts as spokes- man :^^ "Quhat buik is that, harlot into thy hand? Out ! walloway ! this is the New Testament In Englisch toung, and printit in England ! Herisie ! herisie ! fire! fire! incontinent. Chastity is banished by Prioresses, nuns, spirituality, and temporarlity and is chased off by the wives of the carping tailor 7 98 and the cobbler. These two types give some satire on woman. The tailor congratulates the priests on their celibacy :^* "Now weils yovv Preists, now weils vow all your lifes. That ar nocht weddit with sic wickit wyfes." To return to Chastity, we find her thrown into the stocks just as Pity was in "Hickscorner". Her lamentation is that since the Pope has become a king, Ladie Sensualitie" rules the country.^^ The entrance of Correction's servant causes the vices to think of flight. Flattrie propose hiding in some cloister: Dis- sait with the merchants ; Falset among the craftsmen ;^*' and Sen- sualite,^^ among the prelates at Rome. The interlude of the Pauper contains satire on the law, on heriot, on mortuary tax and on the clergy. The pauper says of the Edinburgh courts:^* "I socht law thair this monie deir day; Bot I culd get nane at Sessioun nor Seinze Then he relates how he has been stripped of his property by the death tax and how with his "ane Inglis grot" he intends to go to law. Diligence laughs at his simplicity :" "Thou art the daftest fuill that ever I saw Trows thou, man, be the law to get remeid Of men of Kirk? Na, nocht tell thou be deid." and gives him some advice when he asks by what law a priest can rob a poor man of his three cows, and by what law a man of the church can be immoral and go unpunished.-** "Hald thy toung, man ! It seems that thou war mangit Speik thou of Preists, but doubt thou will be hangit." The pardoner expresses his hatred of the Reformation: "I giue to the deuill, with gude intent, This vnsell wickit New-testament, With them that it translaitit. Sen layik men knew the veritie. Pardoners get no charitie, Without that thay debait it Amang the wives, with wunks and wyles. "Of all credence now 1 am quyte ;^ For ilk man holds me at dispyte, 99 That reids the New-testiment. Duill fell the braine that her it wrocht ! Sa fall them that the Bulk hame brocht ! Als, I pray to the Rude, That Marten Luther, that fals loun Black Bullinger, and Melancthoun Had bene smorde in their cude." Johne The Common-weill complains to Rex Humanitas that the common weal is neglected and explains how :-^ "As far our reverent fathers of Spiritualitie, Thay ar led by Couetice and cairles Sensualitie, And, as ye se, Temporalitie hes neid of correctioun, Quhilk hes, lang tyme bene led be publick oppressioun. Loe ! heir is Falset and Dissait, weill I ken,"^ Leiders of the merchants and sillie craftsmen. Quhat mervell thocht the thrie estaits backwart gang, Quhen sic an v}de cumpanie dwels them amang." The first Serjeant who is instructed by Correction to help put the vices in the stocks, says :-^ "Thair is nocht, in all this toun, — Bot I wald nocht this taill wastald, — Bot I wald hang him for his goun, Quhidder that it was Laird or laid." Spiritualitie, when he sees Sensuality and Covetousness led off, vows :-*^ "I mak ane vow to God, I sail complaine Unto the Paip how ye do me iniuris." Gude Counsall takes the part of the commons:-^ "Thir pure commons, daylie. as we may se, Declynis doun till extreme povertie ; For sum ar hichtit sa into thair maill, Thair winning will nocht find them water-kaill. How Prelats heichts thair teinda, it is well knawin. That husband-men may not weill bald thair awin. And now begins a plague amang them, new. That gentill men thair steadings taks in few : Thus man thay pay great ferme, or lay thair steid." John the Common-Weill begs Correction to begin at the bor- der with the thieves :'-^ ICX) "For how can we fend vs agains Ingland, Quhen we can nocht. within our native Land. • Destroy our awin Scots common trator theifis Quha to leill laborers daylie dois mischiefis? and then punish the idle-beggars, fiddlers, pardoners, jugglers, jesters, gamblers, and great fat "Freiris." He insists that the courts be reformed, too. for. as it is, petty thieves are hanged r-** "Bot he that all the warld hes wrangit, — Ane cruell tyrane. ane Strang transgressiour. Ane common, publick. plaine oppressour, — By buds may he obteine fauours Of Tresurers and compositours : Thocht he serue greit punitioun, Gets easie compositioun. And throch laws consistoriall. Prolixt, corrup. and perpetuall, The common peopill ar put sa under Thocht thay be puir it is na wonder." He complains against the vicar :^" "The pyre Cottar being lyke to die Haifand young infants, twa or thrie, And hes two ky. but ony ma ; The Vicker most haif ane of thay With the gray frugge that civers the bed, Howbeit the wyfe be purely cled, And gif the wyfe die on the morne, Thocht all the bairns sould be forlornc, The other kow he cleiks away. With the pure cot of raploch gray. Wald God this custome war put doun, Quhilk never was foundit he reassmin : Against the parson he has :^^ "Oure Persone, heir, he takis na vther pyne But ti ressaue his teinds, and spend them syne; Howbeit he be obleist, be gude ressoun. To preich the Evangell to his parochoun. Howbeit thay suld want preiching sevintin yeir, Our Persoun will not want ane scheif of beir. The Pauper also has a vv^ord against bishops :^- "Our bishops with thair lustie rokats quhyte Thay flow in riches, royallie, and delyte. lOI Lyke Paradice bene thair palices and places, ■And wants na pleasour of the fairest faces. Als, thir Prelates hes great prerogatyves ; For quhy thay may depairt, ay, with thair wyues, Without ony correctioun or dammage, Syne, tak ane vther wantoner, but marriage." John the Common-Weill addresses the lords :^' "Tak tent, now, how the land is clein denudit Of gould and silver, quhik daylie gais to Rome For buds, mair then the rest of Christen dome." The merchant support John's assertion and begs for relief. Gude Counsall also puts in a plea against abuses and pluralities :'* "It is schort tyme sen ony benefice Was sped in Rome, except greit Bischopries ; Bot. noWj for ane vnworthie Vickarage Ane Priest will rin to Rome, in Pilgrimage Ane cavell quhilk was never at the scule Will rin to Rome, and keip ane Bischops mule And syne, cum hame, with mony colorit crack, With ane buirden of benefices on his back; Quhilk bene against the law, ane man alane For till posses ma benefices nor ane. Thir greit commends, I say, withoutin faill. Sould nocht be given bot to the blude Royall. So I conclude, my Lords, and sayis for me. Ye sould annul all this pluralitie : In the general discussion at the Parliament of the Thrie Estaitis, it is decided that priests should have but one benefice, that bishops should preach ; and that the clergy should be quali- fied for their work and worthy to perform it. Veritie says that at present the clergy are not worthy :^^ "My prudent Lords, I say that pure craftsmen Abufe sum Prelats ar mair for to commend. Gar exame them, and sa ye sail sune ken. How thay in vertew Bischops dois transcend." Gude Counsall backs up this statement:^® "Sowtars and tailyeours thay ar for mair expert In thair pure craft, and in thair handie art. Nor ar our Prelatis in thair vocatioun." I02 Spiritualitie when forced to give an account of himself to Correctioun, confesses to covetousness, luxury, and immorality. He does part of his work by proxy — having a friar to preach in his place. ^■^ In turn, the abbot, abbas, parson, and prioress make similar confessions;^* When later, they "spuilze" the Prioress, according to stage directions, "scho sail haue ane kirtill of silk vnder hir habite,'^''* On being exposed, Spiritualitie blames the friars for his ruin ; the abbot curses the Reformation ; and the parson decides to go to France, and become a soldier.