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not admit of a reasonable doubt; for althoug}" the ordinary church-plays were by no means tinct, they survived only in particular localities, and do not appear to have been retained in Stratford or it neighborhood. The performances which then took place nearly every year at Coventry attracted hosts of spec tators from all parts of the country, while, at occasiona intervals, the mystery players of that city made theatrica. progresses to various other places. It is not known whether they favored Stratford-on-Avon with a professional visit, but it is not at all improbable that they did, for they must have passed through the town in their way to Bristol, where it is recorded that they gave a per-E formance in the year 1570. Among the mysteries probably recollected by Shakespeare was one in which the King was introduced as Herod of Jewry, in which the children of Bethlehem were barbarously speared, the soldiers disregarding the frantic shrieks of the bereaved mothers. In the collection known as the Coventry Mysteries, a soldier appears before Herod with a child on the end of his spear in evidence of the accomplishment of the King's commands, a scene to be remembered, however rude may have been the property which represented the infant; while the extravagance of rage, which formed one of the then main dramatic characteristics of that sovereign, must have made a deep impression on a youthful spectator. The idea of such a history being susceptible of exaggeration into burlesque never entered a spectator's mind in those days, and the impression made upon him was probably increased by the style of Herod's

costume.

Besides the allusions made by the great dramatist to

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the Herod of the Coventry players, there are indications that other grotesque performers were occasionally in his recollection, those who with blackened faces acted the parts of the Black Souls. There are several references in Shakespeare to condemned souls being of this color, and in one place there is an illusion to them in the language of the mysteries. Falstaff is reported to have said of a flea on Bardolph's red nose that "it was a black soul burning in hell;" and, in the Coventry plays, the Black or Damned Souls appeared with sooty faces and attired in a motley costume of yellow and black. It is certainly just possible that the notions of Herod and the Black Souls may have been derived from other sources, but the more natural probability is that they are absolute recollections of the Coventry plays.

The period of Shakespeare's boyhood was also that of what was practically the last era of the real ancient English mystery. There were, it is true, occasional performances of them up to the reign of James the First, he but they became obsolete throughout nearly all the country about the year 1580. Previously to the latter date they had for many generations served as media for religious instruction. In days when education of any kind was a rarity, and spiritual religion an impossibility or at least restricted to very few, appeals to the senses in illustration of theological subjects were wisely encouraged by the Church. The impression made on the rude and uninstructed mind by the representations of incidents in sacred history and religious tradition by living characters, must have been far more profound than any which could have been conveyed by the genius of the sculptor or painter, or by the eloquence of the priest.

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Notwithstanding, therefore, the opposition that these performances encountered at the hands of a section of churchmen, who apprehended that the introduction of the comic element would ultimately tend to feelings of irreverence, it is found that, in spite of occasional abuses, they long continued to be one of the most effectual means of disseminating a knowledge of Scriptural history and of inculcating belief in the doctrines of the Church. In the Hundred Mery Talys, a collection which was very popular in England throughout the sixteenth century, there is a story of a village priest in Warwickshire who preached a sermon on the Articles of the Creed, telling the congregation at the end of his discourse, “these artycles ye be bounde to beleve, for they be trew and of auctoryté; and yf you beleve not me, then for a more suerté and suffycyent auctoryté go your way to Conventré, and there ye shall se them all playd in Corpus Cristi playe." Although this is related as a mere anecdote, it well illustrates the value which was then attached to the teachings of the ancient stage. Even as lately as the middle of the seventeenth century there could have been found in England an example of a person whose knowledge of the Scriptures was limited to his recollections of the performance of a mystery. The Rev. John Shaw, who was the temporary chaplain in a village in Lancashire in 1644, narrates the following curious anecdote respecting one of its inhabitants,-"one day an old man about sixty, sensible enough in other things, and living in the parish of Cartmel, coming to me about some business, I told him that he belonged to my care and charge, and I desired to be informed in his knowledge of religion; -I asked him how many Gods there were; he said, he

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er knew not;-I, informing him, asked him again how he of thought to be saved; he answered he could not tell, yet he thought that was a harder question than the other;- -I told him that the way to salvation was by Jesus Christ, God-man, who, as He was man, shed His blood for us on the crosse, etc.;-Oh, sir, said he, I think I heard of that man you speak of once in a play at Kendall called Corpus Christi Play, where there was man on a tree and blood ran downe, etc., and after he professed that he could not remember that ever he heard of salvation by Jesus Christ but in that play." It is imposgsible to say to what extent even the Scriptural allusions e in the works of Shakespeare himself may not be atftributed to recollections of such performances, for in e one instance at least the reference by the great dramatist

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is to the history as represented in those plays, not to i that recorded in the New Testament. The English t mysteries, indeed, never lost their position as religious e instructors, a fact which, viewed in connection with that e of a widely-spread affection for the old religion, appears 1 to account for their long continuance in a practically

unaltered state while other forms of the drama were being f developed by their side. From the fourteenth century -, until the termination of Shakespeare's youthful days they

remained the simple poetic versions in dialogue of religious e incidents of various kinds, enlivened by the occasional 1 admission of humorous scenes. In some few instances the theological narrative was made subservient to the comic action, but as a rule the mysteries were designed to bring before the audience merely the personages and events of ; religious history. Allegorical characters had been occaesionally introduced, and about the middle of the fifteenth

century there appeared a new kind of English dramatic composition apparently borrowed from France, in which the personages were either wholly or almost exclusively of that description. When the chief object of a performance of this nature, like that, of the Cradle of Security previously described, was to inculcate a moral lesson, it was sometimes called either a Moral or a Moralplay, terms which continued in use till the seventeenth century, and were licentiously applied by some early writers to any dramas which were of an ethical or eduIcational character. Morals were not only performed in Shakespeare's day, but continued to be a then recognized form of dramatic composition. Some of them were nearly as simple and inartificial as the mysteries, but others were not destitute of originality, or even of the delineation of character and manners. There was, however, no consecutive or systematic development of either the mystery into the moral or the moral into the historica and romantic drama, although there are examples in which the specialities of each are curiously intermingled Each species of the early English drama appears for the most part to have pursued its own separate and inde pendent career.

In April, 1569, the poet's sister, Joan, was born. Sh was baptized on the fifteenth of that month, and, by prevalent fashion which has created so much perplexity in discussions on longevities, was named after an elde child of the same parents who was born in 1558 and ha died some time previously to the arrival of her younge sister. Joan was then so common a name that it i hazardous to venture on a conjecture respecting the child' sponsor, but she was very likely so called after her ma