learned authorities upon this prolific subject; I therefore shall only touch upon them very slightly, as a proper and fit beginning to that which I propose in my future papers upon the Amusements of the People. The mysteries and miracles of the twelfth century consisted of subjects selected by the holy confessors from the most mysterious points of the Scriptures. Such subjects were very properly chosen, as the place of their representation was usually the church, such locality alone being thought fit and becoming the ecclesiastical character of the mystery represented, as also the actors therein, who were for the most part the ecclesiastics or their scholars. The first play recorded of this kind was, it is believed, called "St. Catharine," and, according to Matthew Paris, was written by a Norman Abbot of St. Albans, and represented about the year 1110. Sometimes a sequel of Scripture histories was carried on for several days. This dramatic style of treating religious subjects no doubt proved very lucrative to the funds of the different convents at which they were represented, and too good a speculation to remain very long solely in the hands of its originators; for we find that that very questionable body of men, who lived a life of sloth and idleness, called Mendicant Friars, seized upon the idea, and built themselves a theatre on wheels, with scenes" both large and high," and enacted mysteries of a very dubious character, seasoned to the palate of the rude population of the time. They contrived to appear at all convenient parts of the country, and levy their contributions much to the annoyance of their excellent brothers ecclesiastic, who saw the promised fruits of their splendid idea snatched from them by the vagabonds and outcasts of their order. It was, however, soon discovered by these itinerant mystery-mongers, that their tragic mysteries wanted something of a lighter character to enliven them, and make more palatable the length and dulness of the speeches and the seriousness of their subjects. They accordingly struck upon the bright idea that the only personage that they could dare take a liberty with was the repudiated Beelzebub: so to work they accordingly went, and availed themselves of his bad odour, and turned him into their principal comic actor, assisted by a merry troop of under or supernumerary devils, who, to keep their spectators in good humour, had recourse to most undignified pantomimical fun, accompanied with a variety of noises, strange gestures, and contortions of the body, at which the populace laughed most immoderately, and disbursed accordingly. It was soon, however, found necessary to entirely separate the ecclesiastical from the secular play, which was carried to a wonderful extent by strolling companies of minstrels, jugglers, tumblers, dancers, bourdours or jesters, and other performers, who clubbed their various talents, each taking his share in the representation that his parts and ingenuity qualified him for. This, of course, was more successful and fascinating to the vulgar part of the people; not only to them, indeed, but also to the high nobility, whose want of mental cultivation gave them a relish for the coarse and low ribaldry of the mummers of these travelling mountebanks. The great success attending this novel kind of amusement, and the vast sums collected by the secular players, startled the ecclesiastics, who had hitherto found their mysteries and moralities so lucrative to their revenues. But it was in vain that they became lax in the strictness of their mysteries, and introduced many highly censurable things into their representations, in hopes of luring back the fickle public; for the secular showmen retained their popularity, notwithstanding the exertions of their clerical rivals, who, with all the worldly violence of rivals, diligently endeavoured to bring them into disgrace, by bitterly inveighing against the filthiness and immorality of their exhibitions. These secular plays, indeed, must have been but a sad medley of different performances calculated chiefly to promote by their strange and coarse conceits mirth without any view to instruction or intellectual amusement. Accordingly, when it was found necessary to have some better class of entertainment for the multitude, proper theatres were established, where more carefully revised productions were exhibited, and the text strictly adhered to, and no one was allowed, as had hitherto been the custom, to introduce any low ribaldry of his own, to the detriment of the original argument of the play set down. The effect of this very salutary arrangement was to materially injure the interests of the itinerant dramatists, whose motley exhibitions soon lost their attractions in the eyes of the gentry and aristocracy of the time, and became only relished by the vulgar; next the law set her face against them, when they henceforth were stigmatized with the names of rogues and vagabonds, and they had to depend upon the precarious support derived from the lower classes of the people, which soon proved insufficient to enable them to appear in their former imposing splendour and credit. Their companies, unable to keep together in their original numbers, were soon scattered in small troops, and consequently their performances became less