*" According to the acts of Parliament, noblemen are not to connive at thieves ; nuns are to be a class of the past ; benefices are to be bestowed on ecclesiastics ; bishops are not to ordain ignorant men as priests ; death presents are not be exacted ; no man is to hold a plurality ; and no baron, to exact heriot.*^ Flattrie who escapes the fate of his accomplices. Common Thift, Dissait, and Falset exults over having escaped the hang- man :*^ "Becaus I servit, — be Alhallows ! Till haue bene marchellit amang my fellows, And heich aboue them hangit, I maid far ma falts nor my maits ; I begylde all the thrie estaitis With my hypocrisie, Quhen I had on my freirs hude All men beleifit that I was gude, Now judge ye if I be. Tak me an rackles rubyatour, Ane theif. ane tyrane or ane traitour, Of everie vyce the plant; Gif him the habite of ane freir, The wyfis will trow, withoutin weir He be ane verie Saint I knaw that cowle and skaplarie Genners mair halt nor charitie, Thocht thay be blak or blew, Quhat halines is thair within Ane wolfe cled in ane wedders skin?" i CHAPTER VI. INTERLUDES OR FARCES. There are some plays which do not appear in the classifica- tion of the "Cambridge History of English Literature" which really belong to the crude early attempts at drama. Such are the plays which E. K. Chambers classifies as farces. First under farces of mediaeval type appear "The Pardoner and the Friar", "The Four P's," "The Weather," "Johan, Tyb, and Syr John," and perhaps we should add that play of domestic life, "Tom Tyler and his Wife," Then there are farces on classical models— for in- stance, "Gammer gurton's Needle," "Ralph Roister Doister,' and "Jack Juggler. In addition to farces, Mr. Chambers' has a di- vision of translations. From the Spanish he lists "Calisto and Meliboea";^ from the Neo-Latin, "Thersites" and "The Diso- bedient Child". Under pseudo-interlude there is that interminable disputation by John Heywood called "Love" and the contro- versial dialogue, "Robin Conscience." But neither the classification of the "Cambridge History of English Literature" nor that of E. K. Chambers, nor a com- bination of the two succeeds in including all our early plays not belonging to the regular drama. In the Malone Society Reprints we find "Love feigned and Unfeigned," "Johan the Evangelist," -Temperance and Humility," "The Cruell Debtter," "The Prodi- gal Son"— all moral plays. In the Shakespeare Jahrbuch there is a play. "The Cobbler's Prophecy" which still retains traces ot the morality plays. There also three moral tragedies which should be considered— "Appius and Virginia," "Cambyses," and "Horestes." These, however are not satirical. Passing to a consideration of the satire in these plays we have in the fragmentary morality, "Love Feigned and Unfeigned" some advice from Falshod on getting rich ■} "Wherefore my masters yf in riches and wealthe Ye would abound ye must practise deceipt and stealth fere nothinge to sweare by his nales woundth or blode So thow may have thy purpose and increase thy good 103 I04 Thoughe some man should say that of wealthe thowe hast plentye thow must allways fayne that thy purse ys but emptye I praye ye what ma goeth throwe the wode but he that can play two faces in one hode. He boasts of his own power :- "I reigne as an Impetiall magystrate at Rome I am honored in all nations whersoe I come He that hath not practyse in his conversation Ys tearmed an asse and rude in comunicatyon." Love Feigned says :^ "Yea and youe must love faynedlie your Christia brother tell hime one tale and thinke in herte one other Marke me nowe adayes yf there be an heire of lands howe they practyse by falshod to have it out of hir hands Well yf you should studye familiarite to please Where youe be a gentle ma should not be worth two p — Oh they will cap hime and sugred words render they will seme as that much your selfe they do tender All is to have your lands in their possession Which, yf the may attayne by any condicion then may ye go alone wyth a flea in youre eare Yender goeth the ayre of lyn ye may se by his geare let him packe as a begger vnto the beggers shoole Such is the end of everye foole." In "Jo^i^*^ the Evangelist" Evil Counsell says :^ ''I have sought England thorowe and thorowe Vyllage, towne, cytie and borowe Mith many a thousande bequeyntyd I am As yll tongued churles and many a prowde gentyll man That shrewdly riundeth many a pystell Whan they in yonge wyves eeres dithe whystell Of maters partaynyng to Venus Actes With fair fiateryng wordes and prety knackes In Cornewall I have ben and in Kent Westmynster, Saynt Katheryns and in unthryfts rent In England shall nothing me let. * Idlenesse gives an account of Sensuality his brother :^ "Syr I lefte hym on the playne of Salysbyre Ae told me that he wolde Ivsfte I05 Some good felowe from his thryfte And as I trowe somewhat he wyll gette. In the next play "Temperance and Humility" Disobedience insolently remark to the two characters who give the play its name :* "What make ye in this countre Youre worke is all in vanyte Ye can not prevayle A)udacyte and dysobedience W)ith Adversytees presence )US wyll we vayle ) court in constry and in many a couent In) every order we dwell present 0)duely we assayle So many foloweth now our intent And I sholde tell all I sholde be shent For both spriall and teporall foloweth our ca( And after vs wyll do. There is a trifling bit of satire in the fragment of the "Cruell Debtter". Flateri says -7 "The higher that the court is & the more iniquytie More flatery is not in the worlde reygnynge Then is in the courte of any noble kynge." On Symulation he says •} "In the worlde is not so false a knave as hee For by hym all states deceyved bee In Byshops and pastors he is humylitie And yet must be full of pryde and crudelytie In all the Clergy he semeth to be holynes Whan in them is a multytude of wyckednes, In magystrates he semeth to be Offabilitie Yet theare lurketh dysdayne and austerytie In the comons he semeth to be neyghbourlynes Yet is theare enuye. hate, and coueytousness. There is nothing in "The Prodigal Son" of a satirical nature unless it is a reference to shrewish wives :^ "O woo is to that man all dayes of his lyfe That hath a shrewde queane to his wyfe." io6 We may proceed now to the "Cobbler's Prophecy", "Raph'' the cobbler has a dream which is a satire on the times.^'' "Below me thought, there were false knaves ! Walking like honest men verie craftely And few or none could be plainl}' seene to thrive in the world by honestie Men, masters and maids Yea, and wives too and all are too too bad. But O, the Baker how he plaid false with the ballance. And ran away from the takers tallants. The Bruer was as bad, the Butcher as ill For its their tricke to blow up leane meate with a quill." He warns the scholar :^^ "Harke ye, mas Scholler, harke ! The time shall come not long before the dome, That in despite of Rome Latin shall lacke And greeke shall beg with a wallet at his backe For all are not sober that goes in blacke. His prophecy to the country gentleman is:^- "The hie hill and the deepe ditch Which ye digd to make your Selues rich The chimnies so many, and alwies not anie The widowes wofull cries And babes in streetethat lies The bitter sweate and paine That tenants poore sustaine Will turn to your bane." This is followed by threats of hell and the question :^* "Then where will be the schollers allegories Where the Lawier with his dilatories Where the Courtier with his braverie And the money monging mate with all his knaverie Clio says "Yes divers Princes make good lawes. But most men overslip them And divers dying give good gifts But their executors nip them." I07 Charon complains that he is worked to death just as the porter of hell does in the Towneley "Juditium" :^^ "Why, Popes and Prelates, Princes and Judges more than I number can. But the covetous misers, they fret me to the gall ; For they way the divel and all. Raph interrupts :^® "Mas. and may well be, for theres little money Stirring on the earth," A Gray Friar comes to Charon's barge and when questioned as to who he is replies :^' "The ghost of a gray Frier So troubled with nunnes, as never Frier was." Next comes Codrus the poor man, He wishes to know if hell can be any worse than earth. Charon answers :^^ "Codrus, I cannot help thee now and yet I wish thee wel ; Theres scarcely roome enough for rich So that no poore can come to hell For where one wont to come to hell I telle thee now comes five or sixe." Further there is a dialogue between Nicenes and New- f angle :^" "For once a day for fashion sake my Lady must be sicke No meat but mutton, or at most the pinion of a chicke Today hir own haire best becomes, which yellow is or gold A perriwigs better for to morrow, blacker to behold ; Today in pumps and chevrill gloves, to walke she wilbe told Tomorrow cuffes and countenance for feare of catching cold Now is she barefoot to be scene, straight on hir muffler goes. Now is she hufft up to the crowne, straight nusled to the nose." Th moral tragedies, **Appius and Virginia" and "Horestes" are not satirical. "Cambyses has a slight trace of satire. The Vice Ambidexter says :-° "Yet with mine eares I have heard some say, — That ever I was married, now cursed be the day ! Those be they that with curs'd wives be matched That husband for hawks' meat of them is up snatched, io8 Head broke with a bed-staff, face be all to scratched ; Such were better unmarried, my masters I trow Than all their life after to be matched with a shrow." In referring to the cruelty of Cambyses, he speaks of Bishop Bo^ner.-^ "He was akin to Bishop Bonner. I think verily ; For both their delights was to shed blood, But never intended to do any good." Taking up now the mediaeval interlude or farce, we find in "The Pardoner and the Friar'"-"- satire of characterization. These two types are represented as discussing their importance to society and the value of prayers and relics. Each underrates the other. Both try to talk at once but neither managing to say more than a sentence at a time, a fight ensues to settle who shall have the floor. The quarrel is extended to include the curate and Neighbour Pratt who come to prevent the desecration of the church. In the end the newcomers are beaten and driven of¥, leaving the pardoner and the friar in possession of the field. Plainly the aim of the author is to make sport of these two types. He is not serious; he has no lesson to teach. He has grasped the idea that the true function of the drama is to amuse ;hence he does not consider it necessary to retain the Old English fair- ness and make modifications concerning certain friars and cer- tain pardoners, for his purpose the two types are fit subjects for ridicule. The author of the play just discussed — John Heywood — wrote three other satirical farces : "The Four P. P." "The Weather," and "Johan, Tyb and Syr John. All are satirical of classes — of the palmer, the pardoner, the priest, the duped hus- band, and the unfaithful wife. Here we have the best illus- tration of early dramatic satire. The method is no longer that of the preacher but that of the dramatist. In "The Four P. P." a palmer and a pardoner boast of their claims to merit and distinction much as they do in the preceding play. The palmer is proud of the number of shrines that he has visited ; but the pardoner contemptuously refers to them :-^ "For all yorr labour and ghostly intent Ye will come home as wise as ve went." 109 and tells him that he could have granted him remission of his sins; for he is truly a pardoner. The palmer retorts: "Truly a pardoner! that may be true But a true pardoner doth not ensue. Right seldom is seen or never. That truth and pardoners dwell together." To this the pardoner says : "By the first part of this last tale It' seemeth ye came of late from the ale." When the pedlar displays his goods, the palmer tells him :" "we be like friars; We are but beggars, we be no buyers." When the pardoner makes his visit to hell in behalf of his friend, Margery Corson, Lucifer readily grants his request for her freedom :-^ "For all we devils within this den Have more to do with two women Than with all the charge we have beside ; Wherefore, if thou our friend will be tried Apply thy pardon to women so, That unto us there come no mo." The palmer, however, takes up the defence of woman and wins the prize for telling the greatest lier^ "His tale is all much perilous; But part is much more marvellous As where he said the devils complain That women put them to such pain. Be their conditions so crooked and crabbed Forwardly fashioned, so wayward and wrabbed So far in division, and stirring such strife That all the devils be weary of their life. This in effect he told for truth, Whereby much marvel to me ensueth, That women in hell such shrews can be. And here so gentle, as far as I see Yet have I seen many a mile And many a woman in the while Not one good city, town, or borough In Christendom but I have been thorough no ' . ■ And thus I would ye should understand I have seen women five hundred thousand And oft with them long time tarried, Yet in all places where I have been Of all the women that I have seen I never saw nor knew in my conscience Any one woman out of patience." Heywood's "Weather" is purely farcial ; the dififerent classes are represented as anxious to secure weather that will promote business. Each of course is selfish in its interests. The wea- ther that will dry the clothes of the laundress will spoil the com- plexion of the beauty. The coarse play "Johan, Tyb and Syr John" satirizes the three types — the henpecked husband, the un- faithful wife and immoral priest. His other play "Love" is a wordy disputation which can not be classed as satirical. The farces on Classical models — "Jack Juggler", "Gammer Gurton's Needle", and "Ralph Roister Doister" were written with the idea of amusement foremost. Diccon in "Gammer Gurton", "Jack Juggler" in the piece of the same name and Matthew Merrygreek in "Roister Doister" remind us of the old vice in the' moral plays. In their control of the plot they come close to the Vice, Haphazard in "Apius and Virginia" and Ambidexter in "Cambyses". Of these plays "Jack Juggler" seems to be the only one that is satiric ; and here the satire is hidden. The prologue says that the author takes the grounds of his comedy from Plautus and with a satirical touch adds :'-' " fr r higher things indite In no w;?e he would, for yet the time is so queasy. That he that speaketh best is least thankworthy, Therefore, sith nothing but trifles may be had You shall hear a thing that only shall make you merry and glad. "And such a trifling matter, as when it shall be done. Ye may report and say ye have heard nothing at all. Therefore I tell you all, before it be begun That no man look to hear of matters substantial. Nor matters of any gravity either great or small For this maker showed us that such manner things Do never well beseem little bovs' handlings. Ill But in contrast to this tone of innocence we find in an un- assigned part, apparently a prologue the following hints of a hid- den meaning:-* "Somewhat it was, saith the proverb old That the cat winked when her eye was out, That is to say no tale can be told, But that some English may be picked thereof out If so to search the Latin and ground of it men will go about ' As this trifling interlude that before you hath been rehearsed. May signify some further meaning if it be well rehearsed. "Such is the fashion of the world now-a-days That the simple innocents are deluded, And an hundred thousand divers way By subtle and crafty means shamefully abused And by strength, force, and violence ofttimes compelled To believe and say the moon is made of a green cheese Or els have great harm, and percase their life lese. "He must say he did amiss, though he never did offend He must ask forgiveness, where he did no trespass Or els be in trouble, care and misery without end, And be cast in some arrearage without any grace And that thing he saw done before his own face He must by compulsion stiffly deny And for fear whether he woll or not sa tongue, you lie." Bongrace scouts at the excuse of Jenkin Careaway's — namely, that a double has taken his place :-^ "Why, thou naughty villain, darest thou affirm to me That which was never seen nor hereafter shall be? That one may have two bodies and two faces And that one man at one time may be in two places ? In this there may be a hidden thrust at the doctrine of tran- substantiatiion. A reading of "Tom Tyler and his wife" shows some amusing domestic comedy. The poor henpecked Tom after securing an advantage over his wife through the trick of his friend the tailor, unwisely loses it by telling her that his friend had given her the beating for him. The poor fellow's Song is:=^° "I am a poor Tyler in simple aray And get a poor living but eight pence a day My wife as I get it, doth spend it away 112 And I cannot help it, she saith ; wot ye why For wedding and hanging is destiny By marrying of strife which I chose to my wife. To leade such a life with sorow and grief As I tell you true, is to bad for a Jew." In the old play "Common Conditions" there is some more of this crude criticism of women :^^ "Proflfer them the thing thei most desire, they would it denie Thei are so full of sleightes and fetches that scarce the Foxe, hee In every poicte with women maie scarce compared bee ; For when men praie, they will denaie ; or when men most desire Then mark me a woman, she is sonest stirred to ire Their hedds are fantasticall. and full of varietie straunge Like to the moone, whose operation it is often tymes to chaunge." In "Calisto and Meliboea" Sempronio the parasite tries to cheer the jilted lover. Calisto, by telling him that women are not the goddesses that they seem :^- "Flee from their beginnings, eschew their folly : Thou knowest they do evil things many They keep no mean, but rigour of intention: Be it fair (or) foul, wilful without reason. Keep them never so close, they will be showed. Give tokens of love by many subtle ways : Seeming to be sheep, and serpently shrewd ; Craft in them renewing that never decays. It is a wonder to see their dissembling, Tlieir flattering countenance, their ingratitude, Tnconstancy, false witness, feigned weeping: The'r vain-glory and how they can delude Their foolishness, their jangling not mew'd Their lecherous lust and vileness therefore ; Witch crafts and charms to make men to them lore Their embalming and their unshamefacedness ; Their bawdry, their subtlety, and fresh attiring; What trimming, what painting to make fairness ! Their false intents and flickering smiling! Therefore lo ! it is an old saying That women be the devil's net, and head of sin, And man's misery in Paradise did begin." The next play "Thersites" may be taken as a satire upon boasters, but it :.- probably only realistic and comic in intent. 113 This is true to a less extent in the case of "The Disobedient Child." The son is in character ; he complains of school-life :^^ "Yet like to the school none under the sun Bringeth to children so much heaviness. "For as the bruit goeth by many a one, Their tender bodies both night and day Are whipped and scourged, and beat like a stone That from top to toe the skin is away. So long as my wits shall be mine own The schoolhouse for me shall stand alone." The father regrets his inability to control his child :^* "Science and learning is so little regarded. That none of us doth muse or study To see our children well taught and instructed. We deck them, we trim them with gorgeous array. We pamper and feed them, and keep them so gay That in the end of all this they be our foes." The priest, too, has a complaint ; the clerk has gone to the ale-house leaving his work to the care of his superior.'^ "Great pity it were that the church should be disordered. Because that such swillbowls do not their works. And to say truth in many a place. And other great towns besides this same, The priests and parishioners be in like case Which to the churchwardens may be shame. CHAPTER VII SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. It has been shown that satire plays an important part in the Early English Drama, especially in the moralities where it en- livens the direct didacticism of these dull old plays with virile attacks upon the church and society ; and thus teaches in an indi- rect manner what should be by attempting to abolish what should not be. The reformatory idea, however, was not always pres- ent. The authors at times merely gave expression to that common satirical spirit by virtue of which men delight in ridiculing the follies of others. And yet the great seriousness of the English people on the whole leads us to conclude that the larger part of this early satire was reformatory in purpose. The most fertile field of this satire lay in the controversial drama foreshadowing and centering about the Reformation. The three greatest names are those of John Skelton, John Bale, and Sir David Lyndsay. All three show the vigor so characteristic of the English and Scotch in making their attacks upon religious and social evils ; all, though priests, stoop to coarseness and ob- scenities which had better be let die. The only point in citing them is that, if true, they serve to show the prevailing cor- ruption of the church, the looseness of morals in general, and the inefficiency of the government. And they were undoubtedly true in a great degree ; the native fairness of English satire leads to this conclusion. Another fact which seems to strengthen this inference — that the licentiousness of the times was a re- flection of the influence of the immoral clergy upon society — is the small amount of satire aimed at the Protestant reformers. We have one play "Respublica" which accuses the Protestant min- isters of having brought ruin upon the Commonwealth. In "New Custom" both parties Catholics and Protestant are re]iresented. Each satirizes the other. The conclusion of the play, however, shows that the author wrote with the intention of disparaging the Romish Church. Its three satirical abstractions represent the two faults of Popish priests — Perverse Doctrine and Ignorance — ]]4 "5 and the cardinal sin of the Middle Ages — Hypocrisy. If we accept satire as the weapon of the persecuted, then the small quantity of saitre directed against the promulgators of the Ref- ormation indicates where the corruption lay. Again, if we be- lieve satirists appear when society and its institutions become decadent and appear as spokesmen of the popular thought, then we must conclude that in this period which was to culminate in the Reformation, there was ample material for satire and that there were a few who believed the drama, or what was then the drama, the most effective means of presenting it. For three centuries there had been a more or less scattered attack upon the evils and inconsistencies of the church in the undramatic literature of the time. Now in the sixteenth century when affairs were approaching a crisis, the drama became a potent factor in presenting the vexed questions to the mind of the people. A classification of the old English plays into groups — (i) those which contain considerable satire, (2) those which are only incidentally satiric — shows the following lists. Under the first heading we should name the twenty-fifth pageant of the Ludus Coventriae as containing the broadest and best sustained satire of all the miracles cycles, addressed as it is in an ironical vein to the audience by a character who was always able to get a hear- ing — the Devil. With it should be mentioned the twenty-eighth Towneley pageant noted for its social satire. For the essen- tially satiric moralities we name the following plays : "Magnifi- cencs," "Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis," "Respublica,'' "New Custom," "Lusty Ji^iventus," "King John," and the "Three Laws." The satirical farces are: "Tlie Four P's," "Johan, Tvb, and Sir jhon." "The \\'eather." and the "Pardoner and the Friar." Under the second heading as representatives of the miracles, we note the various plays of the Towneley cycle and the Ludus Coventriae not included in the first division and also the Chester plays. The moralities only incidentally satiric take in : "The Pride of Life." "The Castle of Perseverance," "Mind, Will and Under- standing," "Mankind," "Everyman," "Mundus et Infans," "Na- ture." "Hickscorner," "Youth," "Four Elements," "The Diso- bedient Child." "Nice Wanton." and perhaps we should note for the farces, "Jack Juggler." All this satire fits in admirably with the. didactic subject- matter and purpose of the Old English plays. These beginning ii6 with the idea of teaching the crude, ignorant people the story of the Scriptures continued to do so until the close of the six- teenth century ; but at the same time widening their scope, they came to include the representation of religious lessons which ap- ]iealed more to the intellect than did the narrative of the miracles. The same audience went to the miracle plays and the morality plays, at least to the popular moralities. The one taught them the Bible ; the other, ethics. In both satire appeared but of course with more prominence in the moralities ; for these plays not being bound so strictly by convention to a close representation of the Scriptures nor so much under the sway of the clergy as the miracles, could attack evils in the church and society and still conform to the didactic purpose of the plays even though they did so indirectly. In the farces or interludes which had an entirely different purpose from the two kinds of religious drama in that they gave up the old idea of instruction for that of amusement, satire came in nicely as one of the means of raising a laugh. A survey of this informal satire shows the use of both the direct and the indirect methods. The first is well illustrated in the advice of the devil in the "Ludus Coventriae" ; in the Bis- hop's complaint on the times in the 'T^ride of Life" ; in Avarice's advice to Mankind in the "Castle of Perseverance" ; in the mes- senger's rebuke in the "Four Elements to authors who neglect their native English ; in Pity's complaint in "Hickscorner". Com- pare the speech of Good Counsel in "Lusty Juventus" with that of a character of the same name in the Scottish play, "Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis." The first is a dull lament in the direct method : "O where may a man find now one faithful congregation That is not infected with dissension or discord Who nseth not now covetousness and deceit Who giveth to the poor that which is liis due." The second, though still a lament is dramtic, indirect. Gude Counsall represents herself as driven out of Scotlau'! in a speech that makes her almost human : "But out of Scotland — wa ! alace ! — • I haif hene fleimit lang tyme space." 117 Of the two methods, the indirect is the more effective. It must have been exceedingly impressive to see a Pope in despair on the Judgment Day and hear from his own hps his confession of worldliness and simony. Such daring occurs only once in the miracles — in the 1591 edition of the "Chester Plays". Here its seeming boldness is not so wonderful after all if we consider its late occurrence at a time when Protestantism was established in England and the Pope no longer so highly esteemed as he had been in preceding ages; or if we admit that it may be only the transfer to the drama by literary antiquarians of the Dance of Death motive so common in mediaeval art. But to take up an- other instance which can not be discounted, we revert to the time of the Reformation — to the reign of King Henry VHI. Here we find an attack upon the Pope by the fiery Bishop Bale. As in the Chester play, the Pope appears on the stage, but not to confess his sins; he rather proposes to indulge in them to the utmost. Unlike the Chester Pope he is at times an abstraction — Usurpyd Powder ; at times a specific Pope — for instance. In- nocent the Third. After excommunicating King John, he says to Dissimulation : "I shall soch gere avaunce As wyll be to us a pereptual f urderaunce ; Fyrst eare-confessyon, than pardons than purgatory Sayntes — worchyppyng than sekyng of imagery Than Laten servyce, with the cerymonye meny Whereby our byshoppes and abbots shall get money. I wy]\ make a law to burne all herytykes, And kyngs to depose whan they are sysmatykkes. I wyll allso reyse up the fower begging orders The tone and spirit of the satire is pessimistic but not so sweepingly pessimistic as to exclude the natural hopefulness of the English and their desire for impartiality. Often after a bitter denunciation of the clergy which would seem to include the entire ecclesiastical hierarchy, the author modifies his state- ments by exceptions. In type the satire is for the most part impersonal ; the author speaks not so much his own opinions as those of his class. He is the mouthpiece, the spokesman for society against its abuses whether in church, the state, or the members. The objects of attack are those which have always been the ii8 target of scorn and ridicule, foibles in politics, religion, and society . The Political and religious satire is peculiarly English ; the Social satire is conventional and little dififerent from the Latin except that it lays more stress upon the morals of classes than upon those of individuals. Taking up Political satire, we find just one play, and that a fragment which may be classed as a Political Morality. It is ■'Albyon Knyght". Other plays, however, contain political allu- sions — for instance, "Magnificence," "Godly Queen Hester," "Respublica," "Wealth and Health" and "King John." Among the miracle cycles, the Towneley plays have reference to mis- government in the complaint of the shepherds upon the economic conditions of their day and in the enumeration among the devil's followers of false inquest-holders and tax-gatherers. "Magnifi- cence" written early in the sixteenth shows the hostility existing between the government of England and France in Fancy's report of the close watch kept for spies at the sea-coast. It also shows the inconsistencies in the. character and in the methods of the leading politician of the day — Wolsey — by the four abstractions. Counterfeit Count- enance, Crafty Conveyance, Cloked Collusion, and Courtly Abu- sion. each one of which is thought to embody some leading trait of this powerful statesman. They represent him as a vain, haughty upstart who has intrenched himself in the favor of the king until his power is about regal. The whole play is a satirical protest against the false, scheming politicians and tale-bearers who are wont to gather about a young prince. And in this case the great politician is Wolsey. "Respublica" also has reference to political affairs — to the mal-aclministration of the ministers of Edward VI. The realm is represented on the verge of ruin through their sweeping public robberies and their oppression of the church. "Wealth and Health" has a political allusion to the Flemish war and a protest against the influx of the Flemish weavers. These the play represents as drunken and undesirable subjects both in AVill's description and in the character, Drunken Hance. "King John" is political to the extent that it portrays the ill feeling existing between the government and the papal power. Sedition who is able to appear as any member of the clergy, regular or secular, holds princes the representatives of the tem- 119 poral power in "scorne. hate, and disdayne." On the other hand King John expresses his opinion of the spiritual power as fol- lows : "Ther is no malyce like to that of the clergy." "Godly Queen Hester" alludes to an upstart lord who has become very powerful. The satire is upon him and the social conditions which follow as a result of his prominence in politics. The accusations against him are similar to those against Wolsey in "Magnificence", and may be aimed at Wolsey. But as has been said the essentially Political Morality is "Albyon Knyght." It shows the selfishness of the four orders in the state — the ruler, the nobles, the clergy, and the common people. Each works for its own interests in Parliament and pre- vents the passage or execution of laws which may in any way be to its disadvantage. Injury by means of maintenance corrupts the law courts. Division, his accomplice, sends two well-named characters. Double Devyce and Old Debate to set the commons against the king and to stir up strife between the nobles and the clergy — the "lordes temporall and the lordes spirituall." It is a realistic portrayal, as far as it goes, of the inner workings of politics. A brief review of the subjects of political satire includes the following topics: (i) the failure to pass laws or to enforce them through the existence of selfish factions in the government — in Parliament. (2) the pride, arrogance, extravagance, avarice, and double-dealing of upstart politicians, (3) the extortion of false taxcollectors. (4 ) the Flemish War and its results — taxation and an influx of foreigners, and (5) the fleeing of the clergy by unprincipled ministers of state. Under Social satire which deals with the morals of society. with fashions, and with the foibles and follies of classes, we find much of the generalized lament against the sins of the age. Here are tirades against ambition, superstition ; pride, arrogance, prodi- gality, flattery ; against drunkenness, gambling, quarrelsomeness, and dishonesty in trade such as adulteration of ale. use of false weights and false measures; and against usury, bribery perjury, and the Seven Deadly Sins, especially avarice, gluttony, sloth, and immorality. The fashions and follies that are satirized embrace clothes.. 120 the haunting of taverns, the playing of bowls and skittles, the telling tales of Robin Hood, the marrying of old women for their money, the writing of ballads and matter not worth a "mite". The satire against fashionable clothes is generally de- livered by Lucifer, Satan, Lust, or Pride. The devil claims to be the originator of new styles and to have no difficulty in inducing men and women to follow them. The classes satirized are : officials such as imperator, rex, judge, justice, mayor, jurors, summoner, tax-collector, and exec- utor, courtier, lawyer, merchant, broker, miser, doctors, min- strels, dancers, upstarts, foreigners, and workmen such as colliers, plowmen, carters, cobblers, tailors and servants. The richest field of English satire, however, is Religious sa- tire. The entire clergy is accused of avarice, immorality, and hypocrisy from the Pope to the humblest person or priest. Some- times the Pope appears on the stage in person, either unnamed or specified, as Innocent the Third, or Pope Julie, or as in the case of Clement the Seventh he is reported as guilty of some enorn^ity such as buying the Papacy. Sometimes his agents, wicked ab- stractions such as Iniquity, Tyranny, and Avarice, characterize him. Sometimes the devil himself claims him as his son. The most terrible satire on the Pope is, I think, in "The Three Laws." A list of the other esslesiastics who come under the lash of the satirists would include cardinals, bishops, prelates, abbots, par- sons, priests, monks, canons, nuns, friars, presbyters, preachers, divines and curates. To consider this religious satire in greater detail than the other kinds seems proper as it forms the bulk of the informal dramatic satire. There was satire directed at the hypocrisy of the friars ; the Latin of the clergy ; the ignorance of many of the inferior clergy ; sinful priests, unchaste nuns, avaricious prelates, false preachers, lazy divines, and apostate monks. There was the bitterest satire against the form and ceremonies of the church in the Controversial dramas. Lender the ban were legacies, be- quests, mortuaries, bulls, pardons, indulgences, relics, hallowed bells, tapers, candlesticks, censers, portas. bedes, copes, surplices, oil salt, bran, cruettes, mass, trentals, pilgrimages, and worship of saints ; also the singing in Latin, the ducking at grace, the mummyng. the bearing of the cross, the crouching, the setting up of lights, the reading of the gospel and epistle, the fasting in 121 Lent — all these were condemned by the reformers. The satirist noted the striking contrast between the attention the clergy paid to Christ and that to idle useless ceremonies ; he bewailed their working upon the superstition of the ignorant masses their false glosses on the Scriptures, their hostility to princes, their join- ing with lawyers, their methods of securing money at the ex- pense of the poor. The religious satire in the drama dealt with the same sub- ject-matter as the early undramatic satire. Both aired the same inconsistencies. The thirteenth century "When Holy Church is under Foot" points out the same fault in the church as the late morality, "Three Ladies of London", and that College play "The Return from Parnassus" or "The Scourge of Simony." Skelton and Lyndsay of the sixteenth century merely renew the attack upon the church which had begun as early as the thirteenth cen- tury. This they cast in the most popular literary form of the time — the drama. The brunt of the attack falls upon the friar. Heywod in his farces and Lyndsay in his "Pleasant Satyre" give us the same opinion of him as the early "Jack Upland" and "The Song on the Friars." In the last a probationary friar who has become disgusted before his year of probation is up, charges them with hypocrisy and immorality. They pretend to be ab- stemious and to lead a life of prayer and study, but in reality they are good livers, good dressers, and keen sportsmen. They do not practice what they preach. "Full wysely can thai preche and say Bot as they preche no thing do thai." There is the same accusation in the poem "On the Minorite Friars" ; "Thai preche alle of povert, bot that love thai noght ; For gode mete to thair mouthe the toun is thurgh soght Wyde are thair wonnynges, and wonderfully vvroght ; Sle thi fadre, and jape thi modre. and thai wyl the assoile." The generalized lament so common in the Moralities appears in these early poems. In the fourteenth century "On the Times" we find, "Dred of God is went" and "Goddes dere halydays ar noght." In "A Poem on the Times of Edward 11", the specific charge is simony. 122 "Voys of clerk shal lytyl be herd At the court of Rome Were he never so gode a clerk Without selver an lie come ; John Gower in the prologue to his "Confessio Amantis" speaks of the inconsistencies in the church in th same tone as the foregoing poem : "For if men loke in holy churche Betwene the word and that they wirche There is a ful gret difference." So, too, he and the author of "Piers Plowman" express opinions on the responsibility which prelates feel, similar to that of Exereitation in "Longer thou Livest more Fool than Art" : "Ther ben of suche many glade. Whan they to thilke estate ben made Nought for the merite of the charge But for they wolde hem self discharge Of poverte and become grete." We may say that the drama deals with contemporary prob- lems — religious, social, and political — just as the songs, ballads, and other literary forms. It has laments, direct rebuke, and invec- tives. It reflects social conditions which do not dififer from those in "Piers Plowman". There is discontent, hunger, lack of em- ployment, hosts of beggars, and the custom of haunting taverns and marrying for money. Its subject matter, then, is not new. Its method is generally narrative and its characterization, if we can call it by that name, direct, a character analyzes himself or another character. But that the dramatic method, crude as it is, is superior to the undramatic may be shown by this instance. The early poems speak of the inferior clergy as ignorant and ineffi- cient ; the drama, at least in two cases, gives us types of the stupid ecclesiastic in Caconos and Sir Lawrence Livingless. The first is characterized indirectly by what he says he does and the second, both indirectly and directly. They are real, concrete and there- fore more effective than any general statement concerning ig- norant prists. Compared with the informal dramatic satire of Ben Jonson, this early satire is lacking in unity and characterization. Its satire is not so all j)ervading as that in "The Alchemist" and 123 "\'olpone". It is rather a foerunner of the satirical drama of the later decades of the Elizabethan period. Ben Jonson satirizes a particular religious sect — the Puritans, and the follies of mankind in general by excessive exaggeration. The satire on woman is represented in the characters, "Fine Madam Would-be" and "Dame Pliant". The best Puritan types are the two charac- ters in "The Alchemist" — Tribulation Wholesome and the deacon Ananias — and the sactimonious Zeal-of-the Land-Busy in "Bar- tholomew Fair". Here in Ben Jonson's dramas we find satire treated in an artistic manner ; it is considered material not for instruction but for amusement. Many of the characters in the plays still show morality relationship by their names. The in- creased dramatic skill afifords a stronger presentation of satire than the authors of the early moralities were able to secure. John Heywood in his farces had the right idea that the function of the drama was not the same as that of the sermon. To sum up the political and social traits reflected in this early drama would require mention of allusions to jealousy of royal ministers,, to arrogant political upstarts, to maladministra- tion in the reigns of Henry VHI, Edward VI, and ]\Iary, and to dissension between the different orders in Parliament in Eliza- beth's reign. Social references would include all the satire di- rected against the various classes, such as the greedy merchant, the dishonest tapster, the avaricious lawyer, the quack doctor, and the upstart foreigner. The gallant should not be omitted, for he furnishes us data for fashions, high small bonnets, high head dresses, horns, side locks, jagged hoods, collars splayed with fur, ruffs, paint, perfume, jagged clothes, prankyd gownes, no sleeves, wide full sleeves, wide gowns, gowns of three yards, velvet coats, shirts of fine Holland, stomachers, doublets opened in front and behind, gay gyrdyls, "empti purses", a dagger, breeches as big as good barrels, crimson hose, striped hose with corselettys of fyne velves slyped to knee, and below the knee hosen parti- colored. There was the same inconsistency in dressing in those days as now : they did not dress according to tliat old play Nature^ "to kepe the carcas warm." '"My doublet ys onlaced byfore A stomacher of satan and no more Rayn it, snow yt never so sore Me thynketh I am to hote." 124 The allusions to religion, however, form the bulk of the €arly ("ramtic satire. They show the strife that existed between the temporal and the spiritual powers ; the corruption that was prevalent in the clergy and the intense feeling aroused by it, which became especially marked as the era of the Reformation approached. These allusions enforced by others in the songs and poems of the period, and in pamphlets and tracts such as ^'Rede me and be Nott Wrothe" lead us to infer that they were in gfreat measure true. REFERENCES. CHAPTERS I AND II. 1. Alden, Raymond M., "The. Rise of Formal Satire in England under Classical Influence." 2. Tucker. Samuel Marion, '"V'ersc Satire in England before the Renaissance." 3. Pollard, A. W. 4. "Political Poems and Songs Relating to English History during the Period from the Accession of Edw. Ill to that of Rich. III., Ed. Thomas Wright I, 263. 5. "The Complete Works of Chaucer," Ed. W. W. Skeat. 6. Dodsley's Old English Plays. Ed. Hazlitt. vol. I. 7. Early English Text Society. 37 Part 4, Lyndesays Works. ^. Chester Plays. Ed. T. Wright, Shak. Sos. •I. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. "Ludus Coventriae." Ed. J. C. Hallivvell- Phillips, Shak. Soc. 1841. p. 7 Iff. 13. Ibid. XX p. 190. 14. Ibid. XXV p. 3.j2. lo. Ibid. XXXII pp. 319-21. 16. Towneley plays, Ed. George England, E. E. T. S. Ex. Ser. 71, XXX p. 374. 17. Ibid. XXX p. 376 11. 296fif. 18. Ibid. II p. 12 11 104 f. 19. Ibid. XII. p. 109 11 285-6. 20. Ibid. Xn, p. 112. 21. Digby Mysteries, Ed. F. J. Furnivall. E. E. T. S. EX. SER. 70. 22. Chester Plays, vol. I, VI, p. 106. 23. Ibid. XXV, pp. 184-5. vol. II. 24. Ibid. vol. II, XXV, p. 187. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. Ancient Cornish Drama, Ed. E. Norris, p. 215, vol. II. 29. Ludus Coventriae, J. O. Halliwell-Phillips, X, p. 98. 30. Ibid. XII, p. 118. 31. Ibid. XII, p. 119. 32. Ibid. XIV, p. 131. 33. Ibid. XIV, p. 136. 125 126 34. Ibid. VI. p. 61. 35. Ibid. XVI, p. 158. 36. Ibid. XV, p. 145. 37. Ibid. XXV pp. 241 ff. 38. Towneley Plays. E. E. T. S. ex ser. 71, XXX p. 373 11. 183 ff. 39. Ibid. XXX p. 373 11. 189 f. 40. Ibid. XXX p. 376 11. 279 ff. 41. Ibid. XX pp. 204-5 11 19 ff. 42. Ibid. XXII p. 243 11. 15 ff. 43. Ibid. XXI. p. 233 11. 159-63. 44. Ibid. XII p. 101 11. 31-2. 45. Ibid. XLI p. 102 11. 55-75. 46. Ibid. XII p. 102 1. 93 f. 47. Ibid. XXX p. 377, 11 307-22. 48. Ibid. XXX p. 385 11. 570 ff. 49. Ibid. XXX pp. 377-8 11. 333-9. 50. Ibid. XXIV p. 292 1. 372 ff. 51. Ibid. XXX p. 379, 1. 372 ff. 52. Ibid. XXX pp. 374-5 11. 233-43. 53. Ibid. XXX p. 371 11. 323-3r. 54. Ibid. XXX p. 384 1 552. 55. Ibid. p. 34 11 389-96. 56. Ibid. III. p. 28 11. 186-89. 57. Ibid. III. p. 35 11. 397 ff. 58. Ibid. II pp. 94-5 11. 299 ff. 59. Ibid. XII p. 103 1. 95 ff. 60. Ibid. XIII p. 118 11. 73-98. 61. Ibid. XXXVIII pp. 338-9 11. 30-52. 62. Ibid. p. 347 1. 233. 63. Ibid. XXX p. 372 1. 161. 64. Ibid. XXX p. 375 1. 253. 6.5. Ibid. XXX p. 375 1260 ff. 66. Ibid. XV p. 164 11. 146-50. 67. Two Coventry Corpus Christi Plays. Ed. Hardin Craig. E. E. T. S. ex. ser. 87. 68. Digby Mysteries. Ed. F. J. Furnivall, E. E. T. S. ex. ser. 70. 69. Non-Cycle Mystery Plays. E. E. T.S. ex. ser. 104. CHAPTER III. The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. pp. Furnivall, F. J., 'Pollard, A. W. and Walter Kay Smart 3. Ludus Coventriae pp. 4. Quellen und Forschungen. Ed. Alois Brandl. pp. 24-26 5. The Macro Plays. Ed., F. J. Furnivall, and A. W. Pollard, E. E. T. S. Ex. ser. 91 p. 80. Ibid. pp. 102-3 11 843ff. Ibid. p. 103 1. 858ff. Ibid. p. 103 1. 865. 127 9. Ibid. p. 109 1. lOtWflF. 10. Ibid. p. 110 1. 1091 11. Ibid. p. Ill 1. 1130 f. 12. Ibid. p. Ill '. 1149 f. 13. Ibid. p. P -2 1. 1158 f. 14. Ibid. p. 113 1. 1198. 15.' Ibid. p. 113 1. 1215. 10. Ibid. p. 147 1. 2333. 17. Ibid. p. 152 1. 2527 ff. 18. Ibid. p. 153 1. 2542 f. 19. Ibid. p. 154 1. 2559 f. 20. Ibid. pp. 154-5 11. 2606 ff. 21. Ibid. p. 156 1. 2664. 22. Ibid p. 158 1. 2716 ff. 23. Ibid. p. 158 1. 2731 ff. 24. Smart, Walter Kay. ''Some English and Latin Sources lels for the Morality of Wisdom." and Paral 2o. The Macro Plays. E. E. T. S. Ex. Ser. 91. 1. 470 ff. 2(i. Ibid. p. 51 1. 487 ff. 27. Ibid. p. 55 1. 604 ff. 28. Ibid. p. 55 1. 608 ff. 29. Ibid. p. 56 1. 6.32 ff. 30. Ibid. p. 56 1. 640 ff. 31. Ibid. p. 56 1. 652 f. 32. Ibid. p. 57 1. 650 and 669. 33. Ibid. p. 57 1. 666. 34. Ibid. p. 57. 670 f. 35. Ibid. p. 57 1. 672 ff. 36. Ibid p. 57 1. 676 ff. 37. Ibid. p. 57 1. 681 ff. 38.' "ibid. p. 58 1. 684 f. 39. Ibid. p. 59 1. 732 ff. 40. Ibid p. 60 1. 741 ff. 41. Ibid. p. 61 1. 770. 42. Ibid. p. 61 1. 796. 43. Ibid. p. 63 1. 854 ff. 44. Ibid. p. 5 1. 124. 45. Ibid. p. 11 1. 291. 46. Ibid. p. 19 1. 498. 47. Ibid. p. 1. 48. Ibid. p. 23 1. 626. 49. Ibid. p. 23 1. 622. 50. Ibid. pp. 24-26. CHAPTER IV. 1. Dodsley, Old English Plays, vol. I, p. 263. 2. and 3. Ibid. p. 262. 4. Ibid. p. 270. 128 5. Dodsley, 0. E. P. vol. I, p. 7. 6. Ibid. p. 8. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. pp. 100-1. 9. Ibid. p. 134. 10. Ibid. pp. 151-2. 11. Ibid p. 153. 12. Ibid. p. 156. 13. Ibid. p. 157. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. p. 178. 16. Ibid. pp. 174-5. 17. Ibid. p. 185. 18. E. E. T. S. ex. sen Ed. Rober 19. Ibid. p. 10 1. 279 ff. 20. Ibid. p. 12 1. 347 ff. 21. Ibid. p. 14 1. 417 ff. 22. Ibid. p. 15 1. 462. 23. Ibid. p. 16 1. 474 ff. 24. Ibid. p. 1. 487. 25. Ibid. p. 23 1. 710 ff. 26. Ibid. p. 29 11. 897 ff. 27. Ibid. p. 39 1. 1240 ff. 28. Ibid. p. 40 1. 1267 ff. 29. Ibid. pp. 41-2 1. 1327 ff. 30. Ibid. p. 48 1. 1529 f; 1 1537 f, 31. Ibid. p. 54 1. 1750 ff. 32. Ibid. p. 55 1. 1772 ff. 33. Ibid. p. 66 1. 2121 ff. 34. Ibid. p. 66 1. 2135 ff. 35. Ifbid. p. 66 1. 2145 ff. 36. "Quellen und Forschungen." 37. Ibid. p. 106. 38. Ibid. p. 139. 39. Ibid. p. 141. 40. Ibid. pp. 145-6. 41. Dodskey's O. E. P. vol. II. p. 42. Ibid. p. 62. 43. Ibid. p. 65. 44. Dodsley's O. E. P. vol. II. p. 45. Ibid. p. 76. 46. Ibid. p. 90. 47. Lbid. p. 94. 48. Ibid. p. 14. 49. Ibid. pp. 14-15. 50. Specimens of Pre-Shakespear 27 ff. 51. Ibid. p. 528 1. 80 f. p. 1. Ed. Alois Brandl. p. 105. 57. 66. Manly, J. M. p. 526 1. 129 52. Ibid. p. 532 1. 187 f. 53. Ibid. p. 532 1. 195 f. 54. Ibid. p. 534 1. 245. 55. Ibid. p. 537 1. :]34. 56. Ibid. p. 540 1. 415. 57. Ibid. p. 549 1. 087-97. 58. Ibid. p. 559 1. 990 f. 59. Ibid. p. 560 1. 997 f. 60. Ibid. p. 562 1. 1081 ff. 61. Ibid. p. 569 1. 1262 f. 62. Ibid. p. 577 1. 1515 f. 63. Ibid. p. 579 1 : 1565 f. 64. Ibid. p. 581 1. 1623. 65. Ibid. p. 584 1. 1684 ff. 66. Ibid. p. 588 11. 1787 ff. 67. Ibid. p. 589 1. 1806 f. 68. Ibid. p. 600 1. 2123. 69. Ibid. p. 613 1. 2487 ff. 70, Anglia 5, 1882. p. 172 1. 4(. 71. Ibid. p. 173 1. 439 ff. 72. Ibid. p. 175 1. 496 ff. 73. Ibid. p. 176 1. 570 ff. 74. Ibid. p. 178 11. 628-647. 75. Ibid. p. 179 11. 660-678. 76. Ibid. p. 180. 77. Ibid. p. 180 11. 7714-31. 78. Ibid. pp. 181-2 11. 758-771. 79. Ibid. p. 184 11 . 846-857. 79. Ibid. p. 184 11 . 846-857. 80. Ibid. p. 189 1. 979 ff. 81. Ibid. p. 189 1. 984-1012. 82. Ibid. p. 190 11, . 1021-1058 f. 83. Ibid. pp. 192-3 11. 1123 ff. 84. Ibid. pp. 191-2 11. 1080 ff. 85. Ibid. p. 193 1. 1163 ff. 86. Ibid. p. 194 1. 1187. 87. Ibid. p. 194 1. 1203 f. 88. Ibid. p. 195 1. 1211 ff. 89. Ibid. p. 195 1. 1222 ff. 90. Ibid. p. 195 1. 1231 f. 91. Ibid. p. 197 1. 1274 ff. 92. Ibid. p. 205 11. 1516-28. 93. Ibid. p. 206 11 . 1573 ff. 94. Ibid. p. 208 1. 1608. 95. Ibid. p. 208 1. 16-7. 96. Ibid. p. 223. 97. Dodsley, 0. E. P. vol. 1, ff. 130 98. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. 94. p. i^ 11. (i49-.V_'. 99. Ibid. p. 23 1. (i(i7 f. 100. Ibid p. 26 1. 781 f. 101. E. E. T. S., ex. ser. p. 27 1. Mi3. 102. Ibid. p. 2(3 1. 7ti8. 103. Ibid. p. 3(1 1. 921. 104. Ibid. p. 31 1. 95(i ff. 105. Ibid. p. 35 1. 1070. 106; Ibid. p. 36 1. 1077. 1117. Ibid. p. 36 1. 1(»93 ff. CHAPTKR V 1. Malone Society Collections. 1. iod. 2. Ibid. 1. 426. 3. Ibid. 1. 93 f. 4. Ibid. 1. 140 ff. 5. Dodsley's 0. E. P. vol. II p. 16(i. 6. Ibid. p. 176. 7. "Materialien zur Kunde des iilteren En^^lischcn Dr:iir.as : Bang, p. II. 11. 285-6. s. Ibid. p. 16. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. p. 26. 12. Ibid. pp. 16-7. 13. Ibid. p. 18. 14. Ibid. p. 20. 15. Ibid. p. 21. 16. Ibid. p. 34. 17. "Quellen und I'orscbungen", n, :',7S. 18. Ibid. p. 390. 19. Ibid. p. 413. 20. Malone Society. I. 1911. p. 2:13. 21. Ibid. p. 23. 1 iu; ff. 22. Ibid. p. 235. 23. Ibid. p. 238, 1. 259 ff. 24. Ibid. pp. 238-9 1. 271 ff. 25. Ibid. p. 239. 26. "The Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalene." F.d. F. penter. p. 15. 27. Ibid. p. 21. 28. Ibid. p. 31, 1. 638 f. 29. Ibid. pp. 31-2. 30. Ibid. p. 32. 31. Ibid. p. 6G. 11. 1529-.30. 32. Ibid. p. 66 11. 1539 ff. 33. Dodsley's 0. E. P. vol. Ill p. 261. 34. Ibid. p. 266. \v J, Car- 131 .'55. Ibid. p. 26.J. ■Mi. Ibid. p. 312. 37. Ibid. p. 314. 38. Ibid. p. 32-j. .30. Ibid. p. 326. 40. Ibid. p. .324. 41. Ibid. p. .3.3-5. 42. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, 30. p. 2!t, 1. 551 ff. 43. Ibid. p. 41, 1. 1011 ff. 44. Ibid. p. 57. 45. Ibid. p. 22. 46. O. E. P. vol. Ill, p. 7. 47. Ibid. p. 8. 4«. Ibid. pp. 10-11. 4!l. Ibid. p. 14. 50. Ibid. p. 16. 51. Ibid. p. 17. .52. Ibid. p. 28. .53. Ibid. p. .30. 54. Shakespeare Jahrbuch 43. pp. ]4-">. .55. Shakespeare Jahrbuch 43. p. IS 11. 2!i3-4. 5(i. Ibid. p. 23 1. 4.58 ff. 57. Ibid. p. 24 1. .5.54 ff. .58. Ibid. p. 35 1. 1094 ff. 59. Ibid. p. 51. 1. 1824 f. 60. Shakespeare Jahrbuch XL. p. IIS II. 113-]!'. 61. Ibid. p. 149. 1. 147 ff. 62. Ibid. p. 151 1. 209-17. 63. Ibid. p. 162. 64. Ibid. p. 163 1. 689. 65. Ibid. p. 163 1. 704 ff. 66. Ibid. p. 166. 1. 809. 67. Ibid. p. 169. 1. 915 ff. {)H. Ibid. p. 178 1. 1247 ff. 70. O. E. P. vol. VI. pp. .36-7. 71. Ibid. p. .50. 72. Ibid. p. .50. 73. Ibid. p. 61. 74. Ibid. pp. 70-74. 75. Ibid. p. 73. 76. O. E. P. vol. VI. p. 97. 77. Ibid. p. 249-50. 78. Ibid. p. 2.55. 79. Ibid. p. 260. 80. Ibid. p. 268. 81. Ibid. p. 269. 82. Ibid. p. 271. 83. Ibid. p. 276. ^ t* 132 s\. Ibid. p. 277. 80. Ibid. p. 278. 86. Ibid. p. 283. 87. Ibid. p. 287. 88. Ibid. p. 293. 89. Ibid. p. 294. 90. Ibid. p. 305. 91. Ibid. pp. 325-6. 92. Ibid. p. 364. 98. Ibid. p. 412. 94. Ibid. p. 413. 95. Ibid. p. 501. 96. Ibid. p. 456. 97. Ibid. pp. 456-7. 98. Ibid. p. 470. 99. 100. 101. 0. E. P. vol. VIII p. 385. Ibid. p. 341. Ibid. p. 343. 102. Ibid. p. 373. "ane pleasant satyre OF TH 1. E. E. T. S. 37. Part 4. p. 379 1. 76 ff. 2. Ibid. p. 384. 1 237 ff. 3. Ibid. p. 385 1. 253. 4. Ibid. p. 385 1 261. 0. Ibid. p. 394 1. 507 flf. 6. Ibid. p. 396. 1. 574 ff. 7. Ibid. p. 401 1. 722 ff. 8. Ibid. p. 402 1. 743 ff. f). Ibid. p. 410. 1. 904 ff. 10. Ibid. p. 417. 1. 1091 ff. 11. Ibid. p. 417 1. 1110 ff. 12. Ibid. p. 418. 1. 1118 ff. 18. Ibid. p. 419 1. 1144 ff. 14. Ibid. p. 427. 1. 1360 ff. l.".. Ibid. p. 431 1. 1456 ff. 16. Ibid. p. 433. 1. 1516 ff. 17. Ibid. p. 440. 1. 1722. 18. Ibid. p. 450. 1. 1966 ff. 19. Ibid. p. 451 1. -2006 ff. 20. Ibid. p. 452 1. 2029 ff. 21. Ibid. p. 458 1. 2050. 22. Ibid. p. 454 1. 2065. 23. Ibid. p. 469 1. 2445. 24. Ibid. p. 469 1. 2451 ff. 25. Ibid. p. 471 1. 2479 ff. 26. Ibid. p. 471 1. 2497 ff. 133 27. Ibid. p. 475 1. 2567 ff. 28. Ibid. p. 475 1. 2583 ff. 29. Ibid. p. 477 1. 2658. 30. Ibid. p. 480 1. 2725 ff. 31. Ibid. p. 480 1. 2745 f. 32. Ibid. p. 480 1. 2751 f. 33. Ibid. p. 484 1. 2838 f. 34. Ibid. p. 485 1. 2859 ff. 35. Ibid. p. 495 1. 3127 ff. 30. Ibid. p. 496 1. 3149. 37. Ibid. p. 503 1. 3347 ff. 38. Ibid. pp. 505-6. 39. Ibid. p. 514. 40. Ibid. p. 518 1. 3760. 41. Ibid. pp. 519-20. 42. Ibid. p. 534 11. 4245 ff. CHAPTER VI. 1. Malone Society Collections, I. 1911. p. 20. 2. Ibid. p. 24. 3. Malone Society Reprints, 1907. 1. 385 ff. 4. Ibid. 1. 413. 5. Ibid. 1. 454. 6. Malone Society Collections I, p. 245 . 1911. 7. Ibid. p. 317. 8. Ibid. p. 319. 9. Ibid. p. 28. lit. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, XXXIII, p. 13. 11. Ibid. p. 16 1. 109 ff. 12. Ibid. p. 16 1. 122 ff. 13. Ibid. p. 17 1. 137 ff. 14. Ibid. p. 22 1. 118 ff. 15. Ibid. p. 24 1. 26 ff. 16. Ibid. p. 24 1. 31. 17. Ibid. p. 24 1. 36. 18. Ibid. pp. 24, 25. 19. Ibid. p. 29 1. 9 ff. 20. Dodsley's, O. E. P., vol. IV, p. 232. 21. Ibid. p. 244. 22. Dodsley's. O. E. P., vol. I. 23. Ibid. pp. 343-5. 24. Ibid. p. 352. 25. Ibid. p. 378. 26. Ibid. pp. 879-80. 27. O. E. P., vol. II. p. 112. 28. Ibid. p. 154. 29. O. E. P., vol. II. p. 144. 134 30. Malone Society Reprints, Ifllo. p. 2, 1. (i8 ff. 31. "Quellen und Forschungen." Alois Brandl. pp. ()03-4. 3J. O. E. P., vol. I. pp. 60-61. 33. O. E. P., vol. II. pp. 272-3. 34. Ibid. pp. 280-1. 35. Ibid. p. 293. V\ \^' ^JSf^i'^^^.'^ -f J .1 ^ .q _^s ^^^ ^-^^^v^/ ^'^.^ ./,-// ■"\ ^°r^. "b^ .^ ■a? -<> \- o * "o V'- ^0 > .•i'^ ■» ,"0- o /X\ -^ * ,^*^°-^ '^^^ .^^-^-.^ '?«^ /%" -n/.o^ :i, .-^' > -^..X^ o.Ml»§V ^^^c,^- V-^ ^^' v^ >o ,0 ^y"-^^. K^ .^ .0- "^^ .^ > O- -^ '"U^^vW <* '^ C "^ /rTT^" ^ ' Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. -A * ^^^^Ml^Jl"-. ''^ ^: :p .^^^ ^'A^fd^. U ,^ /#*^\ "'^^^.s^^ 4^ Treatment Date: Jan. 2009 PreservationTechnologies ^ A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 <" ^^ ^-r. ^^ ,G ^o V .^ .u< ^°-;^. V .f 0- •i^. . «>^"\ l^W." <,■^^'V^ '-Ills'." ^''''% .1 ^ c" . 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