Roman lords, I understand
That of a crucified hanged man
They make a God in our kingdom,
Without even deigning to ask our permission.
He then orders an officer to seize on Dennis in France. When this officer arrives at Paris, the inhabitants acquaint him of the rapid and grotesque progress of this future saint:——
Sire, il preche un Dieu à Paris
Qui fait tout les mouls et les vauls.
Il va à cheval sans chevauls.
Il fait et defait tout ensemble.
Il vit, il meurt, il sue, il tremble.
Il pleure, il rit, il veille, et dort.
Il est jeune et vieux, foible et fort.
Il fait d'un coq une poulette.
Il joue des arts de roulette,
Ou je ne Sçais que ce peut être.
Sir, he preaches a God at Paris
Who has made mountain and valley.
He goes a horseback without horses.
He does and undoes at once.
He lives, he dies, he sweats, he trembles.
He weeps, he laughs, he wakes, and sleeps.
He is young and old, weak and strong.
He turns a cock into a hen.
He knows how to conjure with cup and ball,
Or I do not know who this can be.
Another of these admirers says, evidently alluding to the rite of baptism,——
Sire, oyez que fait ce fol prestre:
Il prend de l'yaue en une escuele,
Et gete aux gens sur le cervele,
Et dit que partants sont sauvés!
Sir, hear what this mad priest does:
He takes water out of a ladle,
And, throwing it at people's heads,
He says that when they depart they are saved!
This piece then proceeds to entertain the spectators with the tortures of St. Dennis, and at length, when more than dead, they mercifully behead him: the Saint, after his decapitation, rises very quietly, takes his head under his arm, and walks off the stage in all the dignity of martyrdom.
It is justly observed by Bayle on these wretched representations, that while they prohibited the people from meditating on the sacred history in the book which contains it in all its purity and truth, they permitted them to see it on the theatre sullied with a thousand gross inventions, which were expressed in the most vulgar manner and in a farcical style. Warton, with his usual elegance, observes, "To those who are accustomed to contemplate the great picture of human follies which the unpolished ages of Europe hold up to our view, it will not appear surprising that the people who were forbidden to read the events of the sacred history in the Bible, in which they are faithfully and beautifully related, should at the same time be permitted to see them represented on the stage disgraced with the grossest improprieties, corrupted with inventions and additions of the most ridiculous kind, sullied with impurities, and expressed in the language and gesticulations of the lowest farce." Elsewhere he philosophically observes that, however, they had their use, "not only teaching the great truths of scripture to men who could not read the Bible, but in abolishing the barbarous attachment to military games and the bloody contentions of the tournament, which had so long prevailed as the sole species of popular amusement. Rude, and even ridiculous as they were, they softened the manners of the people, by diverting the public attention to spectacles in which the mind was concerned, and by creating a regard for other arts than those of bodily strength and savage valour."
Mysteries are to be distinguished from Moralities, and Farces, and Sotties. Moralities are dialogues where the interlocutors represented feigned or allegorical personages. Farces were more exactly what their title indicates—obscene, gross, and dissolute representations, where both the actions and words are alike reprehensible.