replace them by plays of a better quality. The play persists, and cannot be successfully banned. This degenerate practice of a once noble art came into England after the Norman Conquest, and the players became, not only the entertainers of the people, but the story-tellers and reporters of the period. They made the monotony of life more bearable.

How much indirect influence this humble and turbid stream of dramatic activity may have had on the development of the English drama cannot be determined; the chief influence in the making of that drama came from the Church. The Church condemned the manifestation of the dramatic instinct, but it did not fall into the later error of condemning the instinct itself; on the contrary, it was quick to recognize and utilize that instinct. It had long appealed to the dramatic instinct in its worshippers; for the Mass is a dramatization of certain fundamental ideas generally held throughout Christendom for many centuries. From the sixth century the Mass was the supreme act of worship throughout western Europe. “In the wide dimensions which in course of time the Mass assumed," says Hagenbach, "there lies a grand, we are almost inclined to say an artistic, idea. A dramatic progression is perceptible in all the symbolic processes, from the appearance of the celebrant priest at the altar and the confession of sins, to the Kyrie Eleison, and from this to the grand doxology, after which the priest turns with the Dominus vobiscum to the congregation, calling upon it to pray. Next, we listen to the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel.

Between the two actions or acts intervenes the Graduale (a chant), during which the deacon ascends the lectorium. With the Halleluia concludes the first act; and then ensues the Mass in a more special sense, which begins with the recitation of the Creed. Then again a Dominus vobiscum and a prayer, followed by the offertory and, accompanied by the further ceremonies, the Consecration. The change of substance- the mystery of mysteries- takes place amid the adoration of the congregation and the prayer for the quick and the dead; then, after the touching chant of the Agnus Dei, ensues the Communion itself, which is succeeded by prayer and thanksgiving, the salutation of peace, and the benediction."

In the impressive and beautiful liturgy of the Mass the dramatization of the central mystery of the Christian faith was effected by action, by pantomime, and by music. There was no purpose to be dramatic ; there was a natural evolution of the instinct to set forth a truth too great and mysterious to be contained in words by symbols, which are not only more inclusive than words but which satisfy the imagination, and by action.

The Church did not stop with a dramatic presentation of the sublimest of dramatic episodes, the vicarious death of Christ; it went further and set forth the fact and the truth of certain striking and significant scenes in the New Testament. As early as the fifth century these scenes were reproduced in the churches in living pictures, with music. In this manner the people not only heard the story of the Adoration of

the Magi and of the Marriage of Cana, but saw the story in tableaux. In course of time the persons in these tableaux spoke and moved, and then it was but a logical step to the representation dramatically, by the priests before the altar, of the striking or significant events in the life of Christ.

Worshippers were approached through every avenue of expression: the churches in which they sat were nobly symbolical in structure; the windows were ablaze with Scriptural story; altar-pieces, statues, carvings, and pictures continually spoke to them in a language of searching beauty. In some churches the priests read from rolls upon which, as they were unfolded toward the congregation, picture after picture came to view. Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter services inevitably took on dramatic forms, and became beautiful in their reproduction of the touching and tender scenes in the life of Christ, and grewsome in their literal picturing of his sufferings and death. The dramatic instinct had been long at work in the development of worship; a play on the Passion, ascribed to Gregory of Nazianzen, dated back to the fourth century. This early drama was a succession of monologues, but it plainly predicted the mystery drama of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

There was nothing forced or artificial in the growth of this later and more complete drama; a description of a Durham Good Friday service makes us see the easy progression toward well-defined drama: "Within the church of Durham, upon Good Friday, there was a marvellous solemn service, in which service time,

...

after the Passion was sung, two of the eldest monks took a goodly large crucifix all of gold, of the semblance of our Saviour Christ, nailed upon the Cross. The service being ended, the said two monks carried the Cross to the Sepulchre with great reverence (which Sepulchre was set up that morning on the north side of the choir, nigh unto the High Altar, before the service time), and then did lay it within the said Sepulchre with great devotion."

It is easy to follow the dramatic development of such a theme, and to understand how beautiful and impressive worship became when the divine tragedy was not only sung and described, but acted before the high altar by gorgeously robed priests. Thus the drama was born a second time at the foot of the altar.

But the time came when the drama parted company with the liturgy, and, as in its development in Greece, took on a life of its own. The vernacular was substituted for Latin; laymen took parts of increasing importance; the place of representation was changed from the church to the space outside the church; the liturgical yielded to the dramatic; humour, and even broad farce, were introduced; the several streams of dramatic tradition which had come down from an earlier time were merged in the fully developed Mystery or Miracle play.

The trade guilds had become centres of organized enterprise in the towns, and the presentation of plays, in which popular religious and social interest was now concentrated, fell into their hands. Cities like York, Chester, and Coventry fostered the growing art with

enthusiasm and generosity. By the beginning of the fifteenth century the presentation of the dramas was thoroughly systematized. In some places the Mayor, by proclamation, announced the dates of presentation; in other places special messengers or heralds made the round of the city and gave public notice. The different guilds undertook the presentation of different acts or scenes. Two-story wagons took the place of the stage in front of the church or in the square; on these wagons, or pageants, as they were called, the rude dressing-rooms were on the lower and the stage on the upper story. These movable theatres, starting from the church, passed through all the principal streets, and, at important points, the actors went through their parts in the presence of throngs of eager spectators in the windows, galleries, doorways, squares, and upon temporary scaffolds. The plays were in series and required several days for presentation, and the town made the occasion one of general and hilarious holiday.

On the pageants, handsomely decorated, the spectators saw scenes acted, with which they had been made familiar by every kind of teaching. The drama in the Garden of Eden was presented with uncompromising realism, Adam and Eve appearing in appropriate attire; the devil played a great and effective part, furnishing endless amusement by his buffoonery, but always going in the end to his own place. Pilate and Herod divided popular attention by their semihumorous or melodramatic rôles, and Noah's wife afforded an opportunity for the play of monotonous