worthy of notice and encouragement, until they were reduced to seek out all the wakes and fairs in the surrounding country, and join some juggler or tumbler to extract the coin from the pockets of the rustics and children. The mighty Thespians thus descended to paltry juggling, assisted by some itinerant Jack-pudding, leaving his former field of glory to the improving hand of time, as the arena for the future poets, who, in one long glorious train, soon cleansed it of its early and crude impurities, and made it into an Elysian field teeming with the flowers of poetry and high imagination. Finding that the generous public no longer supported a large company, one poor itinerant had recourse to a novel experiment. By a simple calculation, he found that his brothers and sisters of the stage could not act without their dinners; this was a melancholy fact; accordingly, he thought how advantageous it would be if he could gather to himself a company without appetites, yet not without stomachs. In a happy moment, the thought came to fruition in his working brain, and wood was the consequence: he was the mighty father of the automata race, and he astonished the world by his motions," for such he called them. Crowds of all degrees, from far and near, came to see the wonderful performance of a company of dead actors belonging to the ingenious man, who had been not less wonderfully alive to his own interest. They beheld with astonishment the life-like motions of these novel actors and the beauty of their dresses; their discreet and Money modest demeanour they could not sufficiently admire. rolled in in an unprecedented manner, and the single man, who governed his whole company so well, peeped through the hole in the scene and calculated his gains. He felt himself, by anticipation, a rich man-and at the close of his unequalled performance He must he put his company all into one box, and dined alone. have been born to invent puppets some centuries ago, but how many I cannot pretend to determine. In "Gammer Gurton's Needle," which is supposed to have been written in 1517, there is familiar mention of such a character, as if he had long ceased to be a novelty, and he is there spoken of as a rogue and idle vagrant; for one of the characters, wishing to give the idea of entirely destroying his good name, threatens to go and travel with young Goose the motion-man, for a puppet player." 66 Mummeries and disguisings, introduced in the same manner as our interludes, were, from the earliest account, things of broad humour, and depending more upon the improvised humour of the characters than upon any arranged dialogue or subject. In a wardrobe roll of Edward III., made for some mummeries at Christmas, held at his castle at Guildford, we find a very elaborate account of the dresses, but not a word about the dialogue. The dresses are said to be ad faciendum ludos domini regis, and consisted of eighty tunics of buckram of various colours; forty-two visors of different similitudes, namely, fourteen faces of women, fourteen faces of men, and fourteen heads of angels made with silver; twentyeight crests; fourteen mantles embroidered with heads of dragons; fourteen white tunics, wrought with the heads and wings of peacocks; fourteen with the heads of swans with wings; fourteen tunics painted with the eyes of peacocks; fourteen tunics of English linen painted; and fourteen other tunics embroidered with stars of gold." All of which shows that these were but pantomimic representations, calculated to create laughter by the droll character of the masks and actions of the masquers, and not by the wit of the dialogue. These representations often took place among the courtiers, and even before the kings and queens, on the Sunday evenings. It was long before these entertainments, from their costliness, found their way into the remote parts of the kingdom to interfere with the wandering amusement-mongers, called conteurs, jestours, or disours-or tale-tellers and discoursers. These itinerants were held in great esteem, and feasted most royally at all the large houses on their way; and welcome must they have been to the inmates of these solitary castles, where little else was done than hunting, eating, drinking, and sleeping. These varlets possessed talents of all kinds, which got them a hearty welcome from the child to the bearded baron. They could conjure to astonish the younger branches while the noble and his retainers were out upon the hunt in the forests, -and astonish him upon his return with true accounts of assaults and batteries amongst the neighbouring barons, which he had picked up in his wanderings. For they were not only minstrels and jugglers, but a very excellent substitute for the newspapers, and told not many more lies upon an average in their accounts. Then what a god-send must they have been to the family circle in the great hall, when the evening closed in, and all the retainers, in the good old style, took their places at a respectful distance from their lord or lady, with open mouths and ears, to catch in and devour the marvellous tales of murder, chivalry, or witchcraft with which the brain of the disour was as well stored as a circulating library; in his case you had not to wait for the second volumes from the hands of a tardy reader, just as you had got to the most interesting part of the tale. As long as the black-jack was filled with good store of drink, so long would he continue his relation : he was held in most excellent esteem accordingly, and might call every house his own as long as his stories lasted. In a manuscript collection of old stories, in the Harleian Library, we read of a king who kept a tale-teller on purpose to lull him to sleep every night. But once, from some cause or other, he could not be put to sleep as readily as usual, and he desired the disour to tell him longer stories; who obeyed, and began one upon a very extensive scale. But alas, poor fellow, he fell asleep himself in the midst of it! The privileges enjoyed by these minstrels and disours, and the great public favour in which they were held, led to much insolence and impropriety. They became so puffed up with pride from their popularity, that they ventured to put a regular price upon their exertions, leaving no longer to the generosity and will of their patrons to reward them as they should think fit and becoming. The large gratuities collected by these wanderers not only occasioned great numbers to join their fraternity, but also induced many idle and dissipated persons to assume the character of minstrels, merely as an excuse for a pleasant vagabond life, enjoyed at the expense of their neighbours. This became so notorious in the reign of King Edward II., that it was thought necessary to restrain them by a public edict, prohibiting them from entering houses without invitation, and commanding them "to be contented with meat and drink, and such reward as the housekeeper willingly offered, without presuming to ask for anything." The date of this edict is 1315. The edict appears, however, to have had but little beneficial effect, as it was very difficult to catch these wanderers tripping, and the arm of the law was not strong or long enough to reach them in their wanderings. In the reign of Edward IV. loud complaints were uttered against the irregularities practised by the body of disours. It was accordingly found necessary to stop their disorders. The king therefore granted to Walter Haliday, Marshal, and to seven others, his own minstrels, named by him, a charter, by which he created, or rather restored, a perpetual guild or fraternity. This fraternity was to be governed by a Marshal appointed for life, and two Wardens, who were empowered to admit members into the guild, and to regulate and govern, and to punish when necessary, all such as exercised the profession of minstrel or disour throughout the kingdom. This is, no doubt, the first attempt to license the profession; but it does not appear much good was effected by the foregoing institution, as it neither corrected the abuses practised by the fraternity, nor retrieved their reputation, which declined rapidly from this TO THE CICALA IN THE CYPRESSES AT VILLA GONDI. 631 period. They soon, therefore, lost the protection and patronage of the wealthy, which had long caused much chagrin to the priesthood, who grudged every act of munificence that was not applied to themselves or their monasteries, and could not behold the good fortune of the minstrels without expressing their indignation, which they often did in scurrilous abuse, calling them janglers, mimics, buffoons, monsters of men, and contemptible scoffers. They also, in no very measured terms, censured the gentry and nobility for the great encouragement and patronage they bestowed upon "such a shameless set of sordid flatterers ;" and to the poorer classes they used threats, to keep them away from their exhibitions, which they said were vain and trifling, and prevented them from the more profitable pursuit of serious and becoming subjects. But the love of flattery in the noble, and the desire for any amusement in the vulgar, for a long time withstood the continual anathemas of the Church against the professors of the "pleasaunt art," who fought step by step, retreating from their original and noble position; not without much blame to themselves, for their own immorality and insolence contributed more to their downfall than all the defamatory attacks of their opponents. Henry III. pleased the sanctified ecclesiastics mightily by his conduct, on his marriage with Agnes of Poictou, as regarded the tribe of tale-tellers, mimes, and minstrels, who, as was their wont, on all festive occasions swarmed to the celebration of the royal nuptials. But woe to the tribe, for they received a heavy and decisive blow to their popularity by the conduct of the king, who, from some whim of the moment," sent them away," says a monkish writer of the time, "with empty purses, and hearts full of sorrow." And although the populace murmured at being deprived of their usual and expected amusement, and scoffed at the meanness of the monarch, such a dismissal and discountenancing in high places threw an irretrievable shadow over the fortunes of the disours and gleemen, which they never recovered; for then, as now, the fashion of the nobles was followed by the more humble classes, and that which was not capable of affording amusement to their masters, was thought unworthy of enjoying their patronage. TO THE CICALA IN THE CYPRESSES AT VILLA GONDI. VOL. XXVII GLAD insect! merrily chirpest thou T. C. I. W